Or are you saying that the talented kids don’t get to start APS until senior year? Here many have completed high school cirruculum by end of freshman year ,but then APs are taught over the whole year so total amount is limited to 18.
S1’s HS STEM program covered AP Calc BC as a one-semester class and went on to more and deeper stuff. I used to see second semester calc problem sets in the “BC Calc” class that were labeled as coming from UMich, Dartmouth, etc. Multivariable was one semester, as was Lin Alg and the other post-AP math electives. AP Stat there was calculus-based, and the old AP CompSci AB (which covered more than CS A) went way beyond AP curriculum, too. These were also one-semester classes. Because they weren’t labeled AP, the STEM program didn’t have to jump through College Board hoops and had the freedom to design interesting and challenging electives.
@gwnorth I think they mean an entire school year. Our school is the same. We go from mid August to June, with three trimesters. AP classes go on for all three trimesters, but only the first two trimesters are weighted because that equals to a one regular year high school course. The third trimester is called a seminar and doesn’t carry the extra weight.
@InfoQuestMom what I mean is that at DS’s school AP courses are 1 semester long taken either first semester (September to Jan) or 2nd (Feb-May). The courses do not run across the semesters. As an example DS19 had AP Chem and AP Physics first semester and AP Calc AB second semester. They cover the material in about 4 months time (though the classes are 75 min a day x 5 days a week which is more hours than a typical university course).
@VickiSoCal here in TX, our school district only allows 2 APs prior to Jr year. My S22 took the APHuman Geo exam (without taking the AP class) so he could take 2 APs next year.
This was the first year that AP Human was offered to Freshman in our school district. Our HS alone had over 100 kids take that class/exam. IMO, most Freshman are not ready to take an AP exam. but I would hesitate to say that if as a freshman they did not do well on an AP as a freshmen they should be prohibited from taking additional APs… much can be learned from an experience.
(My D20 also took the AP Human exam without taking the class as a Freshman and got a 5.) Have heard the test was harder this year from our administration and AP_Trevor indicated that it was the worst performance in some time.
Our HS doesn’t offer AP classes before junior year and then you can take 2 junior year and 6 senior year. We regularly send kids to the Ivies so it certainly doesn’t seem to harm anyone. My son took 5 total and is going to a very competitive school next year.
Trevor’s exact comments:
Not to let Trevor off the hook, since he and his organization helped create this beast. While we don’t have all the 2019 data, in 2018, 142K freshman, 65% of the total, took the APHG exam.
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2018/Program-Summary-Report-2018.pdf
To a point in my earlier post, there are not, IMO, 142K freshman who are ready to take a college-level course, setting aside the fact that I’ve gone on record as saying that APHG, as structured, is not a college-level course.
I don’t think they should have to get a 4 or 5 as Freshmen to wver take and AP again. But if you get a 2 on HUG you shouldn’t go on to 2 or 3 APs sophomore year.
@VickiSoCal Students don’t get their schedules until right before the start of school, that doesn’t mean that the bulk of the scheduling work gets done at that time. There will always be last minute tweaks to accommodate for last minute changes in enrollment and errors, but I am sure most of the scheduling work is done well ahead of time.
@gwnorth Thank you for the clarification.
Our pups each had 16 or more. 1-2 Freshman year, 4 soph, 5-6 junior, 6-7 senior year. It was right for them.
The data on average test scores is really meaningless, though, because there are more than a few “disadvantaged” schools where the school encourages kids to take AP courses that are thought to be “easier”, then requires kids to take the exams, and pays the fees for it. Kids regularly fail the AP exam but are still given credit for passing the high school course.
Any kid who passes an AP class taught in a disadvantaged school district is a gem. Especially when the rest of the class is full of kids who shouldn’t be there.
These AP classes are out of control. My upcoming junior daughter is in a Philly magnet high school that thankfully has only 5 AP classes. Their regular classes are quite rigorous and she has all A’s in her classes. She may take one or two senior year depending how she does this upcoming year. They also have a senior project. Her school really doesn’t focus on the AP classes and more on being a well balanced student which is why we chose to go there. She takes music, is in the all city choir, takes outside art classes, and has over 100 hours of community service. I’m sure she will get into a good college without all the AP classes. I also work at Penn so I see first hand what these kids go through and why the suicide rate is so high there.