Math Placement at Wellesley

Hi, I'm Andy Schultz.

I'm in the math department here at Wellesley.

And for the next couple of minutes I'm going to

be talking to you about math placement at Wellesley here

at the college.

We teach six different courses in calculus, including classes in

differential calculus, integral calculus and multi variable in vector calculus.

Now the calculus course, that's right for you, depends both

on your mathematical experience before you get to Wellesley as

well as the goals that you want to achieve While

you're at Wellesley, the math placement questionnaire is one of

the tools that we use to help you find the

calculus course.

That's right for you.

The questionnaire itself is administered online is available in the

middle of the summer.

You'll be getting an email that includes logistical information about

the questionnaire.

Later on, the questionnaire runs the gamut of calculus.

It begins with questions from pre calculus.

It ask questions from differential and integral calculus and it

finishes off with a few questions from multi variable calculus.

The thing I want to emphasize at this point is

we know that everybody comes to Wellesley with a different

set of mathematical experiences and it's very likely that there

will be questions on the questionnaire that include mathematical topics

that you have never seen before.

If that happens, it is perfectly okay.

In fact on those questions, one of the options that

you have is to say, I don't know that's all

right. What we want to do with the questionnaire is

find the calculus course that's suited for you.

So if you run across questions that you have not

had prior exposure to, you can just get past them.

Instead spend your time working on the questions that involve

mathematics that you have seen before.

Now topics from the questionnaire are selected from pre calculus,

differential calculus, integral calculus and multi variable calculus in pre

calculus. The questionnaire ask questions that involve concepts like equations

of lines, algebraic simplification, basic Trigano metric functions and evaluation

of basic limits from differential calculus.

The questionnaire surveys concepts like derivative calculations involving familiar rules

like the chain rule or the quotient rule, Computation and

application of Tangent Lines, two equations and some standard applications

of differential calculus, things like optimization problems in integral calculus.

The questionnaire will ask questions about computations of anti derivatives

involving standard, anti derivative computational tools like u substitution and

integration by parts computations of definite integral, so called area

problem, as well as problems that involve series and taylor

series of familiar functions from multi variable calculus.

The questionnaire surveys concepts like line and path integral, directional

derivatives and concepts and applications related to directional derivatives and

computations involving iterated integral.

Again, the purpose of the questionnaire is for us to

find out the right calculus course for you.

So the objective that you should have on the questionnaire

is simply to do your best.

If you see questions that involve calculus that you have

not seen before, you don't need to be worried about

them and instead you should focus on the concept that

you have seen before.

Doing your best.

Also involves some sort of things that you might normally

expect. For example, don't start the questionnaire.

If you have an important appointment that begins 10 minutes

later, you want to make sure that you have the

appropriate amount of time to do your best work.

You also want to come into the questionnaire having reviewed

some of the concepts that you've seen before.

At the same time, it's not really worth spending a

full week reviewing all the mathematics that you've ever seen

in your life.

For fear that a certain kind of question might show

up on the questionnaire.

It's good to review things, but you don't need to

be cramming for this while I have your attention.

I'll also point out that calculus is not the only

thing that we teach in the math department.

So if you want to begin your math career at

Wellesley, doing classes that are not calculus classes, we have

options for you.

Every year.

We teach courses that are designed for first year students,

so called first year seminars.

And we also have a range of statistics courses, both

for students who have prior exposure to statistical concepts, as

well as students that want to begin statistics for the

first time.

Everybody at the math department is very excited for your

arrival on campus in the fall and we want to

do whatever we can do to make sure that you

are ready to begin your mathematical career at Wellesley on

the right foot.

I speak on behalf of all of my colleagues that

we are happy to talk with you whenever about any

questions that you have and we want to make sure

that you have a great experience here at Wellesley, both

in the math classroom and outside the math classroom, you

should feel free to contact any of us with questions

that you might have about how to get started.

My name again is Andy Schultz, My email address is

listed there if you would like to contact me personally.

But again, everybody in the math department is excited to

see you soon.

We hope that you enjoy the rest of your summer

and we're excited to see you in campus in the

fall.

Math Placement at Wellesley

Chapters

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