Her plate with activities outside the classroom is full. She is extremely busy but social person. This summer she will be working in research and development in artificial intelligence lab when she come back from Europe.
Well…if you are looking for merit aid, you are not looking at Harvard or Yale…because they don’t give merit aid.
How does your daughter handle stress? What kind of grades is she looking for in her AP classes? I still think 6 AP classes is a lot even for very strong students. Will she be able to get A’s in these courses without giving up her full plate outside of the classroom? When will she eat and sleep?
Is your D getting all A’s now without doing much work? You mentioned that she is top 10% which is excellent… But different than top 1%.
Is she looking at Ivy League schools, or is she looking for merit?
Very few kids can get all A’s in 6 AP classes, do well with all testing, stay heavily involved in activities, eat and sleep normally, and maintain their mental health.
Yes all As but her boarding school does not rank,
@thumper1 provided she gets admission at elite colleges as it is crapshoot, we have to give 13 k in family contribution, if she gets a job in Wall Street or venture capital firm, it will be easier, otherwise we may have to take loan
Does she get all A’s with a minimal amount of studying? How much school work does she do on a daily basis? What is her typical day like right now and what time is she home each day?
Honestly…I think expecting a student to get all A’s at a competitive boarding school while taking ALL AP courses…is a very high expectation.
But it sounds like that is what you expect.
No I want to take less rigorous course load but she will not listen, therefore I made this thread to show my concern to her
I think taking 6 AP classes and doing well in them, staying active outside of class, prepping for the ACT/SAT, while having time to eat/sleep/stay mentally healthy… is impossible and not realistic. I would not allow my child to take 6 APs because she would not be able to handle the stress. Our HS suggests 3.
Does her prep school allow students to switch from AP to a lower level like honors…if the student finds this is too aggressive a courseload?
Another thing…however…if you kiddo is planning to apply to very elite schools, you want the school counselor S to be able to check the box for MOST challenging courseload. What does it take for that to happen at this school.
Could you provide us with some context…what is her courseload THIS year?
Ap chem
High honors language
English
Honors pre calculus
Ap us history
Sixth course is graduation requirement in art music and other course
Yes she can drop down if it becomes too much in first few weeks
This year course workload was most challenging
Lots of people here are saying they “wouldn’t allow” their kids to take 6 AP classes. Personally, I would not, could not, counsel my kids to take less rigorous courses than they wanted.
And I can’t get my head around the idea that 6 AP’s is “too much” for a smart, motivated student to handle, even while balancing outside activities and a healthy social life.
I know these are only two data points, but my kids both took 6 or more AP’s junior and senior year while competing nationally and internationally in their sport and maintaining healthy social lives. In the end their UW GPA’s were 4.0 and 3.9+.
Did I do anything near what they did when I was in high school? Hell no!
But they believed, correctly, that they could.
@nynycasino1234, it seems that you’ve done a wonderful job as a parent. My advice is to let your daughter make her own decision and then give her every ounce of support you can. Good luck and best wishes to your entire family.
Let me clarify… I would strongly suggest to my child that she not take 6 AP classes. Our HS would not allow it so it’s a moot point. That number would never be brought up for discussion in our school. Top students in our HS are incredibly busy managing 3.
If the OP’s daughter insists on taking 6 AP’s and has the ability to scale back if necessary, then she will likely register for 6 APs.
@sherpa , your children’s experience, I am guessing, isn’t the usual. It sounds like your kids are exceptional. Perhaps the teachers assigned sensible amounts of homework at your kids’ school. Hats off to your kids. Yes, some kids can handle it. Maybe OP’s kid will be able to cope.
There have been some kids in our school who took six APs as seniors, but they had completed all testing in their junior year. I know of a kid in our school right now whose parents are oblivious to the fact that their son’s stomach and headache issues are probably due to the pressure they are putting on him to take many APs and do lots of ECs as well. They simply refuse to acknowledge that he isn’t coping. Our school gives horrendous amounts of homework. It is incredibly difficult to manage excessive homework and all the other stuff that top schools want to see. (Refer to my earlier post in which I mention how many APs our Harvard and MIT kids did.)
OP, keep a close eye on the situation. If things get out of control, play your parent card and intervene.
Reading through the entire thread, I think that if it were me I would encourage my student to consider switching from AP to honors in whichever one or two courses she was least interested in, and would only let her do this if she really wanted to. However, if one of my daughters had insisted on this course load, I would not have vetoed it.
In my case one daughter did insist on quite a few APs in her senior year (4 or 5), and she did quite well in them. It was a LOT of work and in the end she decided against taking one of the AP exams, but did very well on all of the others. Also, a heavy load senior year might actually be worse than junior year, because in senior year the “apply to universities, visit universities, and decide which to go to” is pretty much as much work and perhaps more stress than an entire additional course.
The OP wrote this. If it means the student was very challenged taking this sophomore courseload…than a jump to six AP courses could,be even more challenging.
If it means that this is the most challenging coirseload offered to sophomores…that’s another thing.
Please clarify.
And again I ask…what will the school do if the student decides part way through the term that all those AP courses are too much? Will they allow the student to ramp down to honors classes? Some schools will…and some schools just won’t.
Thumper it was most challenging in her school, one of the school that charges close to 50 to 60 thousand dollars per (Need based scholarship covered for all three kids )year for high school, one third class goes to ivy plus. she thought that course load was easy. I am just worried that she will not have balance for social life Fight is about my self on one side worried about her high school experience and social life and my entire family on another side with the my third daughter.
@sherpa I think I will take your advice, I spoke to counselor as she knows my older two daughter. She assured me that daughter will be able to handle it. Thanks
How much time did your daughter spend each night doing school work in order to get straight A’s in these classes? Four hours per night? One hour per night? What time does she come home each day from her activities? Do most students take 6 APs junior year? Does your D ever show signs of stress?