I think what is “heavy” or “light” really depends on the teacher and the student’s aptitude for the subject. My son would say that the two heavy listed History AP’s World & US were easy for him. He’s taken 8 AP’s so he has a pretty good cross section. AP computer science was the hardest so far - he barely got an A, but did awful on the exam. The teacher gave tons of extra credit, but if you didn’t know how to program going into the class you failed the AP exam - lots of kids with 1’s & 2’s in his class. He’s in AP Physics 1 now and the work load is much heavy for him than either of the two history classes. He loves the class because the teacher is really awesome.
At first glance, I would have assumed that the terms “heavy” and “light” refer to rigor of content rather than workload or pace.
For what it’s worth, the list in the OP doesn’t match what little I know about workload from my kid and kid’s friends for specific courses at kid’s school. Perhaps the workload comparison is difficult to make because the character of the work differs among courses, say history/English vs physics/calc - some kids might take to one type of work like a duck to water but struggle with the other type.
For example, CollegeBoard says the following in their course descriptions
AP Studio was SO not “lite”.
It was very very time intensive, and basically a two-year class. Projects were started the year before in order to have time to finish in the second year. It wasn’t mentally rigorous – but it was very time intensive for my daughter.
AP music theory - she received lots of college credit for that - 6 hours; another college was going to offer 9. Not sure i’d call that “lite” either. A few STEM kids took the class with my D and dropped it as they had NO IDEA how much background knowledge was needed as a pre-req.
D18 has taken 11 AP classes, and for her the “heaviest” class was the fIrst one. For her, learning the format of the test and understanding what College Board wants was the most stressful and time-consuming part. For better or for worse, most of her teachers have taught to the test. Some have even stated, “I will teach the material you need to know to get a 3 on the test. If you want to score higher, you will need to self-study.”
Some yearlong AP classes are taught in 1 semester, such as AP Physics. S18 can testify that “Light” is a misleading term.
It definitely depends on the teacher. My senior took AP Environmental this year because frankly it had a rep as being easy. Due to a change in teachers, she says that it is the most difficult class she has ever taken and wishes she would have gone with AP Physics. This is a kid with a 4.0 uw who started with APs in 10th grade so I don’t think generalizations are applicable.
When colleges review a transcript to see if a student took challenging courses, do they care if an otherwise challenging AP course was taken over a year instead of a semester, and give appropriately less regards?
My guess is that the answer is no, or yes but only a little, because colleges would review a transcript in the context of what is offered by a high school. After all, what can a student do if Micro/Macro Econ are year long at her high school?
And if my guess is right, then purely in terms of college admissions, wouldn’t it be a student’s advantage if her school offers semester APs as yearlong courses? So that the student can aim for better GPA or do more with the freed up resource.
@sahmkc my daughter is in AP Comp Sci and her school has no programming prerequisite. Last year her school had 50 students take the exam. The majority got 5’s and there was only one 2 and no 1’s.
@warbrain there are two levels in language APs in some languages. At our school Spanish 4 students take the first exam, Spanish 5 students take the second.
DS19’s school is semestered. All AP courses are taught as 1 semester courses including Calculus BC, Bio, Chem, & World History, despite them being equivalent to 2 semesters of university credit (though they will have completed the grade 12 “honours” level equivalent course as a prerequisite first). In addition, his school year runs Sept-June, so AP courses offered in 2nd semester need to be compacted a bit in order to be able to write the AP exam in May. Conversely students who have AP courses in 1st semester need to keep current on the material throughout 2nd semester until they write the exam in May.
As I mentioned in the “Stress” post, I’m trying to figure out how heavy a course load the AP’s are likely to be as he is contemplating taking AP Calc BC, Physics, Chemistry, and World History in addition to 2 or 3 pre-AP/honours level courses. He won’t receive transfer credit for all of the AP courses, so one possibility is to take them as AP level but not write the AP exam. His school will have an AP course selection info session for students and parents before he has to pick his courses for next year. Last year they recommended that students not take more than 4-5 pre-AP courses, so I am interested to see what they will recommend with regards to actual AP courses.
@VickiSoCal That’s my point about Teachers being a huge factor in AP classes. There are no prerequisites for our AP Comp Sci either, but the football coach “teaches” this class. So if you went in not knowing how to program you could get an A in the class with the ton of extra credit offered, but would likely fail the AP Exam.
There was also an AP Psych class that was referred to as Netflix AP until they swapped out teachers - now the class is actually challenging.
Our AP Bio classes are so hard that my friend’s son who was a NMSF and is now majoring Biomedical engineering had a difficult time in the class. I think it was his only B among a very difficult course load throughout high school.
So you can’t generalize AP’s as light or heavy because they are taught so differently thus the need for AP exams.
AP Physics C in our school was taught with both the Mechanical and EM curriculum. So not light in our school. Student prep varied - some had AP Physics B, but due to scheduling problems both my kids just had regular high school physics.
No one considered AP English Lit light. Huge reading list and a lot of writing. My older son took 3 of the supposedly heavy courses as a junior with no issues. Younger son took 3 of the heavy ones as a senior. He’s not even that strong in math or physics, but did fine.
I think the AP score distribution is more helpful:
Heh, I doubt AP Calc BC is really ‘light’, but it has the highest proportion of 5’s nonetheless.
Re #32
By score distributions, Chinese and calculus BC are the “easiest”, while human geography is the “hardest”.
I was just typing something about score distribution. If many kids in a class are getting a 1, 2, or a 3 then either the HS rigor is lacking and an “A” really is pretty meaningless.
You need to take into account of who and when.
AP Chinese is easy because it is taken mostly by chinese kids.
AP Human Geography is hard because it is taken by a large number of freshmen who are still weak in reading by writing.
AP Calc BC is easy because it is taken by students who have completed AP Calc AB and by strong math students in 11th and 12th grade.
Does anyone know what’s behind the low pass rate for Physics 1?
^ Because it’s truly not light. AP physics 1 requires students understand physics phenomena and principles. It cover more materials than AP Physics C. AP Physics C is more calculus application.
Light=my kids did well
Heavy=my kids did not do well
Calc BC–scores are high because all the kids who are not really really good at math aren’t taking the test.
Human geography- -scores are low because this class has the highest number of kids who are not otherwise honors students, just trying out the one AP class they heard wasn’t too hard.