Number of AP classes for top 20% of MCPS HS grads?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent and college counselor working with students applying to top 20 schools, I advise that taking the AP exam isn't always necessary, especially if your child isn’t interested in earning college credit. The added stress might not be worth it. Colleges primarily value the rigor of the AP course and the weighted GPA it provides. However, achieving an 'A' in the class itself can significantly strengthen their application. And I have plenty of examples of acceptances to prove this.

There is zero downside to taking the AP exam. You don’t like the score you can expunge it. If the added stress to take an exam is not worth it, then what are you going to do in college.

If there’s no score for the AP class it will be noted.

so you are saying - even for kids who wants to study psychology in college, it's better to take AP Calc BC exam - lol

100% yes. If the kid who wants to study psychology took the AP calculus BC class, they should sit for the AP exam. Otherwise the admission officers will be assuming the worst, eg no passing score. That’s why a lot of AP classes require the student to take the exam. You can demonstrate rigor with classes taken, grades and exam scores, preferably all.

+1 And the AP exam creates a standardization across public and private schools. Different teachers at different schools grade differently, but the AP exam is graded externally across schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read Atlantic's APs are a scam article
College Board = $$$ making

I agree. Kids should take HS classes in HS. Why do they need college credit so young???

That said, we played the game. One IB, one dual enrollment, 8 AP classes. Going to top 20 SLAC as a recruited athlete. 8 AP classes probably wouldn’t have cut it if he wasn’t a good athlete (although he could have handled more if he wasn’t devoted to sports 20 hours most weeks).

It's because AP k (and IB) is the only nationally standard state of rigor.

Most students fail or scrape by the AP exams! And that's OK! They don't get credit at rigorous universities and LACs, and do get credit for low-end colleges. But the exam score is at least a decent estimate of preparation in the subject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent and college counselor working with students applying to top 20 schools, I advise that taking the AP exam isn't always necessary, especially if your child isn’t interested in earning college credit. The added stress might not be worth it. Colleges primarily value the rigor of the AP course and the weighted GPA it provides. However, achieving an 'A' in the class itself can significantly strengthen their application. And I have plenty of examples of acceptances to prove this.

There is zero downside to taking the AP exam. You don’t like the score you can expunge it. If the added stress to take an exam is not worth it, then what are you going to do in college.

If there’s no score for the AP class it will be noted.

so you are saying - even for kids who wants to study psychology in college, it's better to take AP Calc BC exam - lol

100% yes. If the kid who wants to study psychology took the AP calculus BC class, they should sit for the AP exam. Otherwise the admission officers will be assuming the worst, eg no passing score. That’s why a lot of AP classes require the student to take the exam. You can demonstrate rigor with classes taken, grades and exam scores, preferably all.

AO should not assume anything. And from what I can tell AP exams matter very little in admissions. It is only used if you want to get credits.
As far as I can tell mcps doesn't require exams for any AP classes - unless this has changed recently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent and college counselor working with students applying to top 20 schools, I advise that taking the AP exam isn't always necessary, especially if your child isn’t interested in earning college credit. The added stress might not be worth it. Colleges primarily value the rigor of the AP course and the weighted GPA it provides. However, achieving an 'A' in the class itself can significantly strengthen their application. And I have plenty of examples of acceptances to prove this.

There is zero downside to taking the AP exam. You don’t like the score you can expunge it. If the added stress to take an exam is not worth it, then what are you going to do in college.

If there’s no score for the AP class it will be noted.

so you are saying - even for kids who wants to study psychology in college, it's better to take AP Calc BC exam - lol

100% yes. If the kid who wants to study psychology took the AP calculus BC class, they should sit for the AP exam. Otherwise the admission officers will be assuming the worst, eg no passing score. That’s why a lot of AP classes require the student to take the exam. You can demonstrate rigor with classes taken, grades and exam scores, preferably all.

AO should not assume anything. And from what I can tell AP exams matter very little in admissions. It is only used if you want to get credits.
As far as I can tell mcps doesn't require exams for any AP classes - unless this has changed recently.

From what can you tell? Not true, look up the AP wall of 5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent and college counselor working with students applying to top 20 schools, I advise that taking the AP exam isn't always necessary, especially if your child isn’t interested in earning college credit. The added stress might not be worth it. Colleges primarily value the rigor of the AP course and the weighted GPA it provides. However, achieving an 'A' in the class itself can significantly strengthen their application. And I have plenty of examples of acceptances to prove this.

There is zero downside to taking the AP exam. You don’t like the score you can expunge it. If the added stress to take an exam is not worth it, then what are you going to do in college.

If there’s no score for the AP class it will be noted.

so you are saying - even for kids who wants to study psychology in college, it's better to take AP Calc BC exam - lol

100% yes. If the kid who wants to study psychology took the AP calculus BC class, they should sit for the AP exam. Otherwise the admission officers will be assuming the worst, eg no passing score. That’s why a lot of AP classes require the student to take the exam. You can demonstrate rigor with classes taken, grades and exam scores, preferably all.

AO should not assume anything. And from what I can tell AP exams matter very little in admissions. It is only used if you want to get credits.
As far as I can tell mcps doesn't require exams for any AP classes - unless this has changed recently.

From what can you tell? Not true, look up the AP wall of 5.

The PPP is actually correct. MCPS does not require the exam to be taken for AP classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP—the number of APs (with good grades and test scores) is important relative to peers because colleges evaluate applicants vs kids from their school. I assume that’s why OP asked…

I agree that we should be asking about the need for APs freshman year, the AP “arms race” in general, kids taking AP classes to get the GPA bump while still having the option to skip the exam, and overall quality of instruction. These speak more to the quality vs quantity and are outside the scope of OP’s question.

Take that up with University Admissions. When your graduating class is 500-600 students in a district of 10,000-12,000 seniors, and your state flagship gets 60K applications for 5Kish spots, families are going to do whatever to get ahead. APs are one of those ways.

1K ish spots for the local district.

I’m the PP who mentioned the AP arms race—I totally agree that this is an issue for university admissions. UMD has always been competitive but I don’t recall (maybe I’ve forgotten?) the AP hysteria when I was in HS amongst kids who wanted UMD.

Great, allow us to disabuse you of the idea that college admissions today is anything like it was when you were a HS kid.

https://irpa.umd.edu/CampusCounts/Admissions/apps_ug.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP—the number of APs (with good grades and test scores) is important relative to peers because colleges evaluate applicants vs kids from their school. I assume that’s why OP asked…

I agree that we should be asking about the need for APs freshman year, the AP “arms race” in general, kids taking AP classes to get the GPA bump while still having the option to skip the exam, and overall quality of instruction. These speak more to the quality vs quantity and are outside the scope of OP’s question.

Take that up with University Admissions. When your graduating class is 500-600 students in a district of 10,000-12,000 seniors, and your state flagship gets 60K applications for 5Kish spots, families are going to do whatever to get ahead. APs are one of those ways.

1K ish spots for the local district.

I’m the PP who mentioned the AP arms race—I totally agree that this is an issue for university admissions. UMD has always been competitive but I don’t recall (maybe I’ve forgotten?) the AP hysteria when I was in HS amongst kids who wanted UMD.

Great, allow us to disabuse you of the idea that college admissions today is anything like it was when you were a HS kid.

https://irpa.umd.edu/CampusCounts/Admissions/apps_ug.pdf

No need for snark. I didn’t mean to imply UMD wasn’t competitive or that kids don’t need to take APs to be in range for admissions these days. I was asking when it became necessary to take a ton of APs for admissions to very good and top schools.

Btw—This is a very helpful document so thank you for sharing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent and college counselor working with students applying to top 20 schools, I advise that taking the AP exam isn't always necessary, especially if your child isn’t interested in earning college credit. The added stress might not be worth it. Colleges primarily value the rigor of the AP course and the weighted GPA it provides. However, achieving an 'A' in the class itself can significantly strengthen their application. And I have plenty of examples of acceptances to prove this.

There is zero downside to taking the AP exam. You don’t like the score you can expunge it. If the added stress to take an exam is not worth it, then what are you going to do in college.

If there’s no score for the AP class it will be noted.

so you are saying - even for kids who wants to study psychology in college, it's better to take AP Calc BC exam - lol

100% yes. If the kid who wants to study psychology took the AP calculus BC class, they should sit for the AP exam. Otherwise the admission officers will be assuming the worst, eg no passing score. That’s why a lot of AP classes require the student to take the exam. You can demonstrate rigor with classes taken, grades and exam scores, preferably all.

AO should not assume anything. And from what I can tell AP exams matter very little in admissions. It is only used if you want to get credits.
As far as I can tell mcps doesn't require exams for any AP classes - unless this has changed recently.

From what can you tell? Not true, look up the AP wall of 5.

Mcps doesn't require AP exams for AP classes. Was trying to be gentle earlier but ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our school, 1-2 freshman year, 2-3 sophomore year (depending on whether the kid is ready for calc yet). And 5-6 junior and senior year.

wow - for top 20%? basically between 13 and 17. That's crazy and may not be right. What's top 10% do? 20-24?

If top 20% is 13-17, then the top 10% is the 17 of the range.

For example, at Whitman HS, you can see 13 AP exams and that over 100 students (20% Of 500 take), and 8 more that over 50 students take.

3-4 Social Studies
2 Math
2 English
2-4 Science
1 World Language
1-2 CS (one of them is Principles fake AP class)

And a smattering of electives that could add 2 per student.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jPaF7kQ1nUdfsODVwh-U4sesYZYn3y0s/view

This immediately doesn’t make sense. Assume top 20% are doing calc as juniors, what is their second AP? Are the majority doing stats? Very unlikely.

Also very few are doing four AP science classes. Very very few.

I'm sorry that facts hurt your feelings.

Facts don’t hurt my feelings. MVC is not an AP classes. A good class? Sure. An AP class? No.

My senior has taken MVC and linear algebra and is taking differential equations for her last semester. All fine classes but I would not characterize any of them as AP classes because they are not. Nor would I include them in her AP count if someone asked how many APs she has taken. They are an opportunity to explore an interest in depth, not a competition.

Ma'am, this a Wendy's.

the stupidest reply ever

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP—the number of APs (with good grades and test scores) is important relative to peers because colleges evaluate applicants vs kids from their school. I assume that’s why OP asked…

I agree that we should be asking about the need for APs freshman year, the AP “arms race” in general, kids taking AP classes to get the GPA bump while still having the option to skip the exam, and overall quality of instruction. These speak more to the quality vs quantity and are outside the scope of OP’s question.

Take that up with University Admissions. When your graduating class is 500-600 students in a district of 10,000-12,000 seniors, and your state flagship gets 60K applications for 5Kish spots, families are going to do whatever to get ahead. APs are one of those ways.

1K ish spots for the local district.

I’m the PP who mentioned the AP arms race—I totally agree that this is an issue for university admissions. UMD has always been competitive but I don’t recall (maybe I’ve forgotten?) the AP hysteria when I was in HS amongst kids who wanted UMD.

Great, allow us to disabuse you of the idea that college admissions today is anything like it was when you were a HS kid.

https://irpa.umd.edu/CampusCounts/Admissions/apps_ug.pdf

No need for snark. I didn’t mean to imply UMD wasn’t competitive or that kids don’t need to take APs to be in range for admissions these days. I was asking when it became necessary to take a ton of APs for admissions to very good and top schools.

Btw—This is a very helpful document so thank you for sharing.

When the expansion of spots in Colleges/University didn't keep pace with the explosion of population and number of students wanting to enter. When a college degree became a base requirement for a lot of jobs. When top employment offers continued to pulled from the same top universities not taking into account that other universities were just as good, until strategy and DEI folks pointed out the problem. When we decided the public schools are the place to solve all of societies ills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent and college counselor working with students applying to top 20 schools, I advise that taking the AP exam isn't always necessary, especially if your child isn’t interested in earning college credit. The added stress might not be worth it. Colleges primarily value the rigor of the AP course and the weighted GPA it provides. However, achieving an 'A' in the class itself can significantly strengthen their application. And I have plenty of examples of acceptances to prove this.

There is zero downside to taking the AP exam. You don’t like the score you can expunge it. If the added stress to take an exam is not worth it, then what are you going to do in college.

If there’s no score for the AP class it will be noted.

so you are saying - even for kids who wants to study psychology in college, it's better to take AP Calc BC exam - lol

100% yes. If the kid who wants to study psychology took the AP calculus BC class, they should sit for the AP exam. Otherwise the admission officers will be assuming the worst, eg no passing score. That’s why a lot of AP classes require the student to take the exam. You can demonstrate rigor with classes taken, grades and exam scores, preferably all.

+1 And the AP exam creates a standardization across public and private schools. Different teachers at different schools grade differently, but the AP exam is graded externally across schools.

That’s why private schools don’t like APs. They can pontificate about how great their unique curriculums are, but at the end of the day they don’t like that a child in McPS can also take and excel at 15 APs and get into the same colleges as the private school kid without paying 40k a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it normally around 10-14?

That's super low. You need to do better if you are serious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP—the number of APs (with good grades and test scores) is important relative to peers because colleges evaluate applicants vs kids from their school. I assume that’s why OP asked…

I agree that we should be asking about the need for APs freshman year, the AP “arms race” in general, kids taking AP classes to get the GPA bump while still having the option to skip the exam, and overall quality of instruction. These speak more to the quality vs quantity and are outside the scope of OP’s question.

Take that up with University Admissions. When your graduating class is 500-600 students in a district of 10,000-12,000 seniors, and your state flagship gets 60K applications for 5Kish spots, families are going to do whatever to get ahead. APs are one of those ways.

1K ish spots for the local district.

I’m the PP who mentioned the AP arms race—I totally agree that this is an issue for university admissions. UMD has always been competitive but I don’t recall (maybe I’ve forgotten?) the AP hysteria when I was in HS amongst kids who wanted UMD.

Great, allow us to disabuse you of the idea that college admissions today is anything like it was when you were a HS kid.

https://irpa.umd.edu/CampusCounts/Admissions/apps_ug.pdf

No need for snark. I didn’t mean to imply UMD wasn’t competitive or that kids don’t need to take APs to be in range for admissions these days. I was asking when it became necessary to take a ton of APs for admissions to very good and top schools.

Btw—This is a very helpful document so thank you for sharing.

How can the average admitted student GPA be 4.45? They get some weighting off AP classes for sure but so much that the average kid is at 4.45?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP—the number of APs (with good grades and test scores) is important relative to peers because colleges evaluate applicants vs kids from their school. I assume that’s why OP asked…

I agree that we should be asking about the need for APs freshman year, the AP “arms race” in general, kids taking AP classes to get the GPA bump while still having the option to skip the exam, and overall quality of instruction. These speak more to the quality vs quantity and are outside the scope of OP’s question.

AP has no GPA bump over Honors in MCPS.

I am aware there’s no GPa bump difference btwn AP and Honors classes at MCPS. My point was—you do not have to take the AP exam if you take the AP class which then makes the class another honors class but you still get the AP “credit” listed on your transcript. Sure colleges can see you didn’t take the exam or report the score but they see the elevated GPA nevertheless.

Fortunately most college use their own metrics that weight honors differently than APs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP—the number of APs (with good grades and test scores) is important relative to peers because colleges evaluate applicants vs kids from their school. I assume that’s why OP asked…

I agree that we should be asking about the need for APs freshman year, the AP “arms race” in general, kids taking AP classes to get the GPA bump while still having the option to skip the exam, and overall quality of instruction. These speak more to the quality vs quantity and are outside the scope of OP’s question.

Take that up with University Admissions. When your graduating class is 500-600 students in a district of 10,000-12,000 seniors, and your state flagship gets 60K applications for 5Kish spots, families are going to do whatever to get ahead. APs are one of those ways.

1K ish spots for the local district.

I’m the PP who mentioned the AP arms race—I totally agree that this is an issue for university admissions. UMD has always been competitive but I don’t recall (maybe I’ve forgotten?) the AP hysteria when I was in HS amongst kids who wanted UMD.

Great, allow us to disabuse you of the idea that college admissions today is anything like it was when you were a HS kid.

https://irpa.umd.edu/CampusCounts/Admissions/apps_ug.pdf

No need for snark. I didn’t mean to imply UMD wasn’t competitive or that kids don’t need to take APs to be in range for admissions these days. I was asking when it became necessary to take a ton of APs for admissions to very good and top schools.

Btw—This is a very helpful document so thank you for sharing.

How can the average admitted student GPA be 4.45? They get some weighting off AP classes for sure but so much that the average kid is at 4.45?

A 4.45 today is like a 3.2 from 30 years ago.