What's the typical HS practice for taking APs?

[Anonymous]

At our school, taking the AP exam is not mandatory. My kids took and are taking a lot of AP courses, but just took a few of the exams and did well, but not senior year (one might decide to, to place higher freshman year).
They did not take AP classes to game their GPA. They took them for the rigor and genuine interest. It's been a very mixed bag in terms of how teachers (as much as I respect them) prepare them for exams. Mine had to self study for the APs they took, because most of their teachers did not stick to the AP curriculum which we found strange.
No love for College Board here, a for-profit company having an undue influence on the education of our students.

[Anonymous]

How do you find out what the top 5-10% of your kid's HS is doing with regard to APs?

-parent of HS freshman who has no clue about all this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you find out what the top 5-10% of your kid's HS is doing with regard to APs?

-parent of HS freshman who has no clue about all this

IDK. But we let ours choose whatever they wanted. They understood to get into the schools they were interested in, it would mean taking as many APs as they were comfortable with and that they could do well in. But no more than that. Balancing happiness and health. Kids tend to hear from their peers what kind of courseload they are taking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you find out what the top 5-10% of your kid's HS is doing with regard to APs?

-parent of HS freshman who has no clue about all this

Here is what we did with our older child (we had "learned the ropes" for our younger kid):

- take the AP class offered to 9th graders, b/c students who will wind up in top 5-10% of the grade (and I don't mean via just gpa b/c there are many kids with 4.0s in mcps) will ultimately have a heavy AP load so you are getting off on the right track - in my kids' HS this was AP NSL which is a class very easy to succeed in so great for 9th graders and a first AP
- make sure by graduation you have taken an AP in each of the 5 core subjects - english, math, history, world language and hard science
- go deep in APs in a subject area that interests you - for some kids that is hard science, for some it is history
- as a soph (or even frosh) sketch out a few possible course pathways for future years so you can get in requirements and still fit in APs (i.e., some AP classes are double period in the hard sciences so if this is your passion you might need to play with your schedule to make sure you can fit them in later)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you find out what the top 5-10% of your kid's HS is doing with regard to APs?

-parent of HS freshman who has no clue about all this

Here is what we did with our older child (we had "learned the ropes" for our younger kid):

- take the AP class offered to 9th graders, b/c students who will wind up in top 5-10% of the grade (and I don't mean via just gpa b/c there are many kids with 4.0s in mcps) will ultimately have a heavy AP load so you are getting off on the right track - in my kids' HS this was AP NSL which is a class very easy to succeed in so great for 9th graders and a first AP
- make sure by graduation you have taken an AP in each of the 5 core subjects - english, math, history, world language and hard science
- go deep in APs in a subject area that interests you - for some kids that is hard science, for some it is history
- as a soph (or even frosh) sketch out a few possible course pathways for future years so you can get in requirements and still fit in APs (i.e., some AP classes are double period in the hard sciences so if this is your passion you might need to play with your schedule to make sure you can fit them in later)

"make sure by graduation you have taken an AP in each of the 5 core subjects - english, math, history, world language and hard science"

I like this one!

[Anonymous]

Yes good thoughts but not necessary. I've got one at a great school (top 15) who took only 5 APs (only sciences, math and history). Only took 2 of the exams. Other parts of the application were pretty great (GPA, ACT, EC's, essay, LORs that spoke to how highly regarded she was). There are many kids like her. Increasingly College Board is putting the screws on high schools to offer AP courses to freshmen and sophomores - to increase their own profits, not to improve the quality of education. It is impacting the mental health of our kids and honestly affecting the art of teaching. Just to say that there are so many other considerations than APs. Mine fyi was a 2022 HS graduate so this is recent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you find out what the top 5-10% of your kid's HS is doing with regard to APs?

-parent of HS freshman who has no clue about all this

Word of mouth and confirmed by guidance counselor during college application process. 13-15 APs is pretty aggressive and I am not sure this is standard across all of FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes good thoughts but not necessary. I've got one at a great school (top 15) who took only 5 APs (only sciences, math and history). Only took 2 of the exams. Other parts of the application were pretty great (GPA, ACT, EC's, essay, LORs that spoke to how highly regarded she was). There are many kids like her. Increasingly College Board is putting the screws on high schools to offer AP courses to freshmen and sophomores - to increase their own profits, not to improve the quality of education. It is impacting the mental health of our kids and honestly affecting the art of teaching. Just to say that there are so many other considerations than APs. Mine fyi was a 2022 HS graduate so this is recent.

This is really high school dependent - at our mcps high school, I would be shocked if anyone in the top 20% much less top 5-10% only took 5 APs. Even AP-averse students seem to take these AP's: NSL, environ science (you need physics or an AP hard sci to graduate, less sci inclined students often prefer env sci to physics), comp sci principles (for graduation tech credit), english lang, psychology and/or econ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes good thoughts but not necessary. I've got one at a great school (top 15) who took only 5 APs (only sciences, math and history). Only took 2 of the exams. Other parts of the application were pretty great (GPA, ACT, EC's, essay, LORs that spoke to how highly regarded she was). There are many kids like her. Increasingly College Board is putting the screws on high schools to offer AP courses to freshmen and sophomores - to increase their own profits, not to improve the quality of education. It is impacting the mental health of our kids and honestly affecting the art of teaching. Just to say that there are so many other considerations than APs. Mine fyi was a 2022 HS graduate so this is recent.

This is really high school dependent - at our mcps high school, I would be shocked if anyone in the top 20% much less top 5-10% only took 5 APs. Even AP-averse students seem to take these AP's: NSL, environ science (you need physics or an AP hard sci to graduate, less sci inclined students often prefer env sci to physics), comp sci principles (for graduation tech credit), english lang, psychology and/or econ.

oh, and ap stat, esp for those not inclined toward calculus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you find out what the top 5-10% of your kid's HS is doing with regard to APs?

-parent of HS freshman who has no clue about all this

Word of mouth and confirmed by guidance counselor during college application process. 13-15 APs is pretty aggressive and I am not sure this is standard across all of FCPS.

9th- 0- Didn't think it was even an option. DC probably could have handled 1 but may not have made the most of it.
10th- 1- Scored a 4 on the AP test. Probably could have handled 2 by this time.
11th- 4- Scored two 4s and two 5s on tests. Also took 1 DE class for Language. DC was regretting only taking Honors Physics, said could have handled 5.
12th- 6 - DC is loving the rigor and topics of all their classes. 7th class is DE. Plans to take all AP tests, and by this time have the discipline to know the work it takes.

So that's 11 APs and 2 DE. I told DC to ask their counselor if the courseload qualifies for checking the "most rigorous" box and the counselor said yes.