Is National AP Scholar impressive for top 20 schools? DS will have taken 17 APs by graduation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Probably more impressive to/useful for public flagships. T20 privates don’t think APs = college level work. In some ways and in some fields, they’re actually counter-productive because profs have to break kids of the bad habits AP rewards (eg trite, superficial, formulaic writing).

Get over yourself... how many AP essays have you read?

Lots. I’ve also taught at two t20 privates, was an undergrad at a 3rd, and have a kid at a fourth. So i’ve seen a lot of essays (and understand the grading standards) in that context as well. Also had a side gig teaching AP teachers (some of whom were also AP graders) and have discussed differing expectations between AP vs elite colleges with them.

So the kids in reg English staring at their phones or the ceiling are better prepared than kids taking more rigorous classes? Then tell us why all T20’s value rigor so highly.

What she is saying is that AP’s can be formulaic and superficial. There are private schools that teach non AP classes that actually go more in depth in their classes and some colleges prefer students who have taken those kinds of courses instead.

What an idiotic comment. Colleges look for applicants that have taken the most rigorous coursework available at their own school.

Actually, if you listen closely, what top schools are saying is take the most rigorous courses your school offers iin your area(s) of interest. Not “collect them all.” Not that AP is inherently more rigorous than other options (so yes, take the post AP courses in your field vs more APs in other subjects). Not that your high school is the only place you should look for/can find academic challenge. And certainly not that all APs are created equal. (Usually departments decide what (if anything) any given AP course/score gets you and there’s wide variation, with Calc B/C on the valuable end of the spectrum and history and social science courses on the lower. But it varies by university and it keeps changing.)

To be clear, I’m not saying OP’s kid won’t get into a t20 private school. I’m just saying (a) if s/he does, 17 APs with good scores won’t be why and (b) it’s important for kids at t20 schools to know, as early as possible, both that what gets you a 5 on an AP is not likely to get you an A at t20 school and that what you learn in an AP class is generally not equivalent to what you’re expected to know/be able to do by the end of a similarly named course at your college. So be careful wrt subbing AP for foundation courses in your major or adjacent fields. APs are fine for checking off requirements and giving you breathing space wrt courseload.

Not quite. [b]There are plenty of colleges that expect you to be taking rigorous classes in all subjects[\b] before college. That’s not saying that you need to take 17 AP’s (did this kid sleep? Did he have time for other activities?) but don’t put your eggs all in one basket.

Before a kid decides to do this kind of thing he/she should realize that it might not get him/her into a top university and they should weigh whether it’s worth being stressed all through high school.

“The most rigorous” is different from “rigorous.” So, yes t20s expect math beyond Algebra 2 and four years of a foreign language regardless of what a HS students’ strengths/interests are, but that doesn’t mean you must take Calc BC or AP Latin (if offered) to be a competitive candidate.

The poster’s assertion is that AP’s were potential liabilities to an application unto themselves and irrespective of impact on other achievements/activities, which is patently absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

https://www.thoughtco.com/stanford-gpa-sat-and-act-data-786643

Stanford’s scattergram isn’t the same as emory’s.

Pointless to post it unless you are going to post 30 scatter grams of top schools

I had never heard of Emory really until this thread. I think that most kids with those stats want to go to a top 10 school.
After that - unless you are rich - it might not be worth the funds to go to an ‘Emory’, it’s probably best to go to a good state school. Unless your family has the money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably more impressive to/useful for public flagships. T20 privates don’t think APs = college level work. In some ways and in some fields, they’re actually counter-productive because profs have to break kids of the bad habits AP rewards (eg trite, superficial, formulaic writing).

Get over yourself... how many AP essays have you read?

Lots. I’ve also taught at two t20 privates, was an undergrad at a 3rd, and have a kid at a fourth. So i’ve seen a lot of essays (and understand the grading standards) in that context as well. Also had a side gig teaching AP teachers (some of whom were also AP graders) and have discussed differing expectations between AP vs elite colleges with them.

So the kids in reg English staring at their phones or the ceiling are better prepared than kids taking more rigorous classes? Then tell us why all T20’s value rigor so highly.

What she is saying is that AP’s can be formulaic and superficial. There are private schools that teach non AP classes that actually go more in depth in their classes and some colleges prefer students who have taken those kinds of courses instead.

What an idiotic comment. Colleges look for applicants that have taken the most rigorous coursework available at their own school.

Actually, if you listen closely, what top schools are saying is take the most rigorous courses your school offers in your area(s) of interest. Not “collect them all.” Not that AP is inherently more rigorous than other options (so yes, take the post AP courses in your field vs more APs in other subjects). Not that your high school is the only place you should look for/can find academic challenge. And certainly not that all APs are created equal. (Usually departments decide what (if anything) any given AP course/score gets you and there’s wide variation, with Calc B/C on the valuable end of the spectrum and history and social science courses on the lower. But it varies by university and it keeps changing.)

To be clear, I’m not saying OP’s kid won’t get into a t20 private school. I’m just saying (a) if s/he does, 17 APs with good scores won’t be why and (b) it’s important for kids at t20 schools to know, as early as possible, both that what gets you a 5 on an AP is not likely to get you an A at t20 school and that what you learn in an AP class is generally not equivalent to what you’re expected to know/be able to do by the end of a similarly named course at your college. So be careful wrt subbing AP for foundation courses in your major or adjacent fields. APs are fine for checking off requirements and giving you breathing space wrt courseload.

Not quite. [b]There are plenty of colleges that expect you to be taking rigorous classes in all subjects[\b] before college. That’s not saying that you need to take 17 AP’s (did this kid sleep? Did he have time for other activities?) but don’t put your eggs all in one basket.

Before a kid decides to do this kind of thing he/she should realize that it might not get him/her into a top university and they should weigh whether it’s worth being stressed all through high school.

“The most rigorous” is different from “rigorous.” So, yes t20s expect math beyond Algebra 2 and four years of a foreign language regardless of what a HS students’ strengths/interests are, but that doesn’t mean you must take Calc BC or AP Latin (if offered) to be a competitive candidate.

The poster’s assertion is that AP’s were potential liabilities to an application unto themselves and irrespective of impact on other achievements/activities, which is patently absurd.

Not what I said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably more impressive to/useful for public flagships. T20 privates don’t think APs = college level work. In some ways and in some fields, they’re actually counter-productive because profs have to break kids of the bad habits AP rewards (eg trite, superficial, formulaic writing).

Get over yourself... how many AP essays have you read?

Lots. I’ve also taught at two t20 privates, was an undergrad at a 3rd, and have a kid at a fourth. So i’ve seen a lot of essays (and understand the grading standards) in that context as well. Also had a side gig teaching AP teachers (some of whom were also AP graders) and have discussed differing expectations between AP vs elite colleges with them.

So the kids in reg English staring at their phones or the ceiling are better prepared than kids taking more rigorous classes? Then tell us why all T20’s value rigor so highly.

What she is saying is that AP’s can be formulaic and superficial. There are private schools that teach non AP classes that actually go more in depth in their classes and some colleges prefer students who have taken those kinds of courses instead.

What an idiotic comment. Colleges look for applicants that have taken the most rigorous coursework available at their own school.

Actually, if you listen closely, what top schools are saying is take the most rigorous courses your school offers in your area(s) of interest. Not “collect them all.” Not that AP is inherently more rigorous than other options (so yes, take the post AP courses in your field vs more APs in other subjects). Not that your high school is the only place you should look for/can find academic challenge. And certainly not that all APs are created equal. (Usually departments decide what (if anything) any given AP course/score gets you and there’s wide variation, with Calc B/C on the valuable end of the spectrum and history and social science courses on the lower. But it varies by university and it keeps changing.)

To be clear, I’m not saying OP’s kid won’t get into a t20 private school. I’m just saying (a) if s/he does, 17 APs with good scores won’t be why and (b) it’s important for kids at t20 schools to know, as early as possible, both that what gets you a 5 on an AP is not likely to get you an A at t20 school and that what you learn in an AP class is generally not equivalent to what you’re expected to know/be able to do by the end of a similarly named course at your college. So be careful wrt subbing AP for foundation courses in your major or adjacent fields. APs are fine for checking off requirements and giving you breathing space wrt courseload.

Not quite. [b]There are plenty of colleges that expect you to be taking rigorous classes in all subjects[\b] before college. That’s not saying that you need to take 17 AP’s (did this kid sleep? Did he have time for other activities?) but don’t put your eggs all in one basket.

Before a kid decides to do this kind of thing he/she should realize that it might not get him/her into a top university and they should weigh whether it’s worth being stressed all through high school.

“The most rigorous” is different from “rigorous.” So, yes t20s expect math beyond Algebra 2 and four years of a foreign language regardless of what a HS students’ strengths/interests are, but that doesn’t mean you must take Calc BC or AP Latin (if offered) to be a competitive candidate.

The poster’s assertion is that AP’s were potential liabilities to an application unto themselves and irrespective of impact on other achievements/activities, which is patently absurd.

Not what I said.

Someone said they are “counterproductive”, which implies that AP’s are liabilities vs. reg classes. That’s silly, at least in terms of what adcoms are contemplating. Apologies if that wasn’t you.

I agree that AP credit and actual college classes aren’t equivalent, but I have kids in reg and AP classes and the rigor and difficulty disparity is clear. To the OP, make your student aware of the risks of skipping directly to 200- and 300-level courses, even if permitted by the school. It will put the student at a disadvantage. Mine did this and it was a real adjustment. He did 11 AP’s and I truly can’t imagine 17. Impressive, brutal and a little nuts!

[Anonymous]

Disparity between AP and non-AP is HS-specific. And if “difficulty” is primarily a function of memorizing lots of facts and being able to answer multiple choice questions, then it’s not necessarily rigor. It’s not hard, for example, to design a US History course that is more rigorous and less difficult/brutal than APUSH. I’m pretty sure my STEM kid would say the same about AP Bio (DC’s HS teachers definitely did). Saw it wrt AP foreign language as well. So not saying all APs, but also not generalizing from a single subject.

There’s an emphasis on conventionality and very little attention to/respect for nuance in AP exams/grading. Whereas t20 faculty tend to value thinking outside the box and detecting/analyzing cases that render generalizations problematic.

[Anonymous]

Challenging academics are only impressive if you an URM at a T-20. Then the colleges will swoon and gush over it. If you are Asian on the other hand, then it gets you the "grind" label along with " so typical and uninteresting" thrown in as a gratuitous insult. If you don't have it though, you may be questioned as a lazy Asian. If you are white, then they just chalk it up to your "white privilege" of being able to attend a suburban white school.

That's the sad state of T-20 admissions today

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Challenging academics are only impressive if you an URM at a T-20. Then the colleges will swoon and gush over it. If you are Asian on the other hand, then it gets you the "grind" label along with " so typical and uninteresting" thrown in as a gratuitous insult. If you don't have it though, you may be questioned as a lazy Asian. If you are white, then they just chalk it up to your "white privilege" of being able to attend a suburban white school.

That's the sad state of T-20 admissions today

I would think anyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, or any other background, who took 17 AP classes would be in danger of getting the "grind" label.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Challenging academics are only impressive if you an URM at a T-20. Then the colleges will swoon and gush over it. If you are Asian on the other hand, then it gets you the "grind" label along with " so typical and uninteresting" thrown in as a gratuitous insult. If you don't have it though, you may be questioned as a lazy Asian. If you are white, then they just chalk it up to your "white privilege" of being able to attend a suburban white school.

That's the sad state of T-20 admissions today

I would think anyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, or any other background, who took 17 AP classes would be in danger of getting the "grind" label.

A black kid who got 17 4s and 5s on APs would be on morning network tv shows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Challenging academics are only impressive if you an URM at a T-20. Then the colleges will swoon and gush over it. If you are Asian on the other hand, then it gets you the "grind" label along with " so typical and uninteresting" thrown in as a gratuitous insult. If you don't have it though, you may be questioned as a lazy Asian. If you are white, then they just chalk it up to your "white privilege" of being able to attend a suburban white school.

That's the sad state of T-20 admissions today

Stop being bitter and get on with your life. If only you spent as much time worrying about the real white supremacists who actually think you are less than human. I'm Asian-American with DCs at 5% admit schools. 20-25% of their classmates are Asian-American. Who do you think they are? It might be possible they bring something different/more that the Asian-Americans who don't get in. I think the black, Native American and Latinx kids certainly do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:5 or 4 on all of them.

I think the main thing is, especially if your DS voluntarily chose those classes because they seemed like the right classes, not because you pushed: it sounds as if you have a great, smart, hard-working son who's terrific. If some schools reject him because 17 AP classes makes them yawn: the college admissions process is crazy. You can't help the fact that admissions is crazy. Just be happy about the schools that do recognize your son's worth and admit him.

If some parents here are trying to minimize your son's achievement: they're probably just jealous, or angry about the possibility that other parents could have bright kids, too.

[Anonymous]

There is a reason that T30 acceptance rates have halved in the past 8-10 years. There are a lot of very smart kids out there who work really really hard. And the common app has made it easier for MORE of these kids to apply. Public schools have upped their game by offering two tracked/AP curriculum. 65% of ivy league acceptances are from public schools, I personally think there is a zero percent chance of a public school kid making it if if they were offered and not taken. Private school parents are now demanding APs be offered. It's another data point that top 30 schools want. AP tests are meaningful, actually very meaningful according to Fitzsimmons and other people close to the admissions process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason that T30 acceptance rates have halved in the past 8-10 years. There are a lot of very smart kids out there who work really really hard. And the common app has made it easier for MORE of these kids to apply. Public schools have upped their game by offering two tracked/AP curriculum. 65% of ivy league acceptances are from public schools, I personally think there is a zero percent chance of a public school kid making it if if they were offered and not taken. Private school parents are now demanding APs be offered. It's another data point that top 30 schools want. AP tests are meaningful, actually very meaningful according to Fitzsimmons and other people close to the admissions process.

And yet they don’t even ask for the scores during the admissions process....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:5 or 4 on all of them.

I think the main thing is, especially if your DS voluntarily chose those classes because they seemed like the right classes, not because you pushed: it sounds as if you have a great, smart, hard-working son who's terrific. If some schools reject him because 17 AP classes makes them yawn: the college admissions process is crazy. You can't help the fact that admissions is crazy. Just be happy about the schools that do recognize your son's worth and admit him.

If some parents here are trying to minimize your son's achievement: they're probably just jealous, or angry about the possibility that other parents could have bright kids, too.

ITA with the first paragraph.

And totally disagree with the second. What’s really going on here is a disagreement about education. And maybe some overlapping public vs. private school split. Basically, APs are designed to make money and that leads to a lot of decisions that are suboptimal from an educational standpoint (e.g. physics and stats exams that don’t require calc, exams a month before school ends, multiple choice). They are useful to (some) public schools for two reasons — one is that they give students from unknown (to a college admissions officer at a particular college) schools a credential that benchmarks what they’ve learned against a national cohort. The other is that they facilitate tracking (on a voluntary basis) that segregates smart/ambitious kids from others.

If you send your kid to a high school that has a track record of sending its grads to t20/highly selective undergrad programs, then the first function is unnecessary. And if DC’s HS has selective admissions, the second is largely superfluous. (Note that there are public schools that are feeders to t20s and have selective admissions, and that there are private schools with no track record at some t20s and/or that aren’t academically selective, so these divides aren’t strictly public vs private.). At which point, the benefits of AP don’t outweigh the detriments. And schools sometimes act on that understanding. Could be no AP classes, caps on number of APs, IB alternative. Where they don’t, you have a collective action problem (at least for those who don’t see the value of APs). And individual public HSs may have less room to makes these kinds of decisions (because of state or districtwide policies) than privates do.

I’m not jealous of or threatened by kids who take lots of APs. I’d just like to see smart, highly-motivated HS kids have access to/be encouraged to explore better alternatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:5 or 4 on all of them.

I think the main thing is, especially if your DS voluntarily chose those classes because they seemed like the right classes, not because you pushed: it sounds as if you have a great, smart, hard-working son who's terrific. If some schools reject him because 17 AP classes makes them yawn: the college admissions process is crazy. You can't help the fact that admissions is crazy. Just be happy about the schools that do recognize your son's worth and admit him.

If some parents here are trying to minimize your son's achievement: they're probably just jealous, or angry about the possibility that other parents could have bright kids, too.

ITA with the first paragraph.

And totally disagree with the second. What’s really going on here is a disagreement about education. And maybe some overlapping public vs. private school split. Basically, APs are designed to make money and that leads to a lot of decisions that are suboptimal from an educational standpoint (e.g. physics and stats exams that don’t require calc, exams a month before school ends, multiple choice). They are useful to (some) public schools for two reasons — one is that they give students from unknown (to a college admissions officer at a particular college) schools a credential that benchmarks what they’ve learned against a national cohort. The other is that they facilitate tracking (on a voluntary basis) that segregates smart/ambitious kids from others.

If you send your kid to a high school that has a track record of sending its grads to t20/highly selective undergrad programs, then the first function is unnecessary. And if DC’s HS has selective admissions, the second is largely superfluous. (Note that there are public schools that are feeders to t20s and have selective admissions, and that there are private schools with no track record at some t20s and/or that aren’t academically selective, so these divides aren’t strictly public vs private.). At which point, the benefits of AP don’t outweigh the detriments. And schools sometimes act on that understanding. Could be no AP classes, caps on number of APs, IB alternative. Where they don’t, you have a collective action problem (at least for those who don’t see the value of APs). And individual public HSs may have less room to makes these kinds of decisions (because of state or districtwide policies) than privates do.

I’m not jealous of or threatened by kids who take lots of APs. I’d just like to see smart, highly-motivated HS kids have access to/be encouraged to explore better alternatives.

Yup AP is an arms race in too many schools. People are just taking them for the GPA bump to try and be more competitive in class rank. There are many schools out there where if you don't take more than 5-8 APs you aren't going to be in the top 10% of your class which = forget about top college admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Challenging academics are only impressive if you an URM at a T-20. Then the colleges will swoon and gush over it. If you are Asian on the other hand, then it gets you the "grind" label along with " so typical and uninteresting" thrown in as a gratuitous insult. If you don't have it though, you may be questioned as a lazy Asian. If you are white, then they just chalk it up to your "white privilege" of being able to attend a suburban white school.

That's the sad state of T-20 admissions today

I would think anyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, or any other background, who took 17 AP classes would be in danger of getting the "grind" label.

You can’t contemplate that a bright child might want to challenge themself with more rigorous courses? That regular track courses were too easy for them? Stretch yourself to think beyond your rigid little world.