<p>While our son attended a very middle class suburban school district and did not have nearly the intensity of the hs’s mentioned in the NYTimes article, I believe that it is very good in preparing its students for college.</p>
<p>The AP courses are very academically challenging and as a result limit them to only juniors and seniors and then only allow them to take three at one time. Yes soph can petition to take an AP class and upper classmen can petition to take more than 3 but this rarely happens. And there is little of that pesky grade inflation either. Our son’s unweighted gpa of 3.304 resulted in a class ranking of top 5%. His APCalcAB grade was 83%(B- ?)but he got an AP grade of 5 and has recieved 2-A’s and 1-B in his college math courses thus far.</p>
<p>The result is that the AP classes are not college “lite” but every bit as challenging as their college equivalent and they can be because the students are limited to three and the teachers are free to assign college level readings and problem sets. I do not see how hs’s, whose students are in classes from 8am to 3pm, can then allow their students to take 5 or 6 AP courses at one time and then expect them to be assigned college level home works, participate in after class activities and then complete their assignments that evening. Their "workday would be a crushing 8am to midnite ordeal most days. And that is not something hs administrators should be bragging about.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this based on our experience. HS’s should challenge its best students academically but adopt rigorous grading policies and sane AP course policies. It teaches them to work hard, take a limited number of AP courses which require college level workloads, and expect an A grade only for truely excellent work. His 3.304 uwgpa prepared him so well that his college gpa is 3.794, nearly .75 above the average gpa at RPI.</p>