<p>@momreads Alabama-Huntsville is well known in STEM circles, especially in the aerospace and aeronautical engineering fields. Those in the know, know!</p>
<p>DS is down 2 AP tests, 4 more to go. He isn’t stressed out about them at all for several reasons. They don’t count towards grades (plus he’s a second semester senior!) and his classes have prepared him well. No homework during AP exam period is also a plus! AND according to him, the best part is the free snacks and drinks the PTA sets out between exams. Last week was “stress less week” at school and there was free food then too. Teachers and the principal were dressed in funny costumes (I saw a picture of the principal in a Flappy Bird costume one day). And they brought in therapy dogs!! So cute.</p>
<p>Senior night for his spring sport tonight. Hope I don’t tear up! </p>
<p>Also, he’s found himself a roommate! A teammate, and someone who used to live in our area before moving away in late elementary school. Turns out they would have gone to the same middle school if the other boy hadn’t moved away. Small world.</p>
<p>@2014novamom that’s nice when things work out :)</p>
<p>@LucietheLakie, I think you’re on to something. A good friend of mine is a graduate of Pomona (early 90s? She’s a bit younger than I am.) Anyway, the joke her senior year was that half of the class would no longer make the admissions cut! Prestige is a funny thing. It waxes and wanes like the moon.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>UVM explicitly states that they save an equal number of slots in each class for each orientation session, so that the kids in the earlier sessions don’t get first dibs. Not being able to get into your major’s intro classes seems unacceptable to me. </p>
<p>Our kids get the rest of the day off if they have an AP exam. It didn’t do him much good the day he had two, but yesterday he just had Calculus in the morning and then an afternoon to veg. So he’s pretty happy overall with the AP exam period. Since all his classes but 1 are APs he’ll have very little serious work for the rest of the year once his exams are done. </p>
<p>He only had to do a math placement exam, which was easy for a math-oriented kid. He will have to do an essay based on the summer reading because he is in honors. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t realize yet that there will be summer reading or an essay, but he’ll find out at orientation. I’m not telling him 
He doesn’t have any other plans for this summer, so it shouldn’t be an issue. Much less than the pre-AP-class summer homework he’s had for the past 2 years. </p>
<p>I’m sure DS14 would be envious of the free food and early release after AP tests. He just went to the next class period. A lot of our kids don’t go the AP route though so no special treatment for those that do. They do get Friday off for teacher institute so he can relax then. I just sprung the placement test info on him but luckily he has a while to complete them. I know he’s counting down the days, next Friday is the last day for seniors. Seems surreal.</p>
<p>Not many of our kids go the AP route either. Probably 30-40 total taking at least 1 AP class in their high school career, out of each graduating class of 200-250 students. They still have class until mid-June, so a lot of time for low-stress stuff in the AP classes once the exams are done.</p>
<p>Free food and early release after AP tests on my D’s school as well. Free breakfast and donut during break.</p>
<p>I think today is the AP Lit exam? D also gets to leave after AP’s. I think this is her last one. I’m becoming a much less hyper involved mom the second time around…I kinda get the kind of parenting I got as the 4th child. </p>
<p>D had to take a math placement test as well, unfortunately she isn’t a strong math student so it looks like an online class is in the cards. </p>
<p>@mathmomvt wrote: “Not many of our kids go the AP route either. Probably 30-40 total taking at least 1 AP class in their high school career, out of each graduating class of 200-250 students.”</p>
<p>It’s so different where we are. My D took 9 AP’s & this was typical for the good students. She had such a rough junior year with AP’s in Calc, Bio, US History & English. So unnecessary in hindsight… I apreciate the credit she’s getting at college for some of her AP’s, but 4 would have done the job as well as 9. I will pass this along to D’18, but I predict she will forge ahead being the headstrong & highly competitive kid she is.</p>
<p>D14 is basically done with all of her tests/finals. She has a few projects to finish up, but says those are all almost done, so it is really relaxed around here. Not sure what she will be doing at school the next two weeks, other than practices for both the HS and college graduations, and some fun end of year activities. D15 is a little more stressed with exams yet to do and projects still underway, but also not behind, so she’s in reasonably good spirits. Also, D14 is exempt from the UC placement exams, so she doesn’t have to worry about that. </p>
<p>She’s met all of her provisional admission requirements other than sending the final transcripts, which aren’t available yet. Next up is getting the housing questionnaire and course info from her advisor, which is sometime next month. And as an Honors student, she gets priority on courses and housing, so no worries that she is in the last orientation group (the two night option is the last group, but she preferred it to the single day). This part has been surprisingly easy!</p>
<p>@GertrudeMcFuzz it’s tough, because the kids want their counselor to be able to say they took the “most rigorous” program offered. If they take 4 APs in a situation where it’s typical to take 9, they look “bad” relative to those other top kids, and it could hurt their admissions chances at top schools. </p>
<p>At our HS to top kids take 6-7 APs typically over 2 years (my DS will have 6 AP classes and 7 exams on his transcript), though they are starting to push on of the AP History classes and AP bio down to sophomore year, so possibly the top kids will be taking even more by the time my youngest gets there. But there will be like a dozen or so kids taking that many, and more kids taking only a few. </p>
<p>My S took 8 APs , school average is about 4. But his teachers actually pushed him down that path and it worked out well for him. I’m grateful he had a good mentor/teacher who was willing to think outside the box and take up his cause. It helped him mature and develop more organization skills. That being said, he’s most excited about being able to place out of Chemistry in college :)</p>
<p>My S is taking 11 AP tests in HS (2 are self study ones). They don’t get him out of much and essentially mean little except to his ego. I am very ambivalent about the whole thing. At his school, taking so many APs is the norm, sadly. And they get no food or early dismissal either!</p>
<p>Our hs offers 8 APs, and one is studio art. Haven’t heard of a kid yet who took them all. I’ve probably said this before, so excuse the repetition. But, in my state, the department of ed regs forbid schools from offering both AP and DE of the same class. So, calc I and calc II are DE. No AP Calc AB or BC. On the bright side, it means nobody has to decide between DE and AP. </p>
<p>Val/Sal hasn’t been announced yet, so I couldn’t tell you how many APs the top 2 took. D, who is currently 6th, took 2. </p>
<p>@ordinarylives - what is DE? Not familiar with that term.</p>
<p>We don’t have any DE (Dual Enrollment) readily available. Kids with cars have been known to travel to a college about half an hour away for classes if they exceed what the school offers. Two of my son’s APs are for courses our school doesn’t actually offer. Psych was a non-AP psych class where the teacher encouraged him to try the AP exam. He didn’t really do any independent prep for it so he’s not sure he pulled off the 4 he’d need to get any credit for it. And our school only goes up to Calc AB but he took Calc BC via an online class. Physics (C Mechanics) ended up being an unplanned online class as well because the teacher had to take a medical leave mid-year. But Physics and Calc will show up on his transcript as AP classes, and Psych will not.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how many they actually offer, but no one takes them all – it wouldn’t be possible schedule wise. </p>
<p>My son will have taken 7 APs. Looks like the average is 3.5. I saw a list with 22 AP courses offered but I’m not sure they really are. My S reports that not everyone who takes the course takes the test, but most do. As far as I know, no food, no early dismissal, and I imagine they have to make up work they miss in other classes during the test. But things are much more relaxed – most classes have little take home work now (except Bio) and in-class practice tests are either building confidence (Gov) or were so hard they made the actual test seem easy (Chem). </p>
<p>I remember being much more stressed. </p>
<p>With darn few APs offered, there’s a full class or two of calc I and II, comp I and II, and some others, so the teacher comes to the kids. Students who want something a little off the beaten path can chose between the local cc’s online offerings or haul themselves over to the cc or one of two locals LACs. That last option is tough because the hs and college schedule never line up. </p>
<p>Yeah, we have the same schedule alignment problem. My older son was encouraged to take a college language course when French IV wouldn’t fit into his schedule, but college language classes were also not scheduled at convenient times for a HS student. There isn’t a college in town that offers a calculus class suitable for someone contemplating an engineering career – the nearest is a LAC about half an hour away.</p>
<p>My D’s school offers both AP and IB classes. Some kids do the full IB diploma, which is two years of the same classes, but some do both on an a la carte basis. D was full IB until her struggles junior year which caused her to drop several classes. That was really hard because then she was off th “track” they begin freshman year as far as course progression. Her school offers 13 APs and 17 IB. A huge percentage (129 out of 170) take at least one AP! It’s a tough school!</p>