I think this is high school dependent. There are geographies and states where HSers take many APs and that’s the culture. Georgia is a good example. UGA reports mid 50% AP course range of 8-12 for Class of 2027 admitted students.
In my area it’s common that HSs limit APs to junior and senior year (these are strong HSs) and IME these students aren’t doing well in UGA admissions…obviously could be more reasons than number of APs, but interesting none the less.
Where I am, taking calculus by 12th grade requires accelerating in math in 8th grade. We declined that because we felt a strong foundation in math is essential. Plus, the math dept chair couldn’t give us a compelling reason to accelerate.
I live in GA. Not sure if you are referring to the public HS in the metro areas. At our kids’ private school they were selective about who could take which AP and how many. They want to keep their stats up and there was not enough room for all. At the public school near
me, if a student wanted to take an AP that wasn’t initially advised, if they were able to register for it they weren’t allowed to drop it.
I’m sure there are GA privates that limit APs. But the UGA admitted student ranges don’t lie and show the importance of having AP courses on the transcript…which in addition to helping with rigor, also help to boost UGA recalculated GPAs.
I’m going to remind people that if you don’t like what another person has said, don’t respond with an off topic post. And by the same token, don’t use posts to go off topic by referencing another user.
Keep scrolling, or flag. Thanks for your cooperation.
Is it calculus per se, or just that students who get admitted to highly selective colleges tend to have completed high levels in most or all high school subjects? That page also says that 80% took the three main sciences, and 78% took level 4 or equivalent foreign language.
Many kids at the metro schools pile on the APs and with the weighting they get, students then qualify for the Hope or the Zell Miller. Since UGA autoadmits Val’s and sals, I wonder how many APs are taken by kids in rural communities. Wonder if there is a way to find that
And some Georgia public systems (entire counties) don’t offer any honors math courses and almost no honors science classes - it’s either on-level or AP/IB with no in-between option. Also for the Hope and Zell Miller scholarships, no weighting is given to honors classes. No weighting for honors classes for high school rank either. And ranks are calculated out to the 1000th decimal. It’s a system that feeds the piling on of APs.
Where would you have placed Delaware, Charleston, Wake, UNC-CH, BC, and Emory
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
Likely (60-79%)
Toss-Up (40-59%)
Lower Probability (20-39%)
Low Probability (less than 20%)
I don’t think this is all that new. I am a parent and went to a very high selective college.
I can think of 2 people out of the ~15 on my freshman floor I knew well that didn’t take calculus in HS. (The one I am sure of was a legacy and non-stem major AND from a weird geographic area, so hooked). Almost all had AP level. Many had BC. Note, my memory may be somewhat fuzzy, but there were special math classes only offered freshman fall so lots of us were taking calc at same time, and it was clear what level we were (there were classes specifically for that that had AB, or BC, etc) and we had lots of study groups etc. As such this is more of a memory than one would think;)
Calculus is and has been part of the core sequence of math for top academic students for a long time IMO. One can argue that isn’t needed or right, but I don’t think it is new. What is new, is more schools have more kids taking it very early and more schools offering APs than they used to so this comes up more. If it wasn’t offered everywhere 30 years ago, it wasn’t expected.
When I went to high school, there were regular and honors courses, with honors courses being AP courses at the higher levels. For example, in math:
| Regular | Honors |
|---|---|
| Algebra 1 | |
| Geometry | Geometry honors |
| Algebra 2 | Algebra 2 honors |
| Precalculus | Precalculus honors |
| AP calculus |
Is it common to have more than two versions (regular and honors/AP) of a given math course?
From reading other peoples’ posts, a lot of high schools seem to have three levels of many classes: regular, honors, and AP.
Our HS only has two levels: regular, and either honors/AP depending on whether there is an AP offered in that subject. And for a large number of subjects at our HS there is just one level with no honors-designated option.
Edited to add: Now that I think of it, in math specifically, our “advanced” (accelerated) math track is not officially designated as honors until year 3, even though it’s challenging and students have to test into it (the catalog says “The time commitment for this course is most similar to that of an AP course”)
| Grade | Not Honors | Not Honors | Honors | AP / IB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Math 1 | Adv Math 1 | ||
| 10 | Math 2 | Adv Math 2 | ||
| 11 | Math 3 | Adv Math 3 | ||
| 12 | Data Science | Stats, Calc AB, BC, IB HL etc. |
Our district uses integrated math, where 8th grade math = integrated math 1, “Math 1” = integrated math 2, etc.
There is no non-AP/IB calculus or stats class, but we have a new data science class that is currently considered non-honors.
Our local HS (and I know of others) has 3 levels of nearly all math classes: on level, honors, and high honors. AP classes are the same level as high honors. I don’t think there is a high honors non-AP calc course…just on level and honors.
very good (because I agree lol) and very accurate, too.
For the Georgia example to which I was referring, there is no honors level even for Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, or Pre Calc. For science, there is no honors option for Bio, Chem, or Physics; the top students take both Bio and Chem freshman year (not honors but they take a double period of science in order to fit Bio in one semester and Chem the other) which then leaves them with no option the next year except an AP science starting sophomore year.
My question on this @Mwfan1921 is whether there are 3-5 permutations of courses offered in HS that seem to be the most common.
I believe that is dependent on the district/school within GA. That’s not consistent statewide.
Agreed - my original post referred to some districts (but some of those serve a huge number of students).
Apologies if this has been mentioned already – I have not read the entire thread – but often, we suggest that kids build their lists from the bottom up.
But when they ask us for advice on schools, we often (I am guilty…) lead with Reach schools.
Sometimes we lead with matches and safer schools – like @AustenNut – but often we do not. We’d do well to follow our own advice.