What's the typical HS practice for taking APs?

[Anonymous]

The max allowed at our academically rigorous private is 7. They don’t offer many ap classes outside science, calculus and foreign language.

[Anonymous]

Mine did 0-1-3-5 and 1-1-3-5 and I'd say they are in the category of strong students but definitely not taking the most rigorous schedule at their school. Mainly because they took only 3 in 11th grade. Plenty of friends took 4 that year and then 6 in 12th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know no one who is taking 6 APs both junior and senior year. They’d just be taking APs for the sake of taking APs. Even with 30 APs offered, it’s not logical without just being a grinder.

Not true- my DC is a senior, and not even in the group trying for ivies, and they took these APs in 11th grade: english lang, world history, bc calc, chinese, bio, and psych; and in grade 12: micro/macro, stat, MV, english lit, human geo, physics.

Filling schedule with classes like Human Geo just to take another AP. It’s transparent.

If this were legit, they’d have taken AP Chem and molecular biology.

AP Human Geo is considered the intro to AP courses at DD HS and taken in 9th grade. AP Chem & MolecBio are 10th grade.

[Anonymous]

FCPS - 0-2-6-5

[Anonymous]

10 APs are what competitive kids do, give or take a few.

Of course then the question is, how many AP EXAMS?

Because the courses can be lenient of rigorous depending on the teacher, and therefore the grading can be all over the place. But an AP score does not lie.

It's too bad universities prefer not to know...

[Anonymous]

My kid is a senior and took 0-2-6-5. 10 and above would be considered rigorous in the DC's FCPS school.

[Anonymous]

We take less in private. Courses are offered at Honors. There are prerequisites prior to taking the AP version of a course.

None are offered Freshmen year. 1 sophomore year. 3 junior year and 3-4 Senior.

6-7 APs is the most rigorous, but it’s coupled with hard Honors courses as well.

Our public is different and kids take mainly APs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know no one who is taking 6 APs both junior and senior year. They’d just be taking APs for the sake of taking APs. Even with 30 APs offered, it’s not logical without just being a grinder.

Not true- my DC is a senior, and not even in the group trying for ivies, and they took these APs in 11th grade: english lang, world history, bc calc, chinese, bio, and psych; and in grade 12: micro/macro, stat, MV, english lit, human geo, physics.

Filling schedule with classes like Human Geo just to take another AP. It’s transparent.

If this were legit, they’d have taken AP Chem and molecular biology.

This is legit as my kid took/is taking the classes and I posted it. my kid took ap bio (gr 11) and is now in ap physics (gr 12). molecular bio is not even offered at our mcps hs. and to the other questioning poster, my kid really enjoys ap human geo and loves history/social studies so wanted to keep taking ap’s in the subject and they’d already taken/are taking ap nsl, apush, ap world, ap comp pol, ap psych and ap econ.

[Anonymous]

My MCPS magnet kid did 1, 3, 4, 4.

His aim was to take an AP each from the 5 core areas (English, Foreign Language, Social Science, Science, Math) by the end of 11th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I've been seeing this a lot... Rigor rating= what is typical AP practice in your HS vs what your kid is taking

So how do we know what's typical?

We are in FCPS and from what I hear:

Freshmen are not allowed to take AP
Sophomores limited to one AP

then I don't know what Juniors and Seniors do

What's it like in your high school?

It isn’t always the number of APs, but the rigor of the APs. BC Calc, Physics C, Chemistry, Biology, One of the AP English is far different from AP Stats, AP Econ, AP Psych, AP Environmental Science and AP World History.

[Anonymous]

All these counts are going to shift next year when AP Precalc goes live.

[Anonymous]

It isn’t always the number of APs, but the rigor of the APs. BC Calc, Physics C, Chemistry, Biology, One of the AP English is far different from AP Stats, AP Econ, AP Psych, AP Environmental Science and AP World History.

It's bullshit advice like this that has kids living the AP grind with the false sense that there's only one set of classes that lead to top colleges. Colleges look within the context of your school, what's offered and what the student plans to study. Students should plan accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It isn’t always the number of APs, but the rigor of the APs. BC Calc, Physics C, Chemistry, Biology, One of the AP English is far different from AP Stats, AP Econ, AP Psych, AP Environmental Science and AP World History.

It's bullshit advice like this that has kids living the AP grind with the false sense that there's only one set of classes that lead to top colleges. Colleges look within the context of your school, what's offered and what the student plans to study. Students should plan accordingly.

I think the truth is more likely somewhere in the middle. Generally, it’s advisable to prioritize APs in the core academic subjects. The electives are typically less important so you don’t want to fill up your schedule with random APs just for the sake of doing so.

[Anonymous]

MD public - 1,2,4,6 (including post AP senior year)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know no one who is taking 6 APs both junior and senior year. They’d just be taking APs for the sake of taking APs. Even with 30 APs offered, it’s not logical without just being a grinder.

Not true- my DC is a senior, and not even in the group trying for ivies, and they took these APs in 11th grade: english lang, world history, bc calc, chinese, bio, and psych; and in grade 12: micro/macro, stat, MV, english lit, human geo, physics.

Filling schedule with classes like Human Geo just to take another AP. It’s transparent.

What else should a kid take who is interested in exploring that subject?