My DD did 9 as a mix of in-school and self-study. She found it somewhat stressful from a time management perspective, but said the actual course material wasn't overly challenging except in the classes she knew from the beginning would be her weakest. She claims that after high school, her college schedule is fairly easy in comparison (attending a good but not top-tier school, just below the US News top 50 ranking).

I think the overall package, including extra-curricular or work experience, and the specific student's mix of grades and scores, is probably more important than the number of AP classes taken. My advice would be for a student to only take an AP class if they think they can reasonably attain a B or above in the course itself and stand a shot at getting a 3 or above on the test.

It is hard not to overload on AP tests. W-L doesn't offer honors English in 11th. It is AP, or drop a level.

I have heard that there is also cheating on the AP exams, with certain students having the questions hours before the actual test. How can this happen?

The AP has a quick and strict curriculum that your child needs to keep on top of and not allow much time for true grasp and learning. On top of the ridiculous assignments. The only positive is that the last month of school is a total breeze and if you have a good teacher (rare) you can really learn some good stuff when they get to teach outside of the box.

Personally, my child suffered because her AP Psych class barely touched upon what she needed to know for subsequent college courses.

Anonymous wrote:argh - My kid has one teacher who thinks that AP should include many, many independent projects. My kid is getting killed by weekly posters that are non-substantive busy work requiring hours and hours of effort. When I talked to the teacher, she falls back on the line that this is an AP level course and supposed to be harder. I told her that I had never had a class in college with posters. I would understand if there was additional reading or writing assignments, but this busy work is crushing my kid because it is so time consuming.

I love you.

You can check how much AP credit will actually transfer to different colleges and what scores are required here: https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/creditandplacement/search-credit-policies

Anonymous wrote:UNC did research that showed no correlation with success in college beyond taking 5 AP classes. So they changed their policy to not give any additional weight to applicants taking more than 5 AP classes.

Google the research for better explanation than I can give.

I think 5 or 6 is plenty. 3 might be fine.... as long as you do WELL in them. It doesn't look as good to take 10 and only get 2's on the exams.

Many colleges aren't even accepting the AP classes at all anymore. Or at least looking at them and then making you retake the course or not giving you credit. It changes yearly. Please do your research and let your kids have a normal high school life. Why stress them for the last 4 years of childhood. I have never understood that. Only to go to a top notch school and stress them out not only with more school but debt too? A Bachelor's means very little these days and the suicide, anxiety and depression is at an all-time high. One can easily go to community for 2 years and then transfer or go to a state school and then look into what they want to do beyond their very inexpensive bachelor's degree they just earned.