Scientific or graphing calculator? What students should buy? As your children grow older the school supply list might be shorter, but it's not always cheaper. One thing that could cause sticker shock to parents of high and middle school students is a specific calculator. A majority of schools prefer that students possess their own hand-held scientific calculator. In the highest level math classes like AP Calculus for example, a graphing calculator may be required. What's the difference? Scientific calculators perform functions beyond subtraction, addition, multiplication and division. A scientific calculator typically has specific buttons for parentheses trigonometric function, exponents reverses, and pi in addition to many other things. A graphing calculator does even more. It'll have a larger screen, allowing you to type in a specific function, then display a graph of it. Best to Buy's Geek Squad agent Derek Meister states that scientific calculato...