Kids shouldn’t take more than three AP’s per year?
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Anonymous
| Doesn't a kid takng > 3 kinda make the school look bad? Like if they were able to take 5 AP classes and get As in all of them, the class load must not be too demanding and they're probably giving out As to everybody. I wonder how the number of AP classes correlates to the scores on AP exams. |
Anonymous
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The private school my older DD attended did not offer APs. The head of school thought they were all about rote learning and didn't teach kids to think critically. My older DD took three AP tests and got 5s and a 4, so got college credit without suffering through the awful AP classes.
My younger DD attends public school where she's taking 5 APs junior year. She took 2 APs sophomore year. Half the kids in the AP classes are not that smart, DD claims. I'm unimpressed with the AP curriculum. The classes have so much work, most of which seems to emphasize volume over quality. DD plows through all of it with no interest or enthusiasm. My older DD loved her private school classes, which were all about thinking and learning how to use and analyze information, not rote memorization and regurgitation, which seems to be the focus of most of younger DD's AP classes. Older DD went to HYPSM, so did fine without taking a single AP class in high school. |
Anonymous
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it depends on the school your child attends, and your child. Our oldest who graduated from mcps, took two freshman year, three sophomore year, 4 or 5 Junior and Senior year. All As, no problem. My second, in private, they only allow one per year and we had to sign a form allowing him to take I mix of for AP and honors courses his junior year. He also has Straight A's.
When applying for colleges, your child is not competing with kids across your county for spots, they are competing with their peers at their high school. If many at your high school take four or five APs, and your child is a top student, they should as well. |
Anonymous
| OP this is why I would never hire a private college counselor- so much bad advice. I can come to this website and get both good and bad advice for free. |
Anonymous
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My very smart but not absolute genius child took the following classes her senior year (while also doing marching band and ballet after school). She got all As and mostly 4s and 5s:
AP Calc AB AP Economics (1st semester)/AP Government (2nd semester) AP English Literature AP Environmental Science AP French AP Art History Band It honestly wasn't insane. |
Anonymous
Really? Your older daughter went to all of those schools? |
Anonymous
Voice of reason. Some of us have been TRYING to talk sense into DCUM parents. You DO NOT need to max out AP coursework. Take those that match your kid's career interest. Or if they have exhausted other offerings. Colleges want to see that you are capable of higher level coursework, and are not taking lower courses than you can handle to get a good GPA. Beyond that, DON'T buy into the pressure/rumors that you have to keep up with the strivers. |
Anonymous
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My kid took 1, 3, 4 and 4. He had 8 APs with scores in 4s and 5s, under his belt BEFORE he applied to colleges, and he had at least 1 from each of the core subject areas.
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Anonymous
| My rising Junior is registered to take 4 APs, one of which is AP Calc AB. He'll be going into Humaties so I wish he could focus more on other APs but there are no other viable Math options that aren't AP. |
Anonymous
I think it is more to do with the fact that loading up on APs in one year shows that the kid does not know how to balance workload, cannot plan in advance and is not organized. Not good traits for excelling in college. Also, depends on if you have taken hard APs like Calc BC, Foreign Language or easy fludd APs like envio or psych. If your AP exam scores does not match your grade in the class then it is a problem. |
Anonymous
It is fine in senior year and really most of it were not considered hard APs in the 4th year of HS. So what exactly did she take the first 3 years? |
Anonymous
What are you saying? It is not too much work but it has a big workload? Were you educated in a private school? |
Anonymous
Just because something is possible does not mean it is necessary. Did your kid get good sleep? Did they exercise, develop other sides of themselves (art skills? hobbies that they will enjoy for a lifetime?). Did they spend time hanging out with friends in the waning days of their childhoods? DMV parents/kids look around, in their already stressed mood, and think such a schedule is NECESSARY to get into a good college. IT ABSOLUTELY IS NOT. Opt for health balance people. |
Anonymous
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I hate how AP leads to teaching to the test. That high schools and teachers brag about their kids' scores (so it becomes self-serving, rather than student-centered).
Also, kids lose a month of education if the schools requires no real content/teaching after the AP test. I wish the whole system would go away. |
Anonymous
| And my sense is that most of these courses are actually more rigorous when they are actually taken in college. |