I’ve been following this board for some time out of general interest. We are Canadian living in Canada and our eldest son is currently in grade 10. He has expressed an interest in perhaps applying to MIT for university and I have found this forum to be a font of information. Not having written either the SAT or ACT yet it is hard to assess whether or not he would be a competitive applicant but some of the posts I have read regarding AP, DE, and rigour have me wondering where he might stand.
While AP has been in Canada for a while it has not been widespread and is still relatively unknown. It’s popularity seems to be spreading quickly however. Last year DS’s high school initiated a new congregated AP program and the admissions process was highly competitive. He was one of approximately 600 applicants vying for 85 spots. He was accepted but in order to be so he had to pass an initial screening application and have his grade 8 report card assessed prior to being invited to write two 1 hour assessments, one in math and one in English.
The way the program has been structured is that only those accepted into the program will be eligible to take the AP courses and they are cohorted into classes together starting in grade 9. The school will ultimately be offering around 10 APs, but with the exception of 2 being offered as grade 11 credit (AP English Composition and AP American History), the remainder are only being offered as grade 12 credit. For grades 9-11 the prerequisite courses leading to the grade 12 AP courses follow the standard provincial university strand curriculum but compacted and accelerated so that they will have covered the grade 12 curriculum prior to taking the AP courses. In grades 9 & 10 they are required to take 5 of their mandatory core courses (English, Math, Science, French, Geography in grade 9, and History in grade 10) at the pre-AP level. In grade 11 they can choose which courses to continue at the pre-AP level based on which APs they intend to take for grade 12 credit. They were recommended to restrict themselves to 4 pre-AP level courses for grade 11 with any more than 5 requiring special permission.
His school is semestered meaning they cover the full curriculum in half a year taking 4 courses at a time. Next year for grade 11 DS has opted to take physics, chemistry, and math at the pre-AP level and will be fast tracking grade 12 AP Physics 1. For grade 12 he will have pre-calculus at the pre-AP level and then most likely take AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, and AP European History. The remainder of his credits will be at the provincial university level (maybe equivalent to your Honours level?).
As I said AP is new to us but I have been wondering if the AP courses are truly equivalent to first year university level courses in terms of rigour. Most universities in Ontario where we live will only give credit for 2-3 AP courses and only with a minimum score of 4 (some require 5 for some courses) and predominantly only for elective courses. Some universities outside of Ontario are a little more generous with granting credit or advanced standing. Generally their policies for AP and IB HL courses are the same treating them as equivalent.
Do you think this would be considered as a rigorous curriculum for admission purposes? I read on this board of students taking up to 8 APs as a matter of course and even as early as in grades 9 & 10. DS will most likely end up with 4 APs. He could conceivably take more but I think it would be excessive.
If it is IBD vs APs, the IBD will be considered max rigour over just 4 APs. If the OPs kid is IBD ready, taking pre AP classes seems such an exercise in futility. The reason the US students have the 8 plus Aps is that they aren’t spending 11th grade doing pre anyting, they are just doing the APs.
Rigor is judged in the context of the school, so as long as his school says the schedule is rigorous - it’s rigorous. I don’t really get why they are setting up the program the way they are - it seems to me that it would be easier to take some APs junior year and some senior year. Most selective colleges in the US are only giving credit for 5s on the APs and some are not giving credit at all any more, just letting you take more advanced classes.
@thumper1, the top rigour courses he can take are AP courses and he is taking AP courses, he’s just not taking every AP course available. How many are enough taking into consideration that the bulk of them are only available in senior year? He will graduate with 8 grade 12 credits but only 6 are required under the Ontario curriculum and 4 of them will be AP. Of the other courses he is planning on taking he could take his grade 11 & 12 English credits at the AP level but has opted not to. He could take AP US History in grade 11 but prefers to take World History instead and it is not offered as an AP course. The remaining available AP courses he could take are not in subjects he is planning on taking at all (AP French Language, AP Psychology, and AP Biology). Does that mean he should be taking them just by virtue of them being AP courses?
@Sybylla he’s not doing IBD he’s doing a pre-AP program similar to what the IB program does in that grades 9 & 10 are considered IB prep with the IB diploma courses being offered in grades 11 & 12. For him grades 9-11 are considered AP prep with the AP courses being offered primarily in grade 12. I only mentioned IB for comparison in that for the purposes of our universities here, AP courses are considered on par to IB HL courses. If that makes any sense.
Did he already take biology? If not…and he plans to take biology, he should take the most rigorous offered at your school…in my opinion.
Honestly…I’ve never heard of “AP prep” before.
He will also need a top SAT or ACT score.
There is a question on the counselor recommendation regarding academic rigor. You want that school counselor to say he took top rigor in terms of courses. That does NOT necessarily mean he needs to take all AP courses.
@mathmom thanks for that clarification. I don’t think he would have any problems having his school say that his schedule is rigorous.
I am confused however as to the progression into AP classes as you say so many students in the US seem to take AP courses before senior year. I can see how that can work in the humanities and social sciences, but how does it work in math and sciences? Presumably you can’t take AP Calc BC before doing all the prerequisite work in the grades leading up to it? He surely needs to complete the grades 9-12 math sequence before doing AP Calc BC? The same goes for physics and chemistry? How can he do AP Physics 1 or Chemistry before having completed the grades 9-12 science curriculums?
Yes…prerequisites…but for example…my kid took AP biology. It was the ONLY biology course she took. My other kid took an AP Shakespeare course that prepared him to take the AP English Literature exam. All he had to do,was be in honors English up until the year in which he took that course.
In our school typical math for bright kids is
8th grade - Algebra 1
9th grade - Geometry
10th grade - Algebra 2
11th grade - pre calc
12th grade - AP Calc AB or BC or AP Statistics
A handful of kids petition to start Algebra 1 in 7th grade. The school offers a Linear Algebra course for them to take senior year.
The NYS science curriculum says you have to take a minimum of 2 years of science. One “physical” science (Earth Science, Chem or Physics) and one “natural” (Biology). Colleges generally like to see a year of bio, chem and physics. If you start the high school curriculum in 9th grade you have room for one AP, but our middle school offers HS biology and about a third of the students take it. AP Physics 1 is designed to be a first course in physics so you don’t have to take a high school level course first.
@thumper1 ok thanks that makes sense. I know he will need to write the SAT or the ACT and MIT also requires SAT subject tests in math and science.
From what I’ve gathered from reading posts here our science curriculum works a little differently. Grades 9 & 10 cover all the sciences then in grade 11 you have your choice of biology, chemistry, and physics as separate courses. The grade 11 course leads to the grade 12 course so if you don’t take the grade 11 credit you can’t take the grade 12 one. We don’t take one science in grade 11 and a different one in grade 12. We take them in both years. So DS will have grades 9 & 10 general biology but he is not planning on taking it further. He will be taking both physics and chemistry in both grades 11 & 12. The grade 12 credits will be AP Physics 1 and AP Chemistry.
OP, some kids in the USA take courses outside of school to accelerate their math curriculum. For example, while the normal progression for math might be to take Algebra I as an 8th or 9th grader, a student could take an intensive algebra course over the summer after 5th or 6th grade and then take geometry and/or Algebra II as a 6th or 7th grader. In turn, that means he’d be ready for calculus in 10 or 11th grade, provided he follows the sequence normally after that. Also, some schools here provide an accelerated track for the top students that has them ready for calculus as a junior. As a result, they can then have room for Physics BC and AP Stat etc.
Like our science curriculum, our math curriculum works a little differently in that our students take all the math streams every year up until grade 10, just at an increasing level of complexity. Grade 11 math is Functions and in grade 12 there are separate courses in Advanced Functions (Pre-Calculus), Calculus, and Data Management/Statistics. Grade 12 advanced functions is a prerequisite for grade 12 calculus.
Basically the way the school is running the AP program they are accelerating the curriculum 1 year so that they can do AP Calculus BC in 2nd semester of the senior year. AP Biology, Physics 1, and Chemistry can be done 1st or 2nd semester of senior year.
@PurpleTitan, yes McGill’s AP policy is fairly generous as is UBC’s. Universities in Ontario are far more restrictive as a general rule. Most too will accept 4’s but usually only will give credit for 2-3 courses and only on electives. As I mentioned AP here is fairly recent and the universities are slowly getting on board with granting credit. The STEM faculties tend to be very restrictive especially engineering.
The courses taken depend so much on each individual school/district and policies. For admission to MIT or an equally elite STEM school taking the most rigorous classes is needed but having a good foundation/knowledge base to be able to keep up with the college classes is also needed. AP classes are equivalent only to merely average-college classes, not to those of top tier (not just elite) colleges.
Students also do not need to take AP classes to take and even do well on the AP exams. It is not necessary to take all AP classes/exams available. Scheduling conflicts can preclude taking some. Weigh pros and cons in course selection- it was better for my son to take 4th year French (and meet his future school’s foreign language requirements totally) rather than an AP Language course as a junior. They had an Honors junior language arts class that fit. A kid I knew placed out of the US history or AP US history requirement (some did regular before AP, others only AP) because he got a 5 on that AP exam before he would have taken the course.
Your job in helping your child choose classes (notice that as the years go by the student takes charge of choices) that work to give the best available education for that child. If the child is meant to go to MITs/he will. Many will not- there is a surplus of students who can thrive at every elite school.
@wis75 thank you for your reply. At this point him attending MIT is just pie in the sky. Until he writes the SAT or ACT I don’t know if he is competitive. He is doing extremely well in his classes and I know he will be competitive for any school in Canada but I really don’t know how that will translate to being an international applicant to a school the calibre of MIT. Getting the grades to be able to do so will be up to him and as you say the older they get the more the responsibility falls to them to pick their courses. Unfortunately he does not have the benefit of guidance counsellors who are experienced with having their students apply out of country let alone to a school like MIT so I’d like to be able to advise him in making sure that he doesn’t close the door in terms of making up a competitive transcript.
^ Very true. The AP tests may be rigorous by (average) HS standards, but not by college standards.
My HS never offered AP classes. At least our science and math classes covered some of the material on those AP tests, though. For the history and econ AP tests, back in the day, I just went through a study guide for each of those tests a few days before the tests and got 4/5’s in them.
In speaking to one of DS’s science teachers I know that she will be teaching her AP classes using a first year university textbook. I’m not sure how that would compare to a first year course at a typical U.S. college but it is quite possible then based on what you’ve said that they may be exceeding the scope of the AP curriculum.