Placement Practices for Calculus in Two‐year Colleges

Abstract

Surveys were returned from 429 two-year colleges regarding placement practices for calculus. The high school record was the most important factor indicated, followed by placement test results and SAT/M or ACT/M scores. Most schools rated their placement program as adequate. Placement was advisory in 145 schools and 70 schools used self-placement. There was no commonality with regard to cutoff scores or placement procedures. INTRODUCTIONThe results of a nationwide survey indicate that two-year colleges use widely different placement practices for direct entrance into the calculus sequence. Some colleges used a single indicator such as a placement test while others had very elaborate linear regression models with several indicators. A number of colleges indicated that a majority of their students (70% to 99%) take precalculus first. This report concentrates only on the placement practices used for direct placement into calculus. BACKGROUND