How many classes in 11th or 12th should be AP level or how many are "too much"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My striver kid in a magnet program took the following APs:

Freshman year: CS Principles, Seminar
Sophomore year: Java, NSL
Junior (current): World, Stats, BC Cal, Psychology, Lang
Senior (expected): Physics C (this is 2), Environmental, Research, Geography. Note will be taking MV which isn’t AP.

So my kid will take 14. He took what he wanted. You’ll note AP Lit isn’t there as he’s not an English person. He hated Spanish and dropped it after level 4 YMWV.

What is the magnet part? I see 5 non magnet courses Junior and Senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question - is the expectation to get all 5s if APs are taken? Or put another way, is it better to take no AP at all than an AP and get a 3 or a 4?

A 4 is a good score that should be reported. I'm not sure about the rest.

You take the AP. General rule is always report if it is a 4 or 5. Only report if it is a 3 if the school gives credits for 3s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the student, what they want to do and what they think they can handle. DD likes to do it all. She is taking APUSH in 10th and plans to take:

11th grade: AP World, AP Lang, AP Chem, AP Calc BC
12th grade: AP Lit, AP Bio, AP Stats, AP Latin, probably an AP social science (Micro/Macro, Euro History, US Gov, Human Geo.

So that's 10 or 11?

DS, who's graduating this year and going to a LAC ranked in the top 50, will have taken 6 (Micro/Macro, Env Sci, Calc AB, European History, Stats). He doesn't take honors everything; he doesn't want to kill himself and plans his courseload accordingly.

My DD is similar to yours with an almost identical course selection. But getting B’s in Cal BC. A’s in everything else.

BC is hard. My kid did AB first, and got a B in first semester of BC. Teacher aims to make it challenging, and over the last 10+ years, has a 99%+ success rate for 4s or 5s on the AP test. In fact it's over 95% for 5s. So my kid got a 5 and took credit for calc 1 and 2 at a T40 as engineering major. Was well prepared for Calc3/4/Diff Eq. And officially that B- became an A- due to the AP test score (but by then the final transcript was sent and who really cares).

That teacher is a jerk for unilaterally spiking students' grades.

[Anonymous]

Since schools give credit for AP classes (so long as you scored a four or five on the exam), wouldn't they have an incentive not to take an applicant with a ton of AP classes because that's fewer tuition dollars spent at their institution to get that student to graduation?

[Anonymous]

If your kid isn’t sure if they want to go into a stem field, how important is it to have an AP science? For example, if the student took an AP science junior year, do they really need to take one senior year or is one enough?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid isn’t sure if they want to go into a stem field, how important is it to have an AP science? For example, if the student took an AP science junior year, do they really need to take one senior year or is one enough?

If a STEM field is a possibility and they are aiming for highly selective colleges, ideally for senior year they would choose AP chem, AP bio or AP physics C. I think the same applies even if the kid took AP Physics 1 as a first physics course junior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid isn’t sure if they want to go into a stem field, how important is it to have an AP science? For example, if the student took an AP science junior year, do they really need to take one senior year or is one enough?

If a STEM field is a possibility and they are aiming for highly selective colleges, ideally for senior year they would choose AP chem, AP bio or AP physics C. I think the same applies even if the kid took AP Physics 1 as a first physics course junior year.

To add, if they already took AP chem or AP bio or AP Physics C during junior year, then I think they're good, any science elective will do for senior year, provided they have at least one course of some type in the regular subject areas of bio, chem, and physics, plus an AP of one of these.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the student, what they want to do and what they think they can handle. DD likes to do it all. She is taking APUSH in 10th and plans to take:

11th grade: AP World, AP Lang, AP Chem, AP Calc BC
12th grade: AP Lit, AP Bio, AP Stats, AP Latin, probably an AP social science (Micro/Macro, Euro History, US Gov, Human Geo.

So that's 10 or 11?

DS, who's graduating this year and going to a LAC ranked in the top 50, will have taken 6 (Micro/Macro, Env Sci, Calc AB, European History, Stats). He doesn't take honors everything; he doesn't want to kill himself and plans his courseload accordingly.

My DD is similar to yours with an almost identical course selection. But getting B’s in Cal BC. A’s in everything else.

BC is hard. My kid did AB first, and got a B in first semester of BC. Teacher aims to make it challenging, and over the last 10+ years, has a 99%+ success rate for 4s or 5s on the AP test. In fact it's over 95% for 5s. So my kid got a 5 and took credit for calc 1 and 2 at a T40 as engineering major. Was well prepared for Calc3/4/Diff Eq. And officially that B- became an A- due to the AP test score (but by then the final transcript was sent and who really cares).

That teacher is a jerk for unilaterally spiking students' grades.

It was hard because there were a few kids who did really really really well (as in the 10th graders taking BC without any other calc--so way advanced)So they could only curve it so much. Teacher gave my kid a B-, when in reality they had a C+. My kid never got below an A- in school, so yeah it sucked and possibly stopped my kid from getting Into their ED1 (got deferred and then rejected). Because the B- was on the transcript until August after graduation .

But overall the teacher was an amazing teacher and fact is in our HS, they want you to take AB first, so 98% of kids taking BC are seniors and it doesn't really affect most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid isn’t sure if they want to go into a stem field, how important is it to have an AP science? For example, if the student took an AP science junior year, do they really need to take one senior year or is one enough?

If a STEM field is a possibility and they are aiming for highly selective colleges, ideally for senior year they would choose AP chem, AP bio or AP physics C. I think the same applies even if the kid took AP Physics 1 as a first physics course junior year.

This also because college Science courses are HARD and typically weed out (for premeds). So it is helpful even if you don't take AP credit, that you have had AP Chem if you need to take Chem 101. I've watched top students in HS go to college after having had the AP course and still struggle in the classes. I can't imagine what it would be like without the AP course (Actually I can---had a kid who tried premed and had to drop the Chem without the AP in HS and managed a C+ in the other science which they had the AP course in HS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the student, what they want to do and what they think they can handle. DD likes to do it all. She is taking APUSH in 10th and plans to take:

11th grade: AP World, AP Lang, AP Chem, AP Calc BC
12th grade: AP Lit, AP Bio, AP Stats, AP Latin, probably an AP social science (Micro/Macro, Euro History, US Gov, Human Geo.

So that's 10 or 11?

DS, who's graduating this year and going to a LAC ranked in the top 50, will have taken 6 (Micro/Macro, Env Sci, Calc AB, European History, Stats). He doesn't take honors everything; he doesn't want to kill himself and plans his courseload accordingly.

My DD is similar to yours with an almost identical course selection. But getting B’s in Cal BC. A’s in everything else.

BC is hard. My kid did AB first, and got a B in first semester of BC. Teacher aims to make it challenging, and over the last 10+ years, has a 99%+ success rate for 4s or 5s on the AP test. In fact it's over 95% for 5s. So my kid got a 5 and took credit for calc 1 and 2 at a T40 as engineering major. Was well prepared for Calc3/4/Diff Eq. And officially that B- became an A- due to the AP test score (but by then the final transcript was sent and who really cares).

That teacher is a jerk for unilaterally spiking students' grades.

It was hard because there were a few kids who did really really really well (as in the 10th graders taking BC without any other calc--so way advanced)So they could only curve it so much. Teacher gave my kid a B-, when in reality they had a C+. My kid never got below an A- in school, so yeah it sucked and possibly stopped my kid from getting Into their ED1 (got deferred and then rejected). Because the B- was on the transcript until August after graduation .

But overall the teacher was an amazing teacher and fact is in our HS, they want you to take AB first, so 98% of kids taking BC are seniors and it doesn't really affect most.

That's not reality.

That's insane grading. Punishing all the students just because one of them goes extra above and beyond? The limit to how much you can curve is the actual standard for the class. Swapping in a different, more advanced class, and then grading against a different standard, is malpractice.

If an English teacher assigns a 5-10 page paper, and one kid turns in a 10 page paper, does everyone else who turned in 5 pages get a 50%? No!

I'd be in the principal's office getting this clown disciplined.

It's late for your kid, but you should still reach out for the sake of future students this jerk is trying to keep out of appropriate college placements.

[Anonymous]

Our oldest did AP everything and could handle it. That made us think it wasn't a big deal - but we were wring. Now our youngest is struggling. He is the "smart one" but he doesn't have the personality to grind every single day.

Pay attention to their personalities!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest did AP everything and could handle it. That made us think it wasn't a big deal - but we were wring. Now our youngest is struggling. He is the "smart one" but he doesn't have the personality to grind every single day.

Pay attention to their personalities!

100% My naturally "smartest" kid is also the sloppiest and laziest student. My other kid is an intrinsically motivated grinder who juggled more in school and was very successful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid isn’t sure if they want to go into a stem field, how important is it to have an AP science? For example, if the student took an AP science junior year, do they really need to take one senior year or is one enough?

If they want to go to an Ivy then they would need the full collection of Stem and Humanities AP classes & exams. Anywhere else is going to need looking at on a case by case basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid isn’t sure if they want to go into a stem field, how important is it to have an AP science? For example, if the student took an AP science junior year, do they really need to take one senior year or is one enough?

If a STEM field is a possibility and they are aiming for highly selective colleges, ideally for senior year they would choose AP chem, AP bio or AP physics C. I think the same applies even if the kid took AP Physics 1 as a first physics course junior year.

To add, if they already took AP chem or AP bio or AP Physics C during junior year, then I think they're good, any science elective will do for senior year, provided they have at least one course of some type in the regular subject areas of bio, chem, and physics, plus an AP of one of these.

So, AP Chem or Bio junior year checks the box, right? My kid has not taken physics and I’m not sure AP works in the schedule bc it’s 2 periods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid isn’t sure if they want to go into a stem field, how important is it to have an AP science? For example, if the student took an AP science junior year, do they really need to take one senior year or is one enough?

If they want to go to an Ivy then they would need the full collection of Stem and Humanities AP classes & exams. Anywhere else is going to need looking at on a case by case basis.

Mine will have a full set after junior year. They want to take non-ap science senior year.