AP Stats experiences?

[Anonymous]

How hard is it? Is it a tedious slog? When should it be taken relative to other Math classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How hard is it? Is it a tedious slog? When should it be taken relative to other Math classes?

How hard depends on the student. If they are math/science oriented it is one of the easier APs. My oldest took it as an elective his senior year and my youngest took it in as an elective in his sophomore year. (Which meant they were taking the class at the same time) They both also took the next sequence in their math. However, there were plenty of seniors taking it as their math class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How hard is it? Is it a tedious slog? When should it be taken relative to other Math classes?

How hard depends on the student. If they are math/science oriented it is one of the easier APs. My oldest took it as an elective his senior year and my youngest took it in as an elective in his sophomore year. (Which meant they were taking the class at the same time) They both also took the next sequence in their math. However, there were plenty of seniors taking it as their math class.

I disagree with the above statement.

My DD shows a strong preference towards math and science (As). And is weaker in the humanities (B+). With the exception of AP Stats, my DD got straight As in all of her high school math and science classes including As in AP Calc BC and AP Physics. The lowest grade that she ever got throughout all of high school was AP Stats. The math in Stats is certainly not difficult (basic 4-function and very basic algebra). But its a lot of writing (which she hates), and everything has to be just perfect. So, if you have a nitpicky teacher (which my DD did), the student may struggle. I've known other students besides my DD who are also strong in calculus/physics type classes who have struggled in AP stats. I think a student's success depends on how strong the student is in writing (many don't even consider this a math class--this is often taken by humanities focused students). And it is also very teacher dependent.

I think for those students who are strong in all subjects (show no particular preference), or non-STEM students who are good writers/effective communicators, AP Stats would be fine. For STEM type students that demonstrate a significant disparity between math/science and humanities grades, it may be a difficult class.

Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

We also found it to be harder than expected. They seem to teach the subjects in a strange order (difficult concepts before easy ones).

It focuses a lot on study design, which is not bad but might trip up Math kids who did not know the class would be conceptual.

[Anonymous]

My DS had a hard time. He opted not to even take the AP exam. He will take it again in college and hopefully have a better experience.

[Anonymous]

My daughter took AP Stat last year as a junior. She is good at math it doesn’t come easy. She thought the test was extremely difficult and thought she bombed it but ended up with a 4.

[Anonymous]

I was a physics major and was one class shy of a dual major in math, and statistics was always the one subject that baffled me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How hard is it? Is it a tedious slog? When should it be taken relative to other Math classes?

How hard depends on the student. If they are math/science oriented it is one of the easier APs. My oldest took it as an elective his senior year and my youngest took it in as an elective in his sophomore year. (Which meant they were taking the class at the same time) They both also took the next sequence in their math. However, there were plenty of seniors taking it as their math class.

I disagree with the above statement.

My DD shows a strong preference towards math and science (As). And is weaker in the humanities (B+). With the exception of AP Stats, my DD got straight As in all of her high school math and science classes including As in AP Calc BC and AP Physics. The lowest grade that she ever got throughout all of high school was AP Stats. The math in Stats is certainly not difficult (basic 4-function and very basic algebra). But its a lot of writing (which she hates), and everything has to be just perfect. So, if you have a nitpicky teacher (which my DD did), the student may struggle. I've known other students besides my DD who are also strong in calculus/physics type classes who have struggled in AP stats. I think a student's success depends on how strong the student is in writing (many don't even consider this a math class--this is often taken by humanities focused students). And it is also very teacher dependent.

I think for those students who are strong in all subjects (show no particular preference), or non-STEM students who are good writers/effective communicators, AP Stats would be fine. For STEM type students that demonstrate a significant disparity between math/science and humanities grades, it may be a difficult class.

Hope that helps.

I guess we can agree to disagree. Both my children are not strong in English/writing. One was in special ed for English classes. Both did really well in AP Stats.

[Anonymous]

It depends on your kid's math sequence. It is easy if s/he takes it after Calculus, harder if after Precal, and extramely hard after algebra II.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I disagree with the above statement.

My DD shows a strong preference towards math and science (As). And is weaker in the humanities (B+). With the exception of AP Stats, my DD got straight As in all of her high school math and science classes including As in AP Calc BC and AP Physics. The lowest grade that she ever got throughout all of high school was AP Stats. The math in Stats is certainly not difficult (basic 4-function and very basic algebra). But its a lot of writing (which she hates), and everything has to be just perfect. So, if you have a nitpicky teacher (which my DD did), the student may struggle. I've known other students besides my DD who are also strong in calculus/physics type classes who have struggled in AP stats. I think a student's success depends on how strong the student is in writing (many don't even consider this a math class--this is often taken by humanities focused students). And it is also very teacher dependent.

I think for those students who are strong in all subjects (show no particular preference), or non-STEM students who are good writers/effective communicators, AP Stats would be fine. For STEM type students that demonstrate a significant disparity between math/science and humanities grades, it may be a difficult class.

Hope that helps.

That sounds like a teacher issue, not an AP Stats issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on your kid's math sequence. It is easy if s/he takes it after Calculus, harder if after Precal, and extramely hard after algebra II.

This is surprising. There is no calculus to speak of in a typical intro stats course. You may just be perceiving basic maturity or skills in math (kids who have already taken calc are probably seniors good at math...)

[Anonymous]

What is the general workload in AP Stats? (homework)? My dd wants to take it on top of a bunch of other hard classes. I don't the class would be very difficult (she's very math oriented) but I'm worried about the total amount of homework across all of the courses.

[Anonymous]

They focus on study design? Ugh.

I’m just sniping from the sidelines here, but stats for highschoolers should really be foundational: distributions, expectations and parametrization, distributions over multiple variables and all the relationships between conditional and joint distributions. That sets kids up for a lot of different directions: social psych inference and stats (study design), or stochastic processes (temporal domain), or filtering and linear systems, or engineering inference, or machine learning (prob in the linear algebra setting), etc. Plus it teaches kids how to think about uncertainty and variation and how we deal with it.

Its too bad if kids taking AP stats get specialized into social psych in the course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They focus on study design? Ugh.

I’m just sniping from the sidelines here, but stats for highschoolers should really be foundational: distributions, expectations and parametrization, distributions over multiple variables and all the relationships between conditional and joint distributions. That sets kids up for a lot of different directions: social psych inference and stats (study design), or stochastic processes (temporal domain), or filtering and linear systems, or engineering inference, or machine learning (prob in the linear algebra setting), etc. Plus it teaches kids how to think about uncertainty and variation and how we deal with it.

Its too bad if kids taking AP stats get specialized into social psych in the course.

Here you go, PP: https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-statistics/course-details

Read this before you snipe from the sidelines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They focus on study design? Ugh.

I’m just sniping from the sidelines here, but stats for highschoolers should really be foundational: distributions, expectations and parametrization, distributions over multiple variables and all the relationships between conditional and joint distributions. That sets kids up for a lot of different directions: social psych inference and stats (study design), or stochastic processes (temporal domain), or filtering and linear systems, or engineering inference, or machine learning (prob in the linear algebra setting), etc. Plus it teaches kids how to think about uncertainty and variation and how we deal with it.

Its too bad if kids taking AP stats get specialized into social psych in the course.

Here you go, PP: https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-statistics/course-details

Read this before you snipe from the sidelines.

Yes, PP, you are describing a very different course. AP Statistics, is really just statistical literacy--can you interpret information that is presented in statistical form and use terminology correctly. Check out a sample test, it's quicker than wading through the course description.