I could have put this comment nearly anywhere in this thread. As a German I'm really surprised by this. Calculus was part of regular math school education and j

I could have put this comment nearly anywhere in this thread. As a German I'm really surprised by this. Calculus was part of regular math school education and just expected knowledge for the mandatory math classes during my CS undergraduate studies. I did graduate at one of the universities that do use the first years to weed out students though and dunno if less competitive ones are more lenient. We also do split students as early as after the 4th year (end of elementary school) in three different school systems with about 50% of students attending the highest university track tier. The other two tiers might not have calculus or only in a limited form, but also don't qualify for university without further education. Thus setting students on different paths based on ability/performance early on seems very natural to me. Students always can up/downgrade schools based on performance at any year later on.