I was in fifth period when my counselor came in, pulled me aside, and broke the news to me. Of the two dual enrollment classes that I had signed up for, only one would be available in the 2025-26 school year. I had signed up for Calculus Three and Linear Algebra, but only the former remained in my schedule. All of a sudden, I didn’t have four years of math on my high school transcript.
A week later, I got an email from the mom of a fifth grader that I mentor. She asked if I knew anyone who had double compressed between fifth and sixth grade, and my eyebrows immediately shot up. In my grade, I’m one of around 35 double compressed kids, almost all of whom took the double compression entrance exam between eighth and ninth grade. However, in the grades below us, more and more kids are double (and even triple) compressing at increasingly earlier ages.
The desire to get “ahead of the curve” has been the main objective bringing kids to the idea of double compression—but as more people choose that path, the “curve” itself begins to move. So many kids are double compressing that the presence of only one dual enrollment class has left almost a fifth of the class of 2026 without four full years of math.
While I do believe that we should have two semesters of post-Calculus BC math classes, I don’t think we need to go any further. The solution isn’t to force the district to adopt as many high-level math classes as possible—it’s to help shift the curve back to where it needs to be. There are almost no practical applications for multivariable calculus, and yet more and more students each year choose to take it because they want to have the most intense schedule possible. This leads to, above anything else, high stress, confusion, and pressure.
However, there is still an argument that kids need to be taking the hardest classes they can. With record high applicants, admissions are getting more and more competitive, so many believe that the “ahead of the curve” mindset is the only way to get their kid into a “good college”, but this mindset causes much more harm than good.
Admissions officers examine course rigor by the courses present at the school, according to admissions help website College Confidential. By adding more and more difficult courses for small percentages of the school, the overall presented rigor of other students’ courses decreases. Not only are kids taking classes they’ll probably never need, but they’re changing the overall school appearance by doing so. “Getting ahead of the curve” may be the reason, but it isn’t the consequence: instead, the “curve” is getting ahead of other students.
I understand the idea of ambition and drive, and I understand that some kids genuinely do love math and want to get ahead in it. I myself am double compressed, and I don’t regret my decision at all. However, I do believe that double compression shouldn’t become the standard. No one should feel less intelligent because they take a class at their own grade level instead of years ahead, and no one should feel pressured to take classes just because they’re difficult. As a district, we need to reconsider the pressure placed on students. We need to show that it isn’t necessary to take college-level math in high school, and we need to prioritize student mental health.
