That’s because all of these so called “gifted students” flunk our first semester calculus. We have to implement curves just to get them through to higher level math courses. Which they also struggle in because they only needed to get 40% on that Taylor Series test to get through second semester.

Ap calc is a joke from my perspective. I’m not sure how to solve the crisis, but it’s plain to see that American students that test into calc are woefully underprepared. I’ve tried to advise students to start with more fundamental courses, but they’ve been told they are “gifted” their whole lives. They ignore you and charge into calculus. Then they come back when the semester is about to end to reassess options. Just like that, what would have been another perfectly serviceable American engineer is lost.