Kids shouldn’t take more than three AP’s per year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

This schedule is just too much. Agree with PP, the quality of life and real learning is often missed in the mad dash to 14 APs.

DS took 6 APs total (1x sophomore year, 3x junior year and 2x senior year + 1 post AP). Got into engineering to all state flagships he applied to as well as T10, 20s. His APs are subjects related to his major. He didn’t do AP f Lang or government but chosen CS, Physics C, BC Calc, etc instead. Senior year he opted out of AP lit and took honor film analysis and creative writing. Loved these classes and most importantly had a blast!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

The IB system is so much better. Every course and exam is based on discussion and analysis of information rather than just memorization. Tests are essays, and sometimes open note or open book because the goal is not to memorize definitions, names, dates, or even scientific processes, but to be able to apply and compare what you’ve learned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I don’t understand why teaching to the test is such a bad thing - education in most countries works like that. Even in private school - you generally have final exams. You are following a set curriculum and then get tested on the material. Even many college classes work that way - at least in STEM subjects. Obviously, in AP classes there is not much room for deviation from the curriculum so there isn’t much flexibility but overall they are challenging and strong curriculums

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

I bring this up because I tool AP English, AP Physics, AP Computer Science, AP Calculus and maybe AP Spanish (forget about that one). But they did NOT prepare me for college. In fact they were for the most part the same classes as the regular classes. Most of my peers (and me) got 1s on our AP exams. I had aced AP Physics and AP Calculus without knowing what a limit was or a derivative. I thought it was so foolish when I got to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This schedule is just too much. Agree with PP, the quality of life and real learning is often missed in the mad dash to 14 APs.

DS took 6 APs total (1x sophomore year, 3x junior year and 2x senior year + 1 post AP). Got into engineering to all state flagships he applied to as well as T10, 20s. His APs are subjects related to his major. He didn’t do AP f Lang or government but chosen CS, Physics C, BC Calc, etc instead. Senior year he opted out of AP lit and took honor film analysis and creative writing. Loved these classes and most importantly had a blast!

[/quote

That's great to hear and congratulations. DS is a prospective CS major. Heavy in CS, math and physics but has no desire to take AP Lang/Lit. Just sticking with FCPS honors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This schedule is just too much. Agree with PP, the quality of life and real learning is often missed in the mad dash to 14 APs.

DS took 6 APs total (1x sophomore year, 3x junior year and 2x senior year + 1 post AP). Got into engineering to all state flagships he applied to as well as T10, 20s. His APs are subjects related to his major. He didn’t do AP f Lang or government but chosen CS, Physics C, BC Calc, etc instead. Senior year he opted out of AP lit and took honor film analysis and creative writing. Loved these classes and most importantly had a blast!

[/quote

That's great to hear and congratulations. DS is a prospective CS major. Heavy in CS, math and physics but has no desire to take AP Lang/Lit. Just sticking with FCPS honors.

Thank you. Follow his passion and it will all work out. Do well in the major related APs and then honors for the others, your DS will at least enjoy his high school years more than just getting stuffed with all APs. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

It is honestly dependent on the school. My high school limited us to only three APs a year. We were a smaller school so there weren't enough spots in the AP classes for it to be fair for one student to take six APs a year. This did not impact our college admissions in the slightest. Our valedictorian goes to Stanford and the salutatorian is at Brown. On top of this, a good amount got into Berkeley and UCLA (This is in California). I took one in my junior year and three my senior year year and ended up at a NESCAC.

Also, this is a really privileged conversation. While wealthier high schools might offer fifteen different courses, a lot of schools only have 4 or 5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

The IB system is so much better. Every course and exam is based on discussion and analysis of information rather than just memorization. Tests are essays, and sometimes open note or open book because the goal is not to memorize definitions, names, dates, or even scientific processes, but to be able to apply and compare what you’ve learned.

+1 DC went through IB program and it is all Analysis and Writing. No rote memorization. It’s a tough program and the IB does grade inflate. It’s tough to get a 7 (equivalent of A+) I’ve read her papers through the years and as a junior she was writing better than I was as a sophomore in college. I’m convinced she is better prepared for college than I was. However American colleges don’t rate the IB as highly as AP at least in terms of college credit. So DC will walk in with about 20 elective credits. Most of her peers if they loaded up on AP will get upwards of 30.

[Anonymous]

*does Not grade inflate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

It teaches to the test which measures whether or not material that should have been learned has been learned. AP classes are supposed to replace 100 level survey classes not seminar classes and survey classes tend to cover a ton of material with very little depth so that kids taking more advanced classes will have a broad grounding and kids who never take another class in the subject have some basic grasp of it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

It teaches to the test which measures whether or not material that should have been learned has been learned. AP classes are supposed to replace 100 level survey classes not seminar classes and survey classes tend to cover a ton of material with very little depth so that kids taking more advanced classes will have a broad grounding and kids who never take another class in the subject have some basic grasp of it

If AP classes and exams are intended to replace 100 level college classes then the fact that kids take them at age 14 and do well is an indictment of our college system.

[Anonymous]

"The IB system is so much better. Every course and exam is based on discussion and analysis of information rather than just memorization. Tests are essays, and sometimes open note or open book because the goal is not to memorize definitions, names, dates, or even scientific processes, but to be able to apply and compare what you’ve learned."

Sorry, we found it no where near this cut and dried. Yes, this is what the IB brochure says, but at least at our public magnet version of IB, most teachers were not able to provide enough feed back to ensure improvement and to make it reality. Attempts to approach the ruberic goals in a sophisticated manor were a crap shoot. Finally, older friends in college advised DC to take certain AP classes to match the STEM backgrounds of their future college peers so they wouldn't have "gaps".

Yes, IB does make students "think" more but for many high achievers the "memorization" isn't an issue and much of that "thinking" is about the nuances of the silly ruberics. I'm sure someday DC will have bosses who will be amazed at their ability to follow directions but I have to hope DC will not need to work for those types of bosses very long.

I just read back through this and it sounds more negative than I intended. DC would do it all again but now knows that the AP kids at their colleges are only a little worse prepared.

[Anonymous]

As so much in life, it really depends.

My just-graduated-HS kid took 5 APs his senior year. And by winter break, he regretted it (as did I). I think three would made for a much better senior year for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is honestly dependent on the school. My high school limited us to only three APs a year. We were a smaller school so there weren't enough spots in the AP classes for it to be fair for one student to take six APs a year. This did not impact our college admissions in the slightest. Our valedictorian goes to Stanford and the salutatorian is at Brown. On top of this, a good amount got into Berkeley and UCLA (This is in California). I took one in my junior year and three my senior year year and ended up at a NESCAC.

Also, this is a really privileged conversation. While wealthier high schools might offer fifteen different courses, a lot of schools only have 4 or 5.

Thanks for highlighting this. Schools like McLean offer every nearly single AP so it is reasonable to take five your junior and senior year. My high school only offered AP Biology, AP Lit / AP Lang, AP Calc, AP Environmental Science, and AP Spanish. I had no issues getting into good quality schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

The IB system is so much better. Every course and exam is based on discussion and analysis of information rather than just memorization. Tests are essays, and sometimes open note or open book because the goal is not to memorize definitions, names, dates, or even scientific processes, but to be able to apply and compare what you’ve learned.

This trope is so fake. AP courses my kids are taking are not memorization. It is no different from the way you describe IB.