> another guy didn't even take the AP exam, and another guy just put his head down on the desk during the AP exam.

I don't know anything about these people but there's two "good" reasons for this:

* Some colleges don't take certain AP credits e.g. the college I went to didn't take AP Bio credit, so I didn't take the exam for it when I took the class

* Some high schools give GPA boosts for AP classes. For example, an A in an AP class was worth a 5.0 vs a 4.0 in a regular class. Some students may think it's worth it even if they don't do that well

In general I agree with you because my AP Calc class wasn't rigorous or interesting at all. It was "here's how you do X, now do X 100 times for homework and take a test on it".

> A lot of the students in my AP Calculus class had no business being there

Maybe I'm cynical but this was the case at my college Calculus class as well. The entire back row was basically people cheating. There'll always be lazy people in freshman and sophomore courses.

How do you cheat at Calculus? Asking for a friend.

from the back row comment i think they are either cheating off each other or have some notes written down.

Isn't it kind of weird that a college won't let you take whatever math class you want?

No. Tuition only covers a portion of a student's cost to a university. I think it's around 30% at mine.

1) If a class is way over your head the university is wasting money having you there.

2) Having stragglers in the class that are far behind slows down the whole class.

3) Every seat that is filled with a student who is not ready for the class is a seat that can't be filled with a student who could actually pass it.

> Tuition only covers a portion of a student's cost to a university. I think it's around 30% at mine.

Where are you getting that from? Are you just dividing the tuition revenue by the university's budget? Because the university is there for a lot more than educating undergrads.

Most universities aren't primarily focused on research.[1] They are there to educate students. Research does occur at every university, but looking at their research budget as a fraction of their whole budget will show what sort of institution it is.

Even if you subtract the research budget out first you will still arrive at a figure less than 50% for most universities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Classification_of_Ins...

edit:

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=75

> Most universities aren't primarily focused on research.

Where are you getting "many" (rather than "some")? The page you link to discusses colleges in addition to universities, and it's well known that colleges exist primarily to educate students.

> Even if you subtract the research budget out first you will still arrive at a figure less than 50% for most universities.

Where is that numbers coming form?

Universities are composed of colleges in USA. You seem to have more of a 'Canadian' definition, where college means something like "community college" in USA.

I am not using such a definition. I am an American, and I am thinking of American places like Kenyon College, Hamilton College, Harvey Mudd College, Union College, Claremont College, etc., etc.

> Universities are composed of colleges in USA.

This is pretty rare terminology in the US, being mostly found in Ivy league or other old schools. Most "colleges" in the US are independent institutions.

https://studyusa.com/en/a/107/what-is-the-difference-between...

Sorry here is a better source: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=75

You continue to not back up your claim. That link talks about "all post secondary institutions", not universities. Why don't you just edit your original comment to remove the claim?

I am using statistics that I know to be true about my university (University of Alaska Anchorage). As far as I know UAA is typical for state run universities.

I am having a hard time finding aggregate data online that supports (or contradicts) my claims on a national level beyond what I have already provided. Unfortunately the edit timer has already expired for my comments so I can't delete or alter them. If you can find reliable data that contradicts my claims reply to my root post and I'll be happy to upvote it.

At my university, they would usually let students sit in on any lecture classes they wanted. But students taking classes they aren't qualified for isn't the most efficient use of educational resources

Exactly!

>another guy just put his head down on the desk during the AP exam

That's too bad. Either his parents were paying the cost of the test (I think $86 per test when I was in school) or he was getting a paid-for test from some scholarship or another.

> There should be some vetting process for the students who want to take AP classes.

Is this not usually the case? My high school used to make you fill out a short form and make the case for why you should be allowed in the AP class, and my senior year I had to go in and speak with a counselor who was concerned that I was taking too many. Sure, it was a pointless hurdle for me personally, but I can see how it would be a good idea for students who don't realize what they're getting into, or who are trying to take the course because their parents want them to.

Depends on the school district and size of the school. For example, Texas high schools are for the most part huge and can accommodate anyone who wants to take AP classes without question. We did check with our counselor but they were more than happy students took AP classes.

It wasn't a size thing as much as for "protecting" students from classes they couldn't really handle. I can't speak to whether that was necessary or not; it's always worked out very well for me to try things that I didn't think I could achieve, but maybe that doesn't generalize to everyone.

Most of my high school classes in the later years were AP, and there was no pressure to take AP tests we didn't see the value in. shrug

Same here. I took both AP Stats and AP Calc BC in high school and I'd be more worried about stats being taught wrong to a bunch of teenagers than calculus.

This sounds like a defense of AP classes and not calculus in particular. Mind you there are also other AP math courses, notably statistics.