Interesting discussion about AP classes.
I have a lot of thoughts about this, so apologize in advance for the long post…
We have a moderate number of AP classes, but nowhere near as many as some posters are reporting. There are 10 listed on the most recent school profile, but the number fluctuates a little from year to year.
Like many other posters’ kids, my S likes being in AP classes because of the rigor, challenge, teacher quality, and interest level of other students. (We are lucky to have terrific teachers in general, but the AP teachers tend to be among the best of the group; I have mixed feelings about this, since it could be argued that weaker students need the better teachers more than the strong students do, but as a parent of strong students, I’m grateful for the resources available to my family).
By the time he graduates, S will have about 8 AP classes (15 semester credits) plus 4-5 DE credits. S has also taken (and plans to take) several academically “serious” classes that interest him but are not available as AP (psychology, philosophy, Shakespeare). And, although there will be an AP physics class offered for the first time next year, S is passing it up to take a calc-based DE physics class.
Although AP classes are more rigorous that non-AP on average, there’s certainly not a 1:1 correspondence between AP designation and rigor. For example, the philosophy class S plans to take will be taught by the APUSH teacher, so likely will be engaging and rigorous. The psychology class also is reputed to be excellent (and many students take the AP exam in psych, though the class is not officially an AP class). Among the AP classes that S has taken, there has been great variability in terms of work/effort required and difficulty viz. grades (APUSH and Chem were very challenging, posing greatest “risk” to 4.0 GPA, stats was pretty easy, and others including Calc AB & BC were in between, but generally not too stressful).
I complain (mildly) that our school doesn’t weight GPA, but in reading that many students have to sacrifice GPA/class rank in order to pursue their interests, I am actually feeling quite glad & lucky that we don’t have to worry about that at all. I think it is crazy to set up a trade-off between preserving GPA/rank and taking serious classes in subjects of interest to a student (including band/music) that don’t happen to be “AP.”
As far as the breadth vs. depth complaint, I think that may be more of an issue in some subjects than others, and probably depends a lot on the teacher, but these classes are supposed to be stand-ins for survey-level college classes which do tend to be broad rather than deep. On the other hand, I’m not counting on the AP’s (or even the DEs) as college credit for DS. If he is able to start at a slightly more advanced level in a subject or two, that is fine, but I look at them more as a way to challenge academically serious students in high school.
Bottom line, I like AP classes in moderation, and am thankful that they have turned out to be very positive experiences for DS (so far… we’ll get to see his scores on 4 exams tomorrow :-)) ), but think they have been reified in a way that is not healthy or sensible. I like @Dave_N’s Nordstrom’s quote. Common sense is needed (and penalizing students for taking a class that interests them instead of their 9th or 16th AP class in a subject that doesn’t interest them is NOT common sense IMO).
I’m glad not to be going to college with all of these high achieving young people but it does bring me comfort to know we have so many amazing young adults paving their way to a wonderful future.