# of AP courses total?

[Anonymous]

My sophomore is at a top high school in the area and the counselor highly advises kids against taking AP courses. I feel like they are set kids up for failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sophomore is at a top high school in the area and the counselor highly advises kids against taking AP courses. I feel like they are set kids up for failure.

Yeah, there was a recommended amount of AP classes by grade. If everyone follows, I think it will be great. If we are playing this game, I think the school should offer fewer APs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sophomore is at a top high school in the area and the counselor highly advises kids against taking AP courses. I feel like they are set kids up for failure.

Yeah, there was a recommended amount of AP classes by grade. If everyone follows, I think it will be great. If we are playing this game, I think the school should offer fewer APs.

What was the recommendation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sophomore is at a top high school in the area and the counselor highly advises kids against taking AP courses. I feel like they are set kids up for failure.

Well counselor is setting kid up for failure because she’s kid’s course rigor is being compared to kids who did take APs.

[Anonymous]

Mine did 16 with all 5’s but probably would’ve had good outcomes with just 7-8 with 4s & 5s mixed. It helps more if you are going to state school and trying to graduate in 3 years but not as much if you are going to elite schools and making the most of your 4 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sophomore is at a top high school in the area and the counselor highly advises kids against taking AP courses. I feel like they are set kids up for failure.

Congratulations on your child's admittance to a "top" high school.

[Anonymous]

It helps to take at least few AP and college courses to prove your college readiness and ability to handle academic rigor.

[Anonymous]

By ‘top’, OP means competitive or area’s most desired school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sophomore is at a top high school in the area and the counselor highly advises kids against taking AP courses. I feel like they are set kids up for failure.

Well counselor is setting kid up for failure because she’s kid’s course rigor is being compared to kids who did take APs.

It is not “failure”.

Let’s normalize teen years without mental breakdowns. F the hyper-competitive high school culture. 2-3 APs late in high school is enough to prove college readiness. Stop the insanity.

[Anonymous]

DC took 10 APs while at Wilson (DCPS). Well prepared for college, thriving at Michigan.

[Anonymous]

Also depends upon individual student and school’s rigor and competitiveness of peers, some find it as easy as regular courses, other struggle with content or work load.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HI. The counselor at our "W" school emphasized only taking AP Courses in areas in which you excelled...for my daughter that wound up to be the liberal arts. She has taken honors courses in sciences and math, but not AP. Next year she will take, AP Environmental. She will finish up with 7 total AP Courses. She has already received a score of "5" on her AP NSL test ,and is studying for Lang and lit and World now...hopefully 4s or 5s.

She often tells me that she sees her classmates taking 4 and 5 AP's during the junior year and how very stressed out they all are. it sounds awful and unhealthy to us, so as her parents, we never advocated this much stress for her. She doesn't like it and collapses under that sort of stress.

We recently met with an independent college consultant who told us she had not taken enough "rigorous courses" to apply to top tier schools. (not Ivy Leagues) Of course, DD came away upset and felt a bit led astray by the school guidance counselor, who really didn't recommend 4 to 5 AP's a year.

DD has hopes of being accepted to public ivys, but I don't even know if this is possible given her 1400 SAT and 'only' 7 AP courses.

Talk to me! Tell me your experience with number of AP courses! I know it is all a crap shoot these days.

Thank you.

Independent counselor is correct -for an elite school like UVA you need to have taken the most rigorous curriculum available in all areas.

[Anonymous]

Same course can be less or more difficult at one school than the other, AP scores were easy peasy for mine but maintaining GPA for class ranking was a tough competition. It was opposite at my niece’s school where getting graded and GPA was easy but kids weren’t prepared well enough so getting 4’s and 5’s was impossible for majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sophomore is at a top high school in the area and the counselor highly advises kids against taking AP courses. I feel like they are set kids up for failure.

Well counselor is setting kid up for failure because she’s kid’s course rigor is being compared to kids who did take APs.

It is not “failure”.

Let’s normalize teen years without mental breakdowns. F the hyper-competitive high school culture. 2-3 APs late in high school is enough to prove college readiness. Stop the insanity.

+1
I suspect PP is at private school. My sophomore hasn't taken any APs, plans 2 for next year and will likely graduate with 4-5 total. This is typical at our private school.

[Anonymous]

If your daughter wants a public Ivy she needs to get the SAT up as others have said. It’s the bottom 25 percent of the class at UVA but those slots often go to the hooked and athletes.