Talk to me about your HS students experience with different AP courses

[Anonymous]

My dd is currently taking APUSH in 9th grade. Since she has never had a textbook or needed to take notes in MCPS, she is struggling a lot. Its a tough class. Even I struggle helping her!

[Anonymous]

APUSH is notoriously difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Humanities courses require more note taking. Calc BC is curved so you don't need to get 100% correct to get a 5. AP Physics C are harder and Calc based. Psyche, Human Geography and Enviro - can be self studied and are considered filler APs.

I have never understood why would people take both Calc AB and Calc BC?

Why not? What course progression should they do instead?

If they take Calc AB what should follow?

If they skip Calc AB and just do Calc BC what should follow?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Humanities courses require more note taking. Calc BC is curved so you don't need to get 100% correct to get a 5. AP Physics C are harder and Calc based. Psyche, Human Geography and Enviro - can be self studied and are considered filler APs.

I have never understood why would people take both Calc AB and Calc BC?

Why not? What course progression should they do instead?

If they take Calc AB what should follow?

If they skip Calc AB and just do Calc BC what should follow?

My kids' math teachers recommend AB + BC for most students who are ready for calculus in 11th grade. That's just how they teach it. Some kids can do some summer work to jump straight to BC but it's hard and would require more self-study. Those who jump to BC in junior year can then take differential equations and other higher level math class (1 semester each ) via DE in senior year but that's a very small number of students.

My DD is in Calc AB as a junior and is not aiming for engineering/cs/math major so she plans to take AP stats in senior year.
My DS is a great math student and majoring in a related topic. He did the AB+BC sequence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Humanities courses require more note taking. Calc BC is curved so you don't need to get 100% correct to get a 5. AP Physics C are harder and Calc based. Psyche, Human Geography and Enviro - can be self studied and are considered filler APs.

I have never understood why would people take both Calc AB and Calc BC?

Why not? What course progression should they do instead?

If they take Calc AB what should follow?

If they skip Calc AB and just do Calc BC what should follow?

My kids' math teachers recommend AB + BC for most students who are ready for calculus in 11th grade. That's just how they teach it. Some kids can do some summer work to jump straight to BC but it's hard and would require more self-study. Those who jump to BC in junior year can then take differential equations and other higher level math class (1 semester each ) via DE in senior year but that's a very small number of students.

My DD is in Calc AB as a junior and is not aiming for engineering/cs/math major so she plans to take AP stats in senior year.
My DS is a great math student and majoring in a related topic. He did the AB+BC sequence.

My DD is a freshman STEM major in college. She did Calc AB as a junior and Calc BC as a senior and found BC to be a breeze because so much of it was AB, She recommends that path to her brother because who wants a stressful senior year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Talk to my about what AP class your HS student regretted taking the most or struggled with the most (even if it proved successful in the end). Looking for info on the class, not the test. What made the class so bad?

What AP class was the best (even if scored 3 or under on the test). Why did they like the class so much?

Depends on the teacher 100%!!

For example, in my kids’ well-regarded FCPS school, one of the AP psych teachers is great and the other is clueless, and her tests have no connection to her content. The AP comp gov teacher is great, except for that he assigns student presentation projects all through the comp gov portion, which is a lazy way to do it and kids don’t end up being prepared for the actual comp gov AP exam. In AP chem, the teacher is so bad that there’s only one section this year for the entire school (Word is out and not a lot enrolled). She seems “fun” and “nice” but there’s a disconnect between her teaching and her exam grading. For AP stats, there are two teachers and again it’s known that one is great and one is terrible. I have heard less problems about AP lit, Lang, Calc, history, physics music theory and comp sci.

I have had four kids go through the school and all these AP classes, so have heard it all about all of them between them and their friends.

[Anonymous]

AP Modern Euro was tough for my HS student - lots of reading, note taking and writing. APUSH was tough but manageable.

AP sciences and math classes were manageable (but not easy). AP Psych and Environmental were the easier of her classes.

Test scores across two kids have been a mix of 3s ,4s, and 5s. Definitely varies by school and teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AP Modern Euro was tough for my HS student - lots of reading, note taking and writing. APUSH was tough but manageable.

AP sciences and math classes were manageable (but not easy). AP Psych and Environmental were the easier of her classes.

Test scores across two kids have been a mix of 3s ,4s, and 5s. Definitely varies by school and teacher.

It seems they would have benefited by beginning to self-study the summer before. No?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talk to my about what AP class your HS student regretted taking the most or struggled with the most (even if it proved successful in the end). Looking for info on the class, not the test. What made the class so bad?

What AP class was the best (even if scored 3 or under on the test). Why did they like the class so much?

Depends on the teacher 100%!!

For example, in my kids’ well-regarded FCPS school, one of the AP psych teachers is great and the other is clueless, and her tests have no connection to her content. The AP comp gov teacher is great, except for that he assigns student presentation projects all through the comp gov portion, which is a lazy way to do it and kids don’t end up being prepared for the actual comp gov AP exam. In AP chem, the teacher is so bad that there’s only one section this year for the entire school (Word is out and not a lot enrolled). She seems “fun” and “nice” but there’s a disconnect between her teaching and her exam grading. For AP stats, there are two teachers and again it’s known that one is great and one is terrible. I have heard less problems about AP lit, Lang, Calc, history, physics music theory and comp sci.

I have had four kids go through the school and all these AP classes, so have heard it all about all of them between them and their friends.

It seems they would have benefited by beginning to self-study the summer before. No?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dd is currently taking APUSH in 9th grade. Since she has never had a textbook or needed to take notes in MCPS, she is struggling a lot. Its a tough class. Even I struggle helping her!

Hmmm...It seems they would have benefited by beginning to self-study the summer before. No?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My "average" 10th grade kid is taking regular English, regular Algebra 2, Honors Chemistry, Honors World History, and Spanish 3 and has all As and 1 B+. His goal is to have about 4 AP courses by the end of high school so that he can be accepted into JMU. He will take AP Calc and AP Govt during his senior year. Any recommendations on which AP classes he should take as a junior? He would love to take AP Human Geography, and he hopes that there is enough interest for his FCPS HS to offer that class. He was also thinking about AP Psych or AP Biology or AP Enviro. He is worried that AP Physics might be too hard and is planning to take Honors Physics next year. He has no idea what he wants to major in at college.

AP Bio and AP Envio ties in well with each other. AP Bio is a lot of memorization also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is NSL?

Another name for AP Gov. NSL stands for National, State, Local (Gov)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All classes were easy. Some required more note taking. 4s and 5s. Made an attempt to cover the 5 core subject area before 12th grade. Good mix of Humanities too for a solid STEM student.

Did not take easy filler courses like Psych, Enviro, Human Geography. Took 1 in 9th, 3 in 10th, 4 in 11th and 4 in 12th. Started on the courses during summer break. Utilized Barrons as well as the online class in CollegeBoard.

Sounds like a kid with no fun I’m their life. Condolences.

Yes, a kid with you in their life needs the condolences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talk to my about what AP class your HS student regretted taking the most or struggled with the most (even if it proved successful in the end). Looking for info on the class, not the test. What made the class so bad?

What AP class was the best (even if scored 3 or under on the test). Why did they like the class so much?

Depends on the teacher 100%!!

For example, in my kids’ well-regarded FCPS school, one of the AP psych teachers is great and the other is clueless, and her tests have no connection to her content. The AP comp gov teacher is great, except for that he assigns student presentation projects all through the comp gov portion, which is a lazy way to do it and kids don’t end up being prepared for the actual comp gov AP exam. In AP chem, the teacher is so bad that there’s only one section this year for the entire school (Word is out and not a lot enrolled). She seems “fun” and “nice” but there’s a disconnect between her teaching and her exam grading. For AP stats, there are two teachers and again it’s known that one is great and one is terrible. I have heard less problems about AP lit, Lang, Calc, history, physics music theory and comp sci.

I have had four kids go through the school and all these AP classes, so have heard it all about all of them between them and their friends.

It seems they would have benefited by beginning to self-study the summer before. No?

PP here. Hmm. I have four kids who took all of these APs all the way through this high school. None of them started studying the summer before. They all got between 85 and 97% in the classes and fours and fives on the exams. Not knowing whether they would get the “good” teacher or “bad” teacher, they didn’t start to study in the summer and I would argue they shouldn’t need to if they were taking the actual course. But the variation in the teachers and the amount of work they had to do with extra materials to make up for the not-good teachers were quite evident.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Humanities courses require more note taking. Calc BC is curved so you don't need to get 100% correct to get a 5. AP Physics C are harder and Calc based. Psyche, Human Geography and Enviro - can be self studied and are considered filler APs.

I have never understood why would people take both Calc AB and Calc BC?

There is no other option in DD’s high school if you take Calculus AB junior year.