<p>Spend some time lookin at last year’s “AP Report to the Nation.” <a href=“http://apreport.collegeboard.org%5B/url%5D”>http://apreport.collegeboard.org</a></p>
<p>If your son hasn’t entered high school yet, it may be early to determine what he’ll be interested in, in four years. The quality of instruction influences a student’s interest in a subject, particularly in the humanities. A student who’s “not interested” in the humanities may not have had a good teacher. The typical middle school curriculum is also not intrinsically interesting. It’s social studies, rather than history. The language instruction is slow, in comparison to high school. </p>
<p>It depends on the sort of college you have your eyes on. I see lots of discussion of “hard” vs. “soft” APs on this site. There seems to be the idea that students should present APs in math and science. And yet, many of the leading universities teach the liberal arts. They have large history, English, philosophy, and language departments, as well as math and science departments. They have tenured people who teach this stuff. And time has shown that smart people who become politicians and lawyers have a good chance of ending up in positions of influence. </p>
<p>Who stands out more, among the students who earn a 5 on the AP? One of the 35,687 who scored a 5 on the 2013 AP Calc BC exam? Or one of the 203 students who scored a 5 on the Italian AP? One of the 458 who scored a 5 on the Latin exam? (only 3,545 students took the Latin exam; only 1,495 students took the Italian exam.)</p>
<p>I have the impression that students who do well in math also do well in the sciences; thus, of the 35,687 students who scored a 5 on Calc BC, I’d wager a good number scored a 5 on Bio/Chem/Physics. So how does one distinguish between them? The kid who does well in both sciences and humanities may really stand out.</p>