How many APs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.

That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.

There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.

That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.

There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

The other side of that coin is someone saying they'd ding the applicant who didn't submit the score, under the assumption that they must have scored low.

[Anonymous]

Depends on your school- my S23 took 8 total, 4s & 5s, is at Brown.
D26 took:
1 in 10th grade (Comp Sci P),
3 in 11th grade (APES, APUSH, AP Precalc)
5 in 12th grade (Gov, French, Lit, Calc, Bio)
In their school, only a handful of kids take APs in 10th grade, and kids aren’t ‘loading up’ on them. Can’t take APs in 9th grade, and kids who start in 10th are the exception. Personally I’d love to see the school get rid of them altogether, too much information crammed into units and not enough time for creative exploration of material. D23 opted not to take APUSH because of that- he wanted to dive deep into the content and not have to deal with the information dump of AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.

That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.

There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

That makes no sense. Why would you ding a kid? If that is the most advanced math offered for that level at the school, then why wouldn’t someone take it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.

That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.

PP. I agree, good point.

I would note that AP precalc has replaced honors precalc at many high schools. I would still report the score simply to show you did well. It won't carry rigor from the college's perspective, but many high schools will give it a point for weighted GPA.

[Anonymous]

^ I’m the above poster, and my D26 won’t submit the Pre-calculus, because it shows up as Honors Precalc instead on the transcript. Yes, AP Precalc is silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many APs did your child take during HS. Could you share by grade and what score they received?

It depends on individual student and school's academic rigor. I'm familiar with 5 school districts and my advice would be very different for similar student according to the school they are attending and teachers they are getting. As far as scores go, its not that difficult to score 4s and 5s but grades could differ from school to school and teachers to teacher for same student putting same amount of effort. Let your kid decide and support them if they want to drop down to regular in any subject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.

That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.

There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

The other side of that coin is someone saying they'd ding the applicant who didn't submit the score, under the assumption that they must have scored low.

The fact that people are being suckered into taking an AP exam after taking pre-calc is a joke. It is a regular HS class. It is not "AP." Are we going to start having AP Finger Painting for kids in nursery school? An AP exam is theoretically meant to demonstrate mastery of college level work. Pre-calc is not college level. It is a pre-req for college level. I know that most of our discussions here are about top schools for which many kids take calc in HS, but even very average students take pre-calc in HS.

[Anonymous]

My DC took 0 in 9th and 10th, 2 in 11th (Physics I and Psych), and 4 senior year (Calc AB, US Gov, CS and music theory). FCPS HS. He was happy with his college results (studying performing arts)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.

That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.

There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

The other side of that coin is someone saying they'd ding the applicant who didn't submit the score, under the assumption that they must have scored low.

The fact that people are being suckered into taking an AP exam after taking pre-calc is a joke. It is a regular HS class. It is not "AP." Are we going to start having AP Finger Painting for kids in nursery school? An AP exam is theoretically meant to demonstrate mastery of college level work. Pre-calc is not college level. It is a pre-req for college level. I know that most of our discussions here are about top schools for which many kids take calc in HS, but even very average students take pre-calc in HS.

I understand that it is not a college level course. Are you saying you'd have your kid skip the AP precalc exam?

Mine submitted his AP precalc score (5), along with his other AP scores, and is now at a T10. Didn't seem to hurt him to submit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.

That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.

There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

The other side of that coin is someone saying they'd ding the applicant who didn't submit the score, under the assumption that they must have scored low.

.
The fact that people are being suckered into taking an AP exam after taking pre-calc is a joke. It is a regular HS class. It is not "AP." Are we going to start having AP Finger Painting for kids in nursery school? An AP exam is theoretically meant to demonstrate mastery of college level work. Pre-calc is not college level. It is a pre-req for college level. I know that most of our discussions here are about top schools for which many kids take calc in HS, but even very average students take pre-calc in HS.

I understand that it is not a college level course. Are you saying you'd have your kid skip the AP precalc exam?

Mine submitted his AP precalc score (5), along with his other AP scores, and is now at a T10. Didn't seem to hurt him to submit.

AP Precalc has replaced Precalc honors. Many schools require you to take the AP test or you get an F in the class. So my DC will take the AP precalc test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.

That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.

There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

The other side of that coin is someone saying they'd ding the applicant who didn't submit the score, under the assumption that they must have scored low.

The fact that people are being suckered into taking an AP exam after taking pre-calc is a joke. It is a regular HS class. It is not "AP." Are we going to start having AP Finger Painting for kids in nursery school? An AP exam is theoretically meant to demonstrate mastery of college level work. Pre-calc is not college level. It is a pre-req for college level. I know that most of our discussions here are about top schools for which many kids take calc in HS, but even very average students take pre-calc in HS.

I understand that it is not a college level course. Are you saying you'd have your kid skip the AP precalc exam?

Mine submitted his AP precalc score (5), along with his other AP scores, and is now at a T10. Didn't seem to hurt him to submit.

If your school is dumb enough to offer it, I agree that you kind of have to take it. I'm not sure who they are trying to impress. My kids school (and most schools that I know of) does not call pre-calc "AP" so there is no pressure to take the test.

[Anonymous]

None in 9th (no APs for freshman)
1 in 10th (APUSH)
1 in 11th (AP Lang)
In 12th, AP Physics, AP Precalc, AP Spanish, and probably AP European History and possibly AP Lit (probably not AP Lit though).

School outside DC area. I would say this is pretty much typical except that my kid is not in the advanced math track so wont get to AP Calc by senior year. Except for physics, students have to take the science for that subject prior to taking the AP course in that subject and 9th grade is earth science, not bio.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many APs did your child take during HS. Could you share by grade and what score they received?

Senior DD took one in 10th grade (APUSH) , 5 in 11th (Calc BC, Chem, World, Lang, microeconomics). 5s on all six AP exams. She’s taking two APs right now (Lit, Latin).

Only 2 senior year? They usually like to see schedule not get slacker, foot off the gas in 12th.

[Anonymous]

Taking 15+ AP classes is ridiculous for the same reason you can't be a president of 5 clubs: you're spreading yourself too thin. It all becomes meaningless. Of course some students choose to sacrifice every hour of free time so they can take AP everything, but it's just a shallow choice, and a wrong one.