^guys, this is CRAZY. Piling up AP’s is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE in admissions. You need to show deliberate choices and a schedule that builds from one year to the next. Please read post 15 fo details.
If you’re very strong in a subject (ie., you reached Calc BC or AP Foreign Language as a junior), you need to take the next level as DE (or the class above it if your HS offers it). If you can’t/don’t, and end up with either a lower-level class or no class in your strongest subject senior year, you would have been better off spreading classes out throughout high school since your acceleration shows no forethought, only acceleration for acceleration’s sake, and probably doesn’t reflect interest, since if you’d accelerated due to talent and interest, you’d find it obvious to continue to an upper level class in the subject.
Getting A/A- in your AP’s in important though, and overall you shouldn’t take an AP class if you/your teacher don’t think you can get a B or higher in it.
Finally “is it impressive” is the wrong question to ask - it’s a very immature way to look at learning and, again, this type of thinking backfires in highly competitive college admissions.
Some students are very ahead in the subject due to strength and interest, but then find that their high school runs out of courses, and that scheduling a college course is too difficult because the nearby colleges’ schedules do not work or they are too expensive, etc… Not everyone attends a high end public or private school that offers good options for those who have completed the AP level courses before 12th grade.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Using correct grammar, however, is priceless.
^^I was addressing Op and the many kids above who think 10 or 12 APs is normal - since s/he’s / they are wondering whether 12 APs are impressive, it does not suggest a lower-performing high school.
Indeed there are circumstances where students do what they can - do you remember the kid from rural Indiana who said he’d run out of classes to take… he’d be derided by posters who couldn’t believe, a very unkind attitude in my opinion.
Overall though if a kid is that accelerated, s/he’d be expected not to drop the subject and find a way - the kid in Indiana found a teacher to provide an Independent Study, for instance.
“If you’re very strong in a subject (ie., you reached Calc BC or AP Foreign Language as a junior), you need to take the next level as DE (or the class above it if your HS offers it). If you can’t/don’t, and end up with either a lower-level class or no class in your strongest subject senior year, you would have been better off spreading classes out throughout high school since your acceleration shows no forethought, only acceleration for acceleration’s sake, and probably doesn’t reflect interest, since if you’d accelerated due to talent and interest, you’d find it obvious to continue to an upper level class in the subject.”
Sorry, but I have to disagree with this. A lot. Very very few schools offer any classes above the AP level. Just because you finished the AP level before senior year does not mean you have “no forethought” or are pursuing “acceleration for acceleration’s sake”. That’s really insulting. Are you suggesting that kids should take the easy way out and take classes that are easy for them so that they show “forethought”? Slug through years of drill and kill they don’t need because some college might think poorly of them if they take appropriate coursework? That challenging yourself with appropriate acceleration is a bad thing to do? Wow. Just wow. Oh, and on top of it all, these students clearly aren’t interested in school?
@MYOS1634, I have seen you give a lot of good advice on this site but you are so far off the mark here I am stunned.
AP classes are high school classes. Viewing them as anything different is simply buying the College Board’s PR. The College Boards has worked hard to commandeer the US public school curriculum for their own profit. But the AP classes are simply standardized high school classes. They don’t come close to resembling college classes. They may be better than pre-existing curriculum in failing schools but, as you know, they are not as good as the curriculum of the best schools-which are moving away from the APs, thankfully.
Our high school has AP classes for honors students and regular classes for regular students. We don’t have any honors level classes for upperclassmen. It is quite normal for honors upperclassmen to take AP classes for their core classes, and often several more. But every school is different.
At our school DE classes do not get extra weight on GPA. Only AP classes do. Taking DE classes dilute GPA.
the OP, AZW331, and all others who are advocating that 12 AP classes is “quite normal” need to STOP MAKING ASSUMPTIONS AND READ these exerts from the admissions office at Stanford -
“We want to be clear that this is not a case of “whoever has the most APs wins.”
“What a course is named or whether it concludes with a standardized test is considerably less important to us than the energy a student contributes to the learning process and the curiosity with which he or she investigates questions and pursues ideas”
" The students who thrive at Stanford are those who are genuinely excited about learning, not necessarily those who take every single AP or IB, Honors or Accelerated class just because it has that designation.”
" We expect that these students have taken high school course loads of reasonable and appropriate challenge in the context of their schools."
The words REASONABLE and APPROPRIATE are repeated numerous times through out this page, so get a grip EVERYONE- taking more AP classes than you are INTERESTED in or can handle does NOT impress admissions officers!!
Is it better to have more APs and a lower GPA
Vs
Less APs and a higher GPA
@mathyone: I’ll illustrate with an example then.
We’re talking about a high-performing school since the students may take as many as 10-12 AP classes or perhaps even more. Those tend to be in densely populated areas, wealthy areas, college towns (and/or) so access to resources isn’t an issue (transportation can be but not often). We’re not talking low-performing, rural, or inner city.
Think of three students, all of whom have an A average and purport to love math (or foreign language).
Student 1 has taken AP calc or AP foreign language as a sophomore, then nothing for two years, plus Ap Human Geo, AP Lang, APUSH, AP Stats, APES, AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Physics, AP Psychology, AP Gov, Ap Macro.
Student 2 has taken AP Calc or Ap foreign language as a sophomore, plus AP Lang, APUSH, AP Chem, and two DE semesters of college math/foreign language.
Student 3 has taken AP Calc or AP Foreign Language as a sophomore, only Honors classes in other areas, and has progressed 4 college levels beside AP Calc or AP Foreign Language.
I absolutely maintain that students 2 and 3 have better odds of admission at competitive colleges than student 1.
Collecting all the AP’s at your school causes un-necessary stress. There is no need ever to take 12 APs or to wonder if it’s enough; when if students skip lots of levels by taking classes over the summer, then stop taking classes in that subject, yes it’ll be detrimental.
If we’re talking highly gifted and highly motivated students, they will try to continue in their subject even if they exhaust their high school’s offerings. Even if nothing comes to fruition, they have tried different venues that may be mentioned in essays, additional information, or LORs. That thirst for knowledge is something that matters a lot to universities.
The honors track in our schools turns into AP classes as the students advance in grades. In history, we have 3 APs. In English, 2 APs. In science, 1 AP, or more if students choose more science as electives. In math, 1 AP, or more if students choose them as electives. In foreign language, 1 AP if they pursue foreign language all years. That is a minimum of 7, and 12 or more is not that unusual, as many students do take foreign language every year, STEM students usually take more STEM classes, and many students choose some of the non-core APs as electives.
My kids don’t view the regular core classes as viable options. They already endured that kind of class for too many years and learned very little. Maybe in another school they are good classes, full of peers who are interested and do the homework. I guess when you come from a school district like Menlo Park, it’s easy to assume that everyone has good honors classes available to them and label kids from other schools who are just trying to get a decent education as just trying to impress admissions officers in capital letters.
@MYOS1634, it’s really not as easy as many people assume to take college courses. Aside from the cost, transportation and scheduling can very easily be prohibitive. You vastly underestimate how difficult it is to schedule a college class around a high school schedule.
My daughter was able to do it for one semester, by taking 2 study halls. It was costly, commuting was very time-consuming, and inconvenient. Scheduling meant she had to take a class that wasn’t really the right one for her but was the only one possible, she had to drop a hs EC, and she was not able to go to any of the prof’s office hours, which was not a good situation for her. The other semester there was not a single class she could schedule even though she was willing to do either foreign language or several different STEM classes. None of them met at the time slot she had carved out of her high school schedule. Yes, transportation was a major issue. We ended up buying another car. It’s ridiculous to suppose that colleges expect that.
My younger daughter will finish BC as a junior. I sure hope she won’t have cc-like people telling her that she won’t get into good colleges if she takes AP stats or something like that because that will show them that she is both a slacker and an AP-grubber. Since she is potentially interested in psych I think it is the most useful thing she could do with the extra time slot.
@mathyone: what do you mean “admissions officers in capital letters”?
The thread is about taking APs to impress (presumably, adcoms. Or other high schoolers?) So, this isn’t about assuming, it’s about the thread’s topic.
On the other hand, I’m assuming the students at your school take AP core classes junior and senior year, not freshman and sophomore year, then stop to take other APs, which is the situation I was discussing (the issue of kids being pushed to take a class over the summer, especially in math, in order to skip ahead, is real, and I am unapologetic in saying that this is not healthy for 11 to 15 year olds. I know your son was highly talented in math, so it’d have been fun for him - but many kids are just “pushed” - there can’t suddenly be entire cohorts of highly gifted kids who need to spend their summers doing math “for fun”. It becomes absurd when the kid is so pushed that he exhausts a school’s offerings in the subject then stops taking it altogether because of the belief in “collecting the most AP’s”. Instead of spending summers learning Algebra and precalculus, the kid would have been better off enjoying summer, going to summer camp, staying with grandparents, playing with friends at the pool or the lake… and taking the class when scheduled on the advanced path, culminating in CalcBC junior or senior year.)
I agree that when the choice is AP or regular, AP is a better choice, as “endure” often is the right word for “regular” classes at many schools. AP is important because its standardized curriculum ensures a high level regardless of the school where it’s taught.
So, in your district, with only two levels, AP takes the place of Honors& AP elsewhere; my only concern is that taking all your core classes as AP would be exhausting even for very strong students as it’d be 5 AP’s per year both junior and senior year.
In any case, taking 12 Ap’s should never be considered normal or necessary; “impressing others” shouldn’t be a criterion in choosing a class.
I agree with you, ease of taking a college class depends on the college’s schedule and the high school’s flexibility (ie., possibility to take evening or late-afternoon classes, ease of getting early release, EC situation). But your daughter did exactly what I was talking about: she tried. It didn’t work out, but she thought in terms of curricular interests and subject matter. She showed genuine interest for the subject.
In the case of your younger daughter: of course taking psychology makes sense. That’s exactly what I was talking about: taking classes that are “logical” or consistent with purported interests, not because high school students think adcoms think they’ll be “impressive”. (Unless your high school considers she’s not done with math with Calc BC, I wouldn’t have her take AP Stats. She’d be better off waiting till college to take a calc-based statistics class.) Taking AP Psych when you have no interest in psychology just because there’s the accronym AP in front of it… is un-necessary and can be counterproductive.
@spurs2014: what AP’s, in what sequence?
Re #25
Yes, AP courses are high school courses, but some of them do cover college frosh level material so that an advanced student can take advanced placement in college to avoid wasting time and tuition repeating what s/he already knows. Instead, s/he can learn more from additional free electives chosen from the college’s offerings.
Of course, elite high schools may have better than AP courses. But most high schools are not elite, so AP courses are the most advanced and rigorous ones they offer, and many would not be offered at all without the AP branding. It is kind of a sad state of affairs that it takes an AP branding to get worthwhile courses into high school offerings, even if the material of some more recent ones is not really college frosh level (e.g. human geography).
Admissions officers are itching for truly intellectual, interesting students. They care if you are smart enough to do the work at their colleges. After that, they want to know what else you have to offer. Spending all your time on AP classes is time spent not delving into other interests and talents. It is very “mainstream” to take lots of APs. “Mainstream” isn’t what they are looking for.
“The thread is about taking APs to impress (presumably, adcoms. Or other high schoolers?) So, this isn’t about assuming, it’s about the thread’s topic.” Actually, the OP said nothing about taking APs to impress. The OP asked whether colleges would be impressed by that many APs. My take on it was that the OP is taking 12 APs in their high school curriculum and wants to know whether this is something that will impress colleges. That’s different than asking, should I sign up for 12 APs in order to impress colleges? If you think those are the same question, you are missing the point I’ve been trying to make. Just as asking, is winning a statewide piano competition something that will impress colleges? is not the same as asking "should I go win a statewide piano competition just to impress colleges?
I’m not advocating taking AP classes just to rack up AP classes, but there is a very condescending attitude by many posters on here which completely overlooks that in most schools the core courses outside of AP are an intellectual wasteland. These classes are pretty much torture for “truly intellectual, interesting students”. You also should consider that sometimes kids find subjects boring because they are underchallenged. My younger daughter has liked math better every year since she started the high school sequence and it got harder. Same thing with older one and languages. Older one completed APs in her least favorite subject but she still found some of the material to be interesting and felt it was worth it.
Isn’t the answer to this question dependent on the context of the school? If the school offers 12 AP classes and you take all 12 (and presumably do well), it’s impressive in that you’ve taken in the most rigorous courses available in your school and you’ve excelled. On the other hand, if your school offers say 16 AP classes and you do 12, while other applicants from your school do all 16 and excel, your coursework may look less rigorous (but this is obviously only one of many parts of your application and it doesn’t mean that you will get rejected while the other applicants will get accepted).
Yet on the other hand, if your school offers just 4 AP classes and you take all 4 and do well, adcoms should understand that you have maxed out the opportunities available in your school - and you can then further enhance your learning (and show your genuine passion for learning) by taking classes at the local CC or free MOOCs.
This question is pretty insignificant then, because it depends greatly on context, and probably isn’t that important at all in the grand scheme of things.
"in most schools the core courses outside of AP are an intellectual wasteland. "
That is quite a sweeping assumption to make…
More advanced AP classes may have been wonderful for your children, but I dont think you can expect others to agree with your statement, particularly as you have offered no data to support it.
This is an interesting thread. As a suburban public school student who has been both in the AP classroom and in the regular classroom, I can definitely back up the claim that some “regular” classes are an intellectual wasteland. It might be taking it too far to say that is the case in most schools. However, at my school honors classes are only an option for freshman and sophomore science and for a slightly accelerated algebra 2 class. Honors classes are DEFINITELY not AP level here. They are viewed as AP preparatory. AP is where you find passionate teachers, motivated students, and quality textbooks. Keep in mind that most of these classes over-prepare kids for the exam and dive much deeper because the AP national exam doesn’t require much mastery.
As far as dual enrollment goes, I think that is definitely an awesome option to AP classes. One must realize that many areas don’t have many feasible DE options before one bashes the OP for focusing primarily on AP.