Have any of your kids done this? It is the only AP our school offers to freshmen, and this the 3rd year they have done so, so I am guessing it has gone well for those enrolled.
S is choosing between Honors Bio (which would most likely lead to Honors or AP Chem as a sophomore) or this APES, in which case he would take AP Bio as a sophomore.
He prefers sciences like bio better than chem (though he still would probably take AP or honors Chem as a junior). He thinks the APES class sounds interesting for the most part, and his 8th grade science teacher is encouraging/recommending him to take it.
I have heard it is a “lite” AP and a good introduction to the way the courses generally work. I just don’t know if it will overwhelm him considering the rest of his core schedule (Honors English, Honors Geometry, Honors Spanish 2, US History), his participation on the cross country and track teams, and just the whole transition into HS.
He is a very smart guy, though, and science is an area of strength and interest.
Remember, AP exams are designed to be comparable to college-level courses, so the question is: Are 9th graders prepared to take college level courses? The College Board believes not.
It should also be worth noting that the courses with the highest percentage of 9th graders (World History and Human Geography) are often not given AP credit at top colleges, which the College Board acknowledges.
Personally, I think that top students should take a course in bio, chem, and physics before venturing into the realm of AP sciences (with the possible exception of AP Physics 1 in place of intro physics).
Our school usually requires regular sciences before AP. I know my daughter advised her little sister not to take AP bio without having taken chemistry. She did also comment that at our high school APES is widely held to be significantly easier than other APs except maybe psych.
Wanted to add, I recommend plotting out a 4 year high school schedule for him. That way he can see the trade-offs (eg. will taking APES now mean that later on he can’t fit in a different AP science which he may prefer?). Many schools require honors level courses before APs and if he doesn’t get started on those it could close doors later. Make sure you understand the sequence at your school, whether they will let him just hop in to AP classes, and whether this is advisable.
I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not, but I do think a high school education should include a full year of biology, chemistry and physics. AP classes beyond that depend on the kid’s interest.
I really think the trend of offering AP courses to freshmen and sophomores is getting ridiculous. They shouldn’t be ready for college level courses. There are of course exceptions, my oldest took Comp Sci as a freshman and got a 5. He was the only freshman in the course. Each also took one AP as sophomores.
His school is saying that if he takes the AP ES 9th grade, that he will then be on an AP track for all subsequent sciences if he chooses. So he could go AP Bio 10th, AP Chem 11, and AP Physics 12. There are no other AP sciences offered.
There are other science classes considered honors level, like Mammalian Bioscience, Veterinary Science, and Botany (as well as Chemistry and Physics) he could take as well.
The AP path outlined above actually works with his math sequence–AP Chem requires completion of Algebra 2 which he will take 10th grade, and AP Physics requires current enrollment or completion of Calc AB which he will take 12th grade.
I emailed the teacher of APES and will see what she says. I asked her how many freshman enroll, how do they perform in class and on the test, if they seem overwhelmed, etc.
I do wonder how hard the class can be if they are offering it to freshmen without any prerequisite?
Again, I’d ask the success rate for this. Generally, AP requires an intro course as a prereq, e.g. Honors Chem as a prereq for AP Chem. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but having taken AP Chem and AP Physics C, I definitely benefited by having Honors Chem first. YMMV.
D took AP ES as a sophomore because she likes environmental science and she had previous coursework. People thought it was a light AP and didn’t work all that hard. Consequently these students ended up with Cs and failing the AP exam (getting 2s was pretty common for them). So, I would only recommend it if he’s already had some biology and chemistry.
In D’s high school AP Chem is the hardest class; students have take Honors Chemistry before AP Chem.
The degree of difficulty of AP ES is a wildly under rated - hence the low scores. It is also a lot mathy-er than many people realize.
Emphatically agreeing with skieurope that AP Chem is not a course to try w/out doing a strong chem first. It is a challenging course even with some background. (I’m actually sort of surprised that you school does that).
Our HS offers AP Chem for Juniors as a double period. No honors prior (although 9th grade Honors science is a combo of intro chem and physical science). I can attest to the difficulty of the course – It is killing my S who is scraping out a B when his only previous B in HS was for a 9th grade Latin course one semester. S has taken APUSH and AP Bio in 10th and while both were challenging, they were significant less difficult than AP Chem at least for S.
Yes, this is how I am now leaning, especially after talking to my older son who graduated HS 2 years ago. My memory had faded of how things were done lol.
The teacher got back to me and she said 4 freshman completed the class last year and 10 signed up for this year but 8 dropped it after completing/not completing the summer work. 2 are currently enrolled.
She had 2 of the 4 freshman score 5s on the test last year.
My older son indicated he took honors bio, chem, and physics and then AP physics as a senior. Seems more reasonable! This one would probably lean toward AP Bio at some point, either as a junior or senior. I agree it seems you need background in the class prior to AP.
I think it depends on the school. At our school, kids take 8 classes, many have no study hall. In a school where they have double periods for science, or where the kids are only taking 6 classes and have study halls and more instructional time, it is more possible to skip the prerequisites.
Here’s my perspective as a parent of STEM major college students who took AP Chem, Physics C, and Bio but not APES. I’ll assume that your son is on track to be a STEM student attending a selective college. My bottom line advice is to have your son first take honors level Bio, Chem, and Physics, then pursue AP science courses according to ability and interest.
The best choice depends on how your specific high school’s science curriculum is laid out. In general though, I don’t think the key issue to focus on is how hard APES will be for a freshman. I think the key thing both for his education and for college admissions is to give your son a solid grounding in the 3 core sciences (Bio, Chem, Physics) and mathematics through Calculus. To me, this means taking a minimum of a year of each science at the honors level.
I think taking AP Chem or AP Bio and doing well (meaning getting a 5) without a prior high-school level course is very difficult for most students, though it is possible for very sciencey kids. But after taking a year of Bio and Chem at the honors level my kids found both AP courses very manageable. Taking AP Physics C (calculus based physics) and doing well without a prior high-school physics course is extremely difficult for most students. Another reason to take a high school level physics course prior to AP Physics C is that AP Physics C only focuses on mechanics and EM and leaves out optics, thermodynamics, and modern physics. My kids didn’t take AP Physics 1 & 2 (non-calculus physics spread over 2 years), but my impression is that students wouldn’t need a prior physics course for them.
Courses like APES or Veterinary science are fine electives to take after getting a good foundation if a student has specific interests or doesn’t want to pursue the AP Chem/Bio/Physics sequence. However, generally top engineering or science programs will look more favorably on AP Chem or Physics C (or AP Bio) than on APES or the other science electives you mentioned.
It really depends on the teacher. D took it as a senior, had very little work but had to self-study for the test and got a 4 - many did not take the test because they had no chance of passing. S2 is taking it this year as a sophomore and it has been about 50% of his total homework, very busy, and he is also in AP Bio. 55% of last year’s class got a 5 on the test; all but one kid out of four classes passed.
Find out how past classes have done and their experience with the work load.
This just seems like a way to increase the number of kids in AP classes, without any consideration of what is best for the student. I don’t think environmental science is a standard part of the high school science curriculum, and it seems very odd to take in place of some biology, chemistry, or physics class in 9th grade. I don’t think the class will be overwhelming, but I think it would be better to take like, a standard science class, whatever that might be.
As for whether or not it’s better to take the honors version before the AP, I think it depends a lot on the person and the teacher. I was able to take Physics C and do perfectly fine, even though I had never even taken physics before. But maybe it helped that I had already taken Calculus BC, so I could focus entirely on the physics intuition. I had a friend who took an honors chemistry class at a state flagship as his first real chemistry course. This was a class mostly populated by people who had already taken AP Chem, but my friend was consistently above average and ended up doing really well. I have no idea how.
One option that could allow for more AP sciences is to double up. I took AP Bio and AP Chem at the same time, and it was actually a bit interesting, as I could see the connections between the two directly.
In our school about 1/3 of the kids take high school level bio in 8th grade, then honors chem in 9th, in 10th the strong science kids used to take AP Physics B (not calculus based) which replace the honors physics course. That’s now been replaced by a two year sequence so they may have gone back to their own honors course. Then junior and senior year STEM kids could easily fit in 2 science APs and more if they wanted to double up. APES is often taken by less sciency kids as juniors or seniors as an easier but still AP science alternative. (Which may be why scores on this AP skew lower - not that it’s more difficult.)
In any event it sounds like only a few strong students are sticking with APES as freshmen. Definitely proceed with caution!
APES is the science AP with the lowest average AP scores because many kids take the course not really understanding that env. science is a melding of bio, chem, physics, and geology. It is a “true” science, not a course about hugging trees and saving whales and other warm and cuddly things. AP science in grade 9 is total madness. To contrast, the highest AP science scores are in AP Physics C—only kids who are hardcore physics students take it–it’s self-selecting. Same thing with AP Calculus BC.
Indeed. Conceptually, the material is not difficult. In fact, the bulk of Enviro is also covered in AP Bio, in the last half dozen chapters of the Bio book. In the old days, Enviro was nothing more than a subset of Bio.
(btw, it becomes an easy class when taken with AP Bio, and ensures an excellent Subject Test score.) But, teachers do what teachers do, and APES can have a lot of “busy” work to fill in class time.
I agree with the others…students are much better off with a solid foundation in Bio, Chem and Physics, and then fill in with AP courses of interest.