Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 09:42     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:Omg why


To get into a top college. See post immediately above.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 09:33     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.


That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.


There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

The other side of that coin is someone saying they'd ding the applicant who didn't submit the score, under the assumption that they must have scored low.


The fact that people are being suckered into taking an AP exam after taking pre-calc is a joke. It is a regular HS class. It is not "AP." Are we going to start having AP Finger Painting for kids in nursery school? An AP exam is theoretically meant to demonstrate mastery of college level work. Pre-calc is not college level. It is a pre-req for college level. I know that most of our discussions here are about top schools for which many kids take calc in HS, but even very average students take pre-calc in HS.


Context matters.

In smaller rural counties, Calculus might not be available *at all* from the public HS. At such HSs, AP Precalc with an AP test score is literally the most math any student can do.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 09:18     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:It’s irrelevant to be asking this of families in other school districts. All that matters is how many your kid takes relative to their peers in their high school.


This. What do top kids take at your school? We learned so much from older kids in our kids sports and extracurriculars - where they got in and what sort of course loads they took. After a few years of watching, it seems fairly formulaic.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 09:14     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Taking 15+ AP classes is ridiculous for the same reason you can't be a president of 5 clubs: you're spreading yourself too thin. It all becomes meaningless. Of course some students choose to sacrifice every hour of free time so they can take AP everything, but it's just a shallow choice, and a wrong one.


I agree that aiming for a higher number makes no sense. If I were an AO and it looked like you took AP everything, I would think you might have your priorities in the wrong place. It doesn't really matter the number of APs you take after the most rigorous ones are covered. If you want to be a physics major, best to have physics C if your school offers it, but then after that I cannot see colleges being impressed that you took APES or human geography or psych on top of that. There are only so many core APs that will really make sense for someone's major choice. Even if you are aiming to come across as a well rounded student, just make sure you have some rigorous ones covered in both humanities and math/science instead of trying to cram every single one in your schedule.


Agreed in general. However at a lot of large, academically diverse public high schools APs are used as a de facto college prep track, so kids wind up taking 10-15 APs just to stay in classes with the more serious students. No college is going to penalize an otherwise strong applicant for coming from that kind of high school and taking an in-context-typical number of APs.


Hadn't thought of that, but if this is the case it is a little sad. I am thankful my kid has good arts, music, and other non-AP electives.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 09:07     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Taking 15+ AP classes is ridiculous for the same reason you can't be a president of 5 clubs: you're spreading yourself too thin. It all becomes meaningless. Of course some students choose to sacrifice every hour of free time so they can take AP everything, but it's just a shallow choice, and a wrong one.


I agree that aiming for a higher number makes no sense. If I were an AO and it looked like you took AP everything, I would think you might have your priorities in the wrong place. It doesn't really matter the number of APs you take after the most rigorous ones are covered. If you want to be a physics major, best to have physics C if your school offers it, but then after that I cannot see colleges being impressed that you took APES or human geography or psych on top of that. There are only so many core APs that will really make sense for someone's major choice. Even if you are aiming to come across as a well rounded student, just make sure you have some rigorous ones covered in both humanities and math/science instead of trying to cram every single one in your schedule.


Agreed in general. However at a lot of large, academically diverse public high schools APs are used as a de facto college prep track, so kids wind up taking 10-15 APs just to stay in classes with the more serious students. No college is going to penalize an otherwise strong applicant for coming from that kind of high school and taking an in-context-typical number of APs.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 08:50     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:Taking 15+ AP classes is ridiculous for the same reason you can't be a president of 5 clubs: you're spreading yourself too thin. It all becomes meaningless. Of course some students choose to sacrifice every hour of free time so they can take AP everything, but it's just a shallow choice, and a wrong one.


I agree that aiming for a higher number makes no sense. If I were an AO and it looked like you took AP everything, I would think you might have your priorities in the wrong place. It doesn't really matter the number of APs you take after the most rigorous ones are covered. If you want to be a physics major, best to have physics C if your school offers it, but then after that I cannot see colleges being impressed that you took APES or human geography or psych on top of that. There are only so many core APs that will really make sense for someone's major choice. Even if you are aiming to come across as a well rounded student, just make sure you have some rigorous ones covered in both humanities and math/science instead of trying to cram every single one in your schedule.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 07:49     Subject: Re:How many APs?
12th- AP European History (scored a 3) and AP English (scored a 4).

He went to a private school and I think he would’ve been able to take a few more in public school. It’s fine though because he got out of English 101 so he’s happy.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 06:55     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My DS took 7 total and is in his 2nd yr at Princeton.

What you took and why and how that impacted you is so much more important than racking up 12-13 APs.

+1. Mine took 8, at a high school that offers many, and is at a T10.

I find this forum consistently overestimates the number of APs needed to be competitive. College admissions is not a race to the most APs.


That’s because not all AP courses are the same difficulty. AP Calculus BC, Physics (2), Chemistry, English (2), History (2) are all 8 classes but are the most rigorous one can take.

If you’re going after the number you’ll do the easier ones like Human geography, precalculus, Calculus AB that don’t matter much.


There is AP pre-calculus? WTF? What a joke. If I were in admissions at a top school I would immediately ding someone with this on their transcript for having the nerve to consider submitting it.

The other side of that coin is someone saying they'd ding the applicant who didn't submit the score, under the assumption that they must have scored low.


The fact that people are being suckered into taking an AP exam after taking pre-calc is a joke. It is a regular HS class. It is not "AP." Are we going to start having AP Finger Painting for kids in nursery school? An AP exam is theoretically meant to demonstrate mastery of college level work. Pre-calc is not college level. It is a pre-req for college level. I know that most of our discussions here are about top schools for which many kids take calc in HS, but even very average students take pre-calc in HS.


My kid is reporting the “5” she got after taking AP Precalc junior year to UCLA and UCB, both of which look at AP scores for admissions purposes but will be “blind” to her 800 SAT Math score. You can think it’s a “joke” if you want, but I’m quite pleased that the College Board abandoned theoretical purity in order to give kids like mine the opportunity to submit some kind of math score.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 06:23     Subject: How many APs?
It’s irrelevant to be asking this of families in other school districts. All that matters is how many your kid takes relative to their peers in their high school.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 05:03     Subject: How many APs?
oops forgot other kid

DS
9th grade - AP Gov't - 3
10th grade - AP US history 5
11th grade - AP lang, psych and Euro - 5,5,5
12th grade - took AP classes but no exams

5 APs taken, 4 x 5 and 1 x 3
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 05:01     Subject: How many APs?
Two kids

DD
9th grade - AP Govt - 4
10th grade - AP French & AP US - 3 & 3
11th grade - AP Bio, Lang & Psych - 5,5,5
12th grade - AP Calc & Chem - 5, 4

so total 8 APs
4 x 5's,
2 x 4's
2 x 3's (that was a bad year)
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 01:39     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:^ I’m the above poster, and my D26 won’t submit the Pre-calculus, because it shows up as Honors Precalc instead on the transcript. Yes, AP Precalc is silly.


Our school doesn't have AP precalc but thats as high as some kids get so its not silly.
Anonymous
Post 09/14/2025 01:08     Subject: How many APs?
Anonymous wrote:The fact that kids can take so many APs as sophomores and even freshmen shows how much it has been dumbed down. Kids these days aren't that much smarter.

I would be very worried about how well prepared my child is for classes that build sequentially off of AP classes, or advise them to retake the classes in college, particularly in areas they might be majoring in.

Most I've seen anyone post in 9th or 10th is two.