AP Classes - Which Ones? How Many? When?

Applying to College
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Thanks for the clarification. I had no idea before you mentioned it that people can say a lot of things with no basis in reality online. Is there some indication something is strange? This is what appears to be the methodology. 1) The college board writes an exam ostensibly to follow some kind of reasonable distribution of scores and administers the test to current college students. 2) Depending on the performance of college students on that exam, a scoring distribution is made for high school students taking the exam.

But, you have cases where 40+% of high school students taking some non-language, mostly STEM exams are getting the top score on the AP exam. So something is going on. One possibility is that the CB is not getting anything like a normal distribution for College Students taking the exam. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for other STEM and non-STEM exams where the distribution of 5’s, 4’s, 3’s is much more normalized - ie 10% of high school students get 5’s. Or it could be the case that high school students taking certain STEM AP’s are many times more adept (likely 400% more adept or more given the shift in the underlying curve and the huge bump of the left tail) than the college student test group. That’s a fairly immense difference in scholastic ability. Also is there a 200% difference in scholastic ability between students taking the AB and BC calc exam? Some schools only offer AB. Possible, but to me it’s far from “I see no evidence”.

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Or it could be selection bias as I posited earlier.

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Selection bias is different from “the high school students taking certain STEM AP’s”? How so? Should I have said “the high school students selecting certain STEM AP’s to make it clearer? Or are you just agreeing in a way I’m not understanding? If so, thanks for acknowledging.

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One possible indication would be the Albert.io score calculator. This would indicate that one needs <60% of the available points on the Calculus BC exam to score a 5. For the Calculus AB exam, that number is just under 70%. Given that the additional tested material on the BC exam is limited, one can really get a lot wrong especially on the “C” part and still get a 5.

The more this statement is true, the more the disparity in grading and score distributions between Calc AB and BC seem unusual.

Yet how a school structures its BC curriculum has no impact on the actual BC exam or what is covered therein.

Agreed about the Chinese AP. Given how many Chinese language schools I have seen crop up over in upper middle class neighborhoods and the number of kids pushed by their parents to learn Chinese, I’m guessing a lot of kids everywhere got a good foundation in Chinese. In college and after, I think that continues. For a while, Chinese was the most popular language for the 2 semester requirement at Wharton.

I see this sentiment a lot here. I always wonder why so many jump to this conclusion not only about individual students but further about students who self study as a group. Pianists compete in state and national competitions, Instrumentalists audition for elite ensembles, athletes participate in sports in 4 seasons per year. For a lacrosse player, it’s so obvious and cool that they also play basketball in the winter and run fall track. They’re an athlete right? No presumption that they think that being a 3 season varsity athlete is better for admissions than limiting themself to 1 season. They just love sports right? But the intuition is for scholars applying to institutions calling themselves “schools” and not “clubs”, the presumption is that a person studying a lot is just gaming the system. And given the demographics of a lot of these different activities, there are clear issues with that kind of presumed virtue signaling. Why is the athlete authentic and the scholar is not? These presumptions are an unfortunate side effect of the holistic admissions process and an attitude just not seen in most successful and storied educational systems worldwide. Until SFFA there were other unfortunate side effects as well.

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Our perspective is a little different - I have a homeschooled kid who has great stats but didn’t want a highly competitive school (kid will be attending Clemson and was accepted at several comparable schools) and is a great test taker. We knew that kid was likely headed into engineering and also that kid would likely be able to pass several APs each year if we set that as the goal.

Ultimately we decided that taking tons of APs wasn’t a great use of time. Kid plays a sport, earned his Eagle in scouting, and competes in Science Olympiad and quiz bowl. The academic competitions provide plenty of outlet for a kid who just likes to learn stuff. So, we recommended that kid take classes that would get him out of the freshman weeder classes, with an emphasis on classes that would allow him to DE other classes that would be useful and would transfer. He ended up taking the following exams: 9th grade - Chemistry, 10th - Biology and US History, 11th - Calc BC and English Language.

Chemistry and Calc BC were home-designed classes, Biology and History were taken with some study after taking the relevant co-op class (not AP, but the content aligned quite well with the test), and English Language was not difficult after taking several years of English from a great teacher. This combo allowed kiddo to take Physics with Calc 1 and 2, Calc 3, and British Lit DE during senior year (in addition to some other DE over 11th and 12th that didn’t have prereqs).

All of these courses were at the correct level for kid, and we could have had more. But, there was nothing to be gained for us. Instead of AP World/European History, we designed a cool class looking at history through military action and trade. Instead of AP CS, spouse designed 2 years worth of computing courses that cover various advanced topics. After taking a required Freshman Engineering class online over the summer, kid will be able to start college as a sophomore, graduating in 3 years by taking the regular schedule. We are encouraging a 5 years to a masters plan, but double majoring is also a possibility. Or graduating in 3 years and getting a job, if kid is tired of school…it’s hard for me to imagine with this kid, but who knows what the future holds.

Our path makes me think of AP exams as having 3 purposes. Some students may feel like they need them to show rigor, and some students may feel like it’s the best way to take a class that covers interesting information, and some students may be taking the exams with the hope of having a lighter courseload or a shorter time to degree (cost savings). I think it’s important to help students define what their goal is in order to figure out what will benefit them. There are lots of ways to learn interesting things, but those may not be available to all students. Students are often poorly advised about which classes they need to take in order to actually graduate more quickly (taking 2 AP English exams and 3 AP history/social studies exams will likely not lead to a quicker completion time for a STEM student whose progress is limited by math sequencing or prereqs). And unprepared students taking AP exams to show rigor would be better off in a class that was teaching them the skills that they need to be learning. I think the answers have to be unique to each student.

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Not jumping to any conclusions. I believe that for the people who say that is the reason they are self studying for an AP test. I’ve heard that plenty of times on CC and IRL.

I don’t have these presumptions, maybe some people do but I don’t see that here on CC all that often, or in the real world where I spend most of my time lol. Scholars can be athletes and athletes can be scholars. ECs can be academic in nature, which is great. Students should choose ECs that they are interested in doing.

To be clear about taking an AP test when one didn’t take the class, I don’t necessarily see that as a negative…again, there can be reasons for a student do that. But similarly, it’s not necessarily a positive, yet I have heard that sometimes stated here on CC and IRL e.g., ‘AOs will like how motivated that student is’, ‘that student must really love physics’, and the like.

At some colleges that quantify the number of advanced classes a student took in HS, only AP classes would be counted (and whatever else counts as advanced at a given college e.g., IB, DE, etc.)…but the AP test score (so taken in 9th, 10th or 11th) without the class would not be counted as having taken an advanced class.

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Never heard of BC being graded more forgivingly. BC having a higher score distribution is likely mainly due to self selection of those taking it - whether the high school requires AB first or offers AB or BC immediately after precalculus, the stronger in math students are the ones taking BC.

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Many of these Chinese language schools are mainly for teaching reading and writing to heritage speakers.

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Just clarifying with BC and Physics C (M & EM), as examples, “self selection” could be the students themselves but it could also be their schools.

Many schools have meaningful roadblocks to entry into those courses that filter the strongest students into them – prereq courses, teacher reqs, top grades in previous courses, etc. I’m not surprised at all that they end up with a higher distribution of top scores given how many of those students had to “earn” their way into the courses.

Further, those course are disproportionately taken either by seniors or by truly gifted students earlier. The latter are predisposed to perform well and the latter are in the best position to self-select whether to take the test. Prior to senior year, most AP students will definitely take the test. By senior year where they are likely already set in their collect admissions process, they are more likely to skip the test if they aren’t feeling good about it. We say that at our kids HS – a massive drop off in senior AP test takers. So much so that the school practically begged seniors to take them (some other schools create disincentives to drop the tests but many do not).

I wouldn’t be so narrow in judging why a student might self-study for a test beyond just the school not offering it. A couple examples that don’t fit this mold: 1) A school many have a tract that is sometimes impacted not just by merit but luck. For example, our HS didn’t have enough CS teachers and had a regimented track that made it impossible to take the top offered CS course unless students lucked into winning the random lottery to enroll in the first prereq course Freshman year. On the other hand, if a student missed that lottery but self studied and got a 5 on the Comp Sci A test, they could take the place into the post-AP CS course (Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures) senior year. 2) We all know students mature at different rates and sometimes make big leaps. A student might not have been on the top track at their school first or even second year, then suddenly demonstrate advanced competency. With only a couple years left in their HS schedule and often regimented prereqs to get into certain AP courses, self studying and scoring high on an AP is sometimes to only way a school will let students “skip” up to the top track.

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Or if they’re attending a college that gives no credit for it.

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Just to put this stringent amount of self selection in Calculus BC into numbers. Between 120,000 and 130,000 students take the Calculus BC exam. This is about half the number of the most popular history AP’s. So if there are about 250,000 “AP taking students” in “AP level schools”, about 1/2 take Calc BC. Okay self selecting… somewhat. If you factor in the assertion here that many schools don’t even offer Calculus BC, the “self-selecting” bias gets even less impressive. A similar number of students take AP Chemistry. Yet far far fewer 5’s are awarded in Chemistry. But that’s obviously ALL selection bias right? Like someone said before… so frustrating to have to repeat oneself? I mean the same kids wouldn’t select to Chemistry and Calc BC would they?

The presumption is that there can be only one motivation for a kid to do anything. You can hone your musical skills to a fine point to prepare for a competition, and also hope winning the competition will look good on your app. I can’t count how many athletes I know who are hoping for a scholarship, trying to get in the top 40 in the country, trying to beat a certain time in the pool or track because they know a certain level of achievement may make them competitive for recruiting or it might just look good on their app. I spend most of my real world time running and working with nonprofit organizations, and for sure, even at the adult level, people get involved with volunteering and service for multiple personal as well as charitable reasons. You especially see this when trying to manage volunteers. It’s never just one motivation.

When someone comes to this website asking if a college might see initiative in taking certain AP’s, my response is maybe. Not “no, nice try you transparent academic drone”. Why? I know real world students who have shown initiative in self-studying and taking AP’s early and that has opened doors to more advanced study in a number of different disciplines. Henry Kissinger famously wrote his senior thesis months after arriving at college. That’s one heck of a preparation from “I only took courses in high school”. That’s “love of learning”. In some ways, scarcity can create opportunity if tough courses are not offered and you show the desire and curiosity to learn tough stuff. What college thinks that is worthless?

Some of the people involved with admissions here have clear biases against academic reaching. I wonder how those same people distinguish who’s more likely to be a magna cum laude or summa cum laude student based on their bias that only high school classes count. I’m pretty sure none of the Universities they gauzily affiliate themselves with would want a student to write to admissions saying “An alumnus interviewer on College Confidential said that self-studying Calc BC as a sophomore would be irrelevant to college admissions, so I didn’t do that”. Colleges don’t work that way. It’s not a formula, but it’s not that either.

Which is probably why alumnus interviews are supposed to be mostly to make sure there’s no next Ted Kaczynski and not a chance to flex your personal biases. That’s why schools don’t give alumni interviewers any academic information. Or scores. It’s just too bad that some probably use this narrow “power” to flex their biases by backing them all into the “personality rating” by unfairly assessing someone’s “authenticity”. That personality score has quite a history.

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When considering the numbers, I’m not sure that is correct…you said that there are 250K AP-taking students and 1/2 take calc BC. Locally I know dozens of kids who have taken at least 1 AP exam, and other than my homeschooled kid I know none who have taken calc BC. As far as I know, it’s only offered at 1 private school in town. if popular AP exams have 200K+ students taking them, I’d imagine that there are at least 5 times that in students who take AP exams. Many kids only take 1 AP ever, or one or 2 each year.

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Not sure I’m tracking here. I agree about the number of students who take Calc BC (135,458 students, of any grade, took the test in 2023.)

From the 2023 report (which reflects all test takers, regardless of grade):

This table reflects 5,197,601 AP Exams taken by 2,869,418 students from 23,071 secondary schools.

So, 4.7% (135,458/2,869,418) of AP test taking students took AP Calc BC last year.

If you are interested in Class of 2023 only (for AP tests taken throughout their HS careers), look at this report: AP Program Results: Class of 2023 – Reports | College Board

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Well, 2 of my 5 took BC, the other 3 tapped out at AB and then took stat. At our HS students take AB before BC. I believe it got my daughter out of 2 math classes at Clemson (finance with a math minor).

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And about the same number took AP Chemistry. Nearly the same percentage - 4.7% of all AP test taking students, according to you. Where 16% of students got a “5”. Whereas 43.5%of those taking Calculus BC got a “5”. Test takers of all grades. So how does that track to only “selection bias”. Selection bias only happens for BC and not for Chem? That’s a tough argument to make.

No one is arguing there is no selection bias. That selection bias is the ONLY factor is the discussion. And if the scoring is so disparate between two difficult STEM AP courses, where students would be expected to a great degree to co-segregate into the courses, the possibility of another factor is raised.

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One difference is there is not “AP Chemistry 2,” for example, but there are two AP Calc options. At my kids school, after accel pre-calc they divide kids into either AB or BC based on grade and teacher req. So the school is selecting the top students to jump straight to BC and putting the rest in AB. Then if the student wasn’t a senior for AB, they have the option to do BC the next year. Either way, the BC class becomes a combo of the top math students and those who already were exposed to some of the material the year before and had two years to absorb it.

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At our HS there are two tracks, regular and advanced. Students can enter the advanced track either at the beginning of 9th grade or the beginning of 10th grade. Calc BC and IB HL math are both restricted to students on the advanced track.

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This thread has backed into a rabbit’s hole as to just one AP - Calc BC and debate over its scoring. Whatever, if you think 43% of kids getting 5’s is all selection bias, that’s your belief system. My belief system is that a lot of the same kids take BC and AP Chem and there is a 250 percent difference in the #of 5’s. I’m neither ignorant as to selection bias nor naive to think that test makers can not manipulate scoring outcomes. And I’m far from the only one who has pointed out this scoring curiosity (for Calc BC especially and possibly also for Physics C).

For example even taking all AB and BC students added together the rate of “5” ‘s is higher than either Chem or Biology. If the weaker Students as in tamagotchi’s example get shunted to AB, why is the rate of “5’s” STILL higher than Chem? Shouldn’t reverse selection bias work in that case? Or does that only work one way?

The actual students (if there are any) here can make up their mind as to what additional material there is between AB and BC and whether they have a better chance of getting 58% of the questions right on the BC exam or 68% on the AB exam to get a “5” which indicates high achievement. The fact that 58% correct in basic calculus correlates to an “A” grade in the college cohort is a sobering conclusion - especially as many college students don’t even have to take calculus. Talk about selection bias! What about the selection bias in the College cohort? It’s not like classics majors or eastern european lit majors take college calculus.

Again, are there no contributions that aren’t “picking AP’s is too obvious to discuss” or “picking AP’s is too individualized to discuss”? Isn’t helpful guidance what CC is about? Not a debate club?

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For us, the difference was that chemistry was the first AP that kid took, as a freshman. He hadn’t yet figured out the best strategy for preparation, and earned a 4. Kid earned a 5 on the other 4, taken over the next 2 years. With calc, I think that more people are prepared to drop back to AB if necessary. Also, kid felt like it was easier to be prepared for calculus since it’s just problems. For a mathy kid, calculus was the easiest one to feel that you could do really well on because either you know how to do the required number of problems or you don’t. With tests with essays, kid was always less confident.

And, I think the lower percentages needed to pass are in part due to the short time of the test. Kid came out of BC saying that he expected a 5 based on getting most of them completely correct, but he only got part of one free response and the best way to do it hit him as he got to his car. Most of the time people are going to have more than 1.5 hours to complete multiple math problems, so they’ll have time to ponder the best approach. That isn’t the case with AP.

Finally, I thought I gave a decent framework for discussing how many exams students should take. They should figure out what their purpose is. In at least one state, homeschooled kids need some sort of test in each subject area to verify rigor. In that situation, now that the SAT subject tests are gone, I’d recommend that students take one test in each of 4-5 major subject areas (history, math, etc). If a kid wants to get through college more quickly, check out their degree plan and figure out what will count that is in their required list of courses. Figure out what DE options are available. Then start working through the beneficial ones. Some schools accept no AP, so you’d just be using them to show rigor (or learn more). Pick the ones that will help you the most. Some only accept 5s, so in that case take those that you think you can earn a 5 in. I’ve sometimes seen/given the advice to try to knock out classes outside your major - if you want to major in biology, AP out of English and math but take bio at your college so that you start the next level with the expected knowledge. For my computer engineer, testing out of the 1 semester of chemistry was great. I wouldn’t recommend that to a biochem major. We had told the engineer that unless he earned a 5 on the BC exam he needed to start with Calc 1 to make sure that it was solid. He earned the 5 and has since earned a high A in DE and used the calc in physics so I think he really knows it.

I know that some kids have to take AP exams to get credit for an AP class (or, locally, they have 5 points added to their average if they take the exam). So, I’d imagine that more unprepared kids take the other exams because there isn’t the equilvalent of an AB to take. If I had been concerned about kid’s ability, we never would have tried BC in the first place because there was an easier (but still good) option.

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The question of AP’s in homeschooling is a good one. I would think that homeschooled kids and parents would search out two things AP’s can possibly provide. A structured, rigorous curriculum developed by experts in the subjects offered, and accountability - an assessment that measures the performance of the student. That’s not all there is to homeschooling, but it does addres some of its ambiguities, and it allows schools to compare homeschooled students to others with some baseline.

I think AP’s (especially self-studied AP’s) offer a unique opportunity for some students to show curiosity, academic strength and excellence, especially in the face of scarcity of resources. If you take a very smart kid in rural Kentucky or Iowa whose small school doesn’t offer many advanced classes but where there is the same grade inflation as there is everywhere, how do top universities identify her talent? Is her only path to success if she can find a sport in rural Kentucky where she can be a national medalist? Many here dogmatically say that any coursework outside of school is a complete waste of time. I would think if this rural kid took 2-3 self-study AP courses and did well on the exams, especially in areas of her interest, that could be part of an academic picture (including independent reading, writing, projects), that starts to distinguish this kid from others. This scenario passes the “man on the street” test. What random person wouldn’t think a good school wouldn’t take some notice of this extra effort? Have we achieved liftoff from planet common sense?

The AP police search for verbage to support their point. “MIT does not expect students to take extra AP classes”. Where does MIT “expect you to win the gold or bronze at the IMO”, where does MIT “expect you to be the #2 ranked tennis player in the country”? Those achievements must be meaningless too. Right? Or even detrimental?

Self-studying AP’s is very inexpensive. Many extracurriculars are not. Recruited athletes’ family income (most >$650k per year) in the ivy league far exceeds that of regular admits despite their sub par academic record. Performance grade violins and cellos are expensive. So are coaches and lessons. Before the “what about jobs” crowd chimes in, yes, jobs can give great life experience, but no, it’s really not plausible for someone to get national recognition for ice cream scooping.

The availability of many extracurriculars is also very geographically specific. Ever see a squash tournament in Nebraska? How about elite tennis in Vermont vs. Florida? Students’ access to top level training and competition is very location specfic, and traveling to tournaments is expensive. As colleges look for geographic diversity, a range of achievement metrics needs to be acceptable.

So, for smart, lower income students who are intellectually curious, taking and doing well on AP’s is a free (or nearly free), educational use of their time that can help those students not only in high school and certainly later in college for the myriad reasons listed by multiple writers here.

The bias against AP’s, especially self-studied AP’s, very likely comes from the viewpoint of parents who live in areas of opportunity and access to an array of extracurricular activities and where schools routinely place students in colleges their kids want to attend. Not the case for our rural farm girl. One has to wonder who the AP police visualize when they call out “boring academic drones”? Is it the rural farm girl, or is it a different kind of applicant?

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