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Just take the private school calculus and then take the AP exam and get a 5. DONE. Why are we debating this? It's what every top performing student at our top private does.
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It’s a bar to pass and many do. The issue is when students can’t hack the AP exam and the parents get defensive about it and claim AP teaches to the test, not enough depth, colleges don’t care, and so on. In other words copium. The move to drop AP classes was not in the best interest of the students, but I guess the private high schools need to differentiate themselves somehow. |
It is a very low bar to get a 5 on APs. Give me a break. |
Private schools have already differentiated themselves from the riff raff. Why do you imagine we care what public schools are doing? We couldn’t care less. |
Private school kids are usually total losers by the time they get to the real world |
Definitely not a very low bar. Around 50k students get a 5 on AP Calculus BC every year, that’s 1% of all students. Getting 5 on the 10 most rigorous APs is a high bar to pass. Everyone, private and public, will compete for college. Don’t assume the private name will set the kid apart, or that it will move the needle on admissions. Do it because it’s a good fit for your student. |
Nope, getting 5s is a low bar. Stop making it sound harder than it is by including underachieving high school students. They were never relevant. |
It’s a low bar until the kid tries and gets scores of 3-4 and below. Then it’s a problem with multiple choice format, colleges don’t care, and doesn’t compare to a real college course. Not to overstate what APs are, but they are one way to show academic rigor, among others. Can this be done with private/public school classes and GPA? Yes, but it’s better for the student to have multiple ways of showing it, adds impartiality to the process, and reigns in grade inflation. Don’t complain that the B in Physics in private should be counted as 5 for the AP because in your biased view it’s a low bar to pass. College credit is significant, it frees up room for other more advanced classes, double majors, getting a master in 4 years. |
No idea what you are talking about. Anything below 5 is a red flag. |
| I've had conversations with private college consultants, and they told us that elite colleges will still expect your kid to self-study for the AP exams. They view private schools as a marker of privilege and will not give them any allowances because of it. |
not necessarily true. A mix of 4s and 5s is fine. You'll want 5s in the tests that correlate with your intended major. If you have a 4 in AP Eng Lang and want to study engineering, it won't be seen as a red flag. |
Let’s say a student is interested in stem, and takes relevant AP coursework of Calculus BC, Statistics, Physics C, Chemistry, Biology and Computer Science, plus a few core classes in humanities like English and History for a total of about 10 exams, maybe more if you add a few other classes. Scoring 5 on all is not easy, whatever cope you’re smoking. Physics electromagnetism score of 5 alone is less than 10k students each year. Repeating the feat for the most challenging results is not a walk in the park. Look up statistics to get yourself informed. AP is always easy until the student takes the exam, then it isn’t. At college admission time there’s the additional cope that privates grade deflate, and there’s easy grading in public. |
Why would anyone need to take an AP exam? For example, if your kid gets college credits through dual enrollment, or IB, or another program. AP is not required by anyone. |
You seem very new to this. There’s no college credit without the AP exam. IB can get credit, with the exam, but you have to be enrolled in an IB program to take it. Dual enrollment is a route for college credit, but it depends on what agreements the high school has with the (community) colleges. AP is the only one that allows taking the class in private and getting college credit by exam. |
I don’t know why anyone would be surprised this is the case. Of course you need the AP exam, especially is other students at the school take it. |