r/ChemicalEngineering • u/Commercial_Effect_25 • May 16 '25
Student Chem vs Chem Eng.
I’m currently a Junior in highschool, and I have a college counselor. He told me he doesn’t think I’m ready for chemical engineering in college bc I don’t have AP Physcisc or AP Calc BC (I currently have Calc AB And Chem this year, AP Stats 4 and AP Precalc 5 last yr). I will take AP Physics C and BC in senior year, but he said that is a bad idea bc I will be under pressure when uni gives me conditional offer. Anyway, he is basically telling me that teenagers like me hoping to apply for Chem E are taking much much more harder classes than me and I shouldn’t apply or else I won’t get in. He suggested me to apply for Chemistry instead… He also told me I should stay away from math related majors ( prob bc he saw that I got a C+ in AP Stats but got a 4) and prob thinks I’m rly dumb and just delusional for wanting to apply for chem Eng. But I can think of any reason WHY I want to apply for Chemistry? I like chemistry, but just chemistry as a Uni major … I don’t rly want to. I know Chem E is mostly thermo and physics, and I’m willing to learn. What should I do?
Update: thanks for everyone’s advice. It rly gave me confidence. I’ll try my best to get into Chem E programs.
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u/s0ggywaffles1 May 16 '25
Sounds like you would be in a really good position going into ChemE regardless. Calc AB is equivalent to Calc I and II so you would just need to take Calc III in university (I know some schools don’t even require it). I took AP physics, but had to retake 2 physics classes in college because AP physics wasn’t “calculus based” and the engineering physics courses required calculus.
A 5 on AP Precalc is hard - I always found precalc harder than physics because some of the topics are very novel. Keep grinding OP!