AP classes are easier than when we were kids, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have taught an AP class for over 20 years. It absolutely has gotten easier. When I first began, students were so much more independent and could think critically. Now students are only worried about the grade bump and doing the least amount of work possible. The amount of hand holding and spoon feeding is exhausting.

So you're saying you water down the course?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a DC area private and was a top student in the 90s. I took 4 AP classes. They were a lot of work but not that difficult. My kid is taking a high number of APs and definitely works way harder than I did.

At my school kids taking the most APs went to UVA and similar caliber schools. Some higher. Very few kids went to Ivies because even back then, the DC area competition for Ivies was brutal.

Also at my school, you needed an A in the prior years honors class to get into the AP class. Still think my kid works way harder.

This is true at my son's private school. He can't take an honors course without an A in the regular course preceding it. Same for AP courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m blown by hearing about all these kids taking 10+ AP classes in HS. First, my high school never had that many classes. But more importantly, there was A LOT of work, lots of assignments and projects that took a lot of time. More of a college workload in terms of readings etc but without the extra study time that comes with not having a full day of classes. There is no way people could handle so many AP classes at once, just from a time perspective. Are AP classes the new Honors?

People who took a handful of AP classes went on to Ivy and top 25 schools. Now, kids need so many!

Have classes gotten easier, is there grade inflation, or are kids truly overwhelmed with increased expectations?

College Board makes serious money off AP classes. They get schools to brag about how many AP students they have and Boom! Money, money money!

[Anonymous]

When I took them 25 years ago, they seemed to be graded on a true bell curve and only the very top kids got 4s or 5s. From reading DCUM it sounds like everyone gets top scores. Is the bell curve actually gone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I took them 25 years ago, they seemed to be graded on a true bell curve and only the very top kids got 4s or 5s. From reading DCUM it sounds like everyone gets top scores. Is the bell curve actually gone?

College board posts the score distributions here: https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/about-ap-scores/score-distributions

[Anonymous]

AP classes just are not that hard for reasonably smart kids.

Take AP Govt. You get a whole year to do 1 semester of 100 level college Govt class. And 100 level Govt class is not exactly a difficult class.

Calc AB. You have a year to do 1st semester calc. Calc BC to be fair IS hard because calc 2 is hard, but calc 1 is not that hard over 1 year.

APUSH is kind of notorious at some schools but mostly for the sheer amount of busy work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m blown by hearing about all these kids taking 10+ AP classes in HS. First, my high school never had that many classes. But more importantly, there was A LOT of work, lots of assignments and projects that took a lot of time. More of a college workload in terms of readings etc but without the extra study time that comes with not having a full day of classes. There is no way people could handle so many AP classes at once, just from a time perspective. Are AP classes the new Honors?

People who took a handful of AP classes went on to Ivy and top 25 schools. Now, kids need so many!

Have classes gotten easier, is there grade inflation, or are kids truly overwhelmed with increased expectations?

It's this. My kid is only in 10th and taking 1 and it is a LOT of work. DC is taking 3 next year. But we've encouraged opting out of the AP rat race. It's absurd. If a college wants to pass on my kid as not "college ready" bc she took 6 or 7 APs (and the rest honors) instead of 10-12, so be it. There is zero reason to take APs in classes DC has no interest or as high an aptitude. And colleges should be ashamed of themselves for requiring it of these kids, many of whom are stressed out and not enjoying their HS years. It's grotesque.

My smart kid took this approach. Took 4 STEM classes each JR and Senior years (ok 7 STEM and AP Psych). Said no to APUSH/AP Eng because they knew it would take 10-15 hours of extra work for EACH class. So while they could have taken them and got an A/A- and gotten at least a 4 on each, why put your self thru that? Ironically, my kid's top 2 choices ultimately do NOT give credit for APUSH or ENG...have to take the core curriculum at the university. Only reason my kid thought of taking them was to get college credit (and possibly help with admissions).
So they got ED deferred then rejected at a T10, Got WL at T30, attending a school ranked in the 30s and was picking between that and one in the 40s.
I doubt the lack of APUSH/AP Eng is why they didn't get into those schools---could be but more likely it's just admission rates under 10% and too many qualified candidates.

However, my kid enjoyed HS a bit more, had time for their 20+hr/week EC outside of school, got into great schools---more importantly they did. not make themselves miserable in hopes of getting into an elite university.
ultimately where they are was their 2nd choice and almost ED2 (but wanted to hear from the ED school in RD). They are thriving, at what I think is the best fit for them and will do well in life. Their APs put them a full year ahead in Calculus and Chemistry, as an engineer it's huge to be done with the math sequence after freshman year, as well as being done with Organic Chem as well. Opens the doors for more technical electives, so the AP courses were extremely useful in the areas of interest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m blown by hearing about all these kids taking 10+ AP classes in HS. First, my high school never had that many classes. But more importantly, there was A LOT of work, lots of assignments and projects that took a lot of time. More of a college workload in terms of readings etc but without the extra study time that comes with not having a full day of classes. There is no way people could handle so many AP classes at once, just from a time perspective. Are AP classes the new Honors?

People who took a handful of AP classes went on to Ivy and top 25 schools. Now, kids need so many!

Have classes gotten easier, is there grade inflation, or are kids truly overwhelmed with increased expectations?

It's this. My kid is only in 10th and taking 1 and it is a LOT of work. DC is taking 3 next year. But we've encouraged opting out of the AP rat race. It's absurd. If a college wants to pass on my kid as not "college ready" bc she took 6 or 7 APs (and the rest honors) instead of 10-12, so be it. There is zero reason to take APs in classes DC has no interest or as high an aptitude. And colleges should be ashamed of themselves for requiring it of these kids, many of whom are stressed out and not enjoying their HS years. It's grotesque.

I agree it’s a grotesque arms race that only seems to reward kids that are willing to forego sleep. My sense is that the difficulty of the classes varies, as it did when I was a teen in the late 80s, but they tend to be a lot of work even if not overly difficult. I hate that the kids feel they have to take them to keep up with the pack and the college board keeps adding more (like the new AP pre calc).

Yeah, AP pre calc is not needed, except for $$$$$ for college board.

[Anonymous]

Too easy for everyone to get student loans that's the problem with college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m blown by hearing about all these kids taking 10+ AP classes in HS. First, my high school never had that many classes. But more importantly, there was A LOT of work, lots of assignments and projects that took a lot of time. More of a college workload in terms of readings etc but without the extra study time that comes with not having a full day of classes. There is no way people could handle so many AP classes at once, just from a time perspective. Are AP classes the new Honors?

People who took a handful of AP classes went on to Ivy and top 25 schools. Now, kids need so many!

Have classes gotten easier, is there grade inflation, or are kids truly overwhelmed with increased expectations?

It's this. My kid is only in 10th and taking 1 and it is a LOT of work. DC is taking 3 next year. But we've encouraged opting out of the AP rat race. It's absurd. If a college wants to pass on my kid as not "college ready" bc she took 6 or 7 APs (and the rest honors) instead of 10-12, so be it. There is zero reason to take APs in classes DC has no interest or as high an aptitude. And colleges should be ashamed of themselves for requiring it of these kids, many of whom are stressed out and not enjoying their HS years. It's grotesque.

I agree it’s a grotesque arms race that only seems to reward kids that are willing to forego sleep. My sense is that the difficulty of the classes varies, as it did when I was a teen in the late 80s, but they tend to be a lot of work even if not overly difficult. I hate that the kids feel they have to take them to keep up with the pack and the college board keeps adding more (like the new AP pre calc).

In fairness, at some public schools there is either AP or grade level in the core subjects. Grade level is a joke and there is not even Honors, so essentially AP is your only option.

My kid's HS had Honor ENG in 9/10th, once there was AP there was just reg and AP. History was Honors for 9th and then onto AP in 10th+ or you take regular. My kid said screw it, I hate history and English, and while I could do the extra work, I will never sleep. So they took regular English/history. Would have liked to have an honors option, because there really should be something in between "general population" and AP.
But my very smart kid skipped the APUSH/AP Eng and is at a school ranked in the 30s (if rankings matter to you).

At a very good school (and the right fit for them) and most importantly came out of high school with their mental health intact. Adding 20-30 hours of extra homework per week for the 2 APs in 11th grade would not have been healthy. I think AP Calc, AP CS, AP Chem, AP Bio are enough of a workload

[Anonymous]

I graduated high school in 1996 and I had to write a 10+ page research paper for my AP US history class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't recall my AP tests to be all that hard. I agree the classes assigned more work.

I think nowadays the class is designed so that you do well on the test. The APUSH test does not require you write a 5 page (or even a 2 page) essay on a topic, so the teachers don't see the point in assigning something like that as homework.

I graduated HS in 1992 and took AP history. I never had to write 2-5 page essays for homework or ever in that class. There is a lot of nostalgia for yesteryear that always confuses. My daughter attends a HS where the expectations are more rigorous than mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m blown by hearing about all these kids taking 10+ AP classes in HS. First, my high school never had that many classes. But more importantly, there was A LOT of work, lots of assignments and projects that took a lot of time. More of a college workload in terms of readings etc but without the extra study time that comes with not having a full day of classes. There is no way people could handle so many AP classes at once, just from a time perspective. Are AP classes the new Honors?

People who took a handful of AP classes went on to Ivy and top 25 schools. Now, kids need so many!

Have classes gotten easier, is there grade inflation, or are kids truly overwhelmed with increased expectations?

It's this. My kid is only in 10th and taking 1 and it is a LOT of work. DC is taking 3 next year. But we've encouraged opting out of the AP rat race. It's absurd. If a college wants to pass on my kid as not "college ready" bc she took 6 or 7 APs (and the rest honors) instead of 10-12, so be it. There is zero reason to take APs in classes DC has no interest or as high an aptitude. And colleges should be ashamed of themselves for requiring it of these kids, many of whom are stressed out and not enjoying their HS years. It's grotesque.

I agree it’s a grotesque arms race that only seems to reward kids that are willing to forego sleep. My sense is that the difficulty of the classes varies, as it did when I was a teen in the late 80s, but they tend to be a lot of work even if not overly difficult. I hate that the kids feel they have to take them to keep up with the pack and the college board keeps adding more (like the new AP pre calc).

Yeah, AP pre calc is not needed, except for $$$$$ for college board.

Precalc by definition isn’t a college level course. Kids who need remediation would take it. So why on earth would there be an AP version except to bump GPAs and make money for the College Board?

At my school 25 years ago, you needed permission to enroll in an AP class, with high grades in the honors version previously. Lots of equity issues so I’m happy classes are more open now. But the existence of 25 possible APs and a race to rack up the most means both grade inflation and stress.