@STEM2017 I couldn’t agree more about the tier of school and merit money. I think it is so important, especially if you child wants to get an advanced degree!
I think Case Western and U Rochester for example offered to sign up for an interview as part of your visit. If you are interested in these schools I would encourage to do the interview.
Tulane also considers interest very much I’ve heard, not sure how best to do that, they would be far away from us.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek – I do not know the first thing about math or teaching math, but my son has been asking me to buy those AOPS books for years for Christmas or his birthday. (Yes, he needs some new hobbies!) I think he thinks they help with math team competitions or AMC or both?
Just looked on book shelf and apparently he only has intermediate algebra and geometry. Am not sure why he stopped there, but a couple of books by Godel are nearby.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek and @whataboutcollege D contacts the admissions office/regional reps and they get her answers or directly puts her in touch but they remain primary contact. She’s doing what I did back in the day. 
Thanks for the info about AoPS, @Mom2aphysicsgeek. I don’t think S’s calculus class emphasized memorizing formulas at all, though as I said I’m not sure what teaching methods were used or how the teacher would describe/categorize them.
In my earlier post about “teaching to the test” I was thinking more about content than teaching methods. I assume that the content taught in calculus classes doesn’t vary as much as the methods used to teach it, and that a variety of different methods/approaches could be used to prepare students to master this content (and thus also succeed on the AP test). But maybe AoPS teaches different content in addition to using different methods (compared to “typical” calculus classes, that is). I’m not informed enough to know.
After reflecting some more on the notion of “teaching to the test” (and asking S about his experiences in his AP classes), I think that his teachers did a phenomenally good job of preparing students for these exams without allowing the exams to constrain their teaching too much. That’s got to be hard to do, and I am impressed by how well they seem to do this at his school. In some classes (e.g., CS) he said the teacher went way beyond the AP curriculum, covering more content and holding students to higher standards for the code they produced (compared to what was required for the exam). In contrast, in APUSH (where there was too much content to cover in class) students were responsible for reading and studying their textbooks independently (no handwritten notes had to be turned in, thank goodness 
), while in class they focused on developing writing skills (to prepare for the essay/DBQ questions), and had lectures and discussions on topics that the teacher considered particularly interesting. They were frequently tested on material in the textbook, which made the class hard in terms of grades, but helped motivate students to keep up with the information they needed to learn while allowing the teacher to use class time in ways that he deemed most important (FWIW, S did say that of all the AP classes he’s taken, APUSH felt the most like its main goal was preparing students for an exam, but he still got a lot out of it beyond an AP score).
Maybe there is a difference between preparing students to succeed on a test (as one of multiple objectives for a class) and “teaching to” that test.
Passed along the tips to D17. She is more into her summer program in the city rather than paying attention to a nagging mother :((
@itsgettingreal17 Sadly we found the regional rep for our favorite school to be useless. Our rep was shocked when I got appointments that she said were not available.
@mommdc Thanks for the Pitt info and link. Passed it on to D17 who is off to her grandmother’s for a week. D has promised a draft CA essay upon her return. Also a Pitt app was discussed, but we may wait now! A good reason to ask her regional admin a question.
@jeepgirl Regional rep: Same. Yes or no question emailed twice, ignore twice. Told son to chalk it up to Summer break.
Any comments about AP difficulty among the sciences? My A- STEM DD is currently going to take senior year:
- AP BC calc
- AP Physics C
- Linear algebra
- English
- PE
2 extra classes she was going to take (Physics E&M and a web design class) aren’t going to be available for her. (You see she was going to take almost all STEM classes.) So she would probably pick 2 from the following list:
- AP stats
- AP bio
- AP chem
- micro/macro economics, or some other history
(Yes, there’s no need for her to take more foreign language or history.)
I guess my question is - how would you rank the work in those 3 AP classes? I feel like AP calc and AP physics tend to not have lots of homework (like APUSH does). AP stats is probably the easiest of the 3 I listed, right? How does AP bio compare to AP chem? Is there any issue taking AP bio now, given that she took bio in 9th grade, 3 years ago?
How do you find out who the regional reps for different schools like PITT?
@theshadow can’t comment on relative difficulty, but my D14 took AP bio in 12th (after having ‘honors’ 9th bio). Her class didn’t have excessive work, and seemed to more than adequately prepare her for the test without any self-study needed.
I think AP bio would be the most work. I don’t think I would take it if she had Bio three years ago. Also if she is taking Bio in college it would be best to take intro bio there rather than use AP bio credit. Same with AP chem.
If she is already taking AP Calc BC (semester class?) and linear algebra, I don’t think I would take AP stats, unless she takes it instead of linear algebra.
AP micro/macro can be useful, my D is using AP credit from it.
I think she has a very challenging schedule with AP physics C and two math classes already. I would not overload too much in senior year. Take something fun.
@theshadow, ds took chem and stats (but not bio). I’d say stats was the easiest for him (in terms of work load, stress, etc.) of all AP’s he’s taken (including APUSH, AB & BC Calc, US Gov, and Comp Sci in addition to chem). Chem and APUSH were probably the hardest in terms of work/effort/stress, but can’t compare either to bio, econ, and other histories since he’s not taken them.
@srk2017 …do you currently receive email from Pitt? I think we started receiving email after we signed up for a visit maybe? Then the regional admissions rep emailed to follow-up and she responded with a campus visit question.
** Busy work in AP classes **
DD and DS didn’t complain about busy work at all, but I don’t really know the details of their classes. I do know that they wrote lots of papers for APUSH…if I’m remembering correctly, they had shorter essays daily and some major papers too. They also had a major project after the AP exam (our school runs over a month after the AP tests are done). Both kids said that that class prepared them very well for writing in college, and it showed
In our school, APUSH is the only AP available junior year and maybe that’s a good thing. They had to write quite a bit for English 11 too and it would have been tough to sustain that writing load across even more courses. About half the class gets 5s every year, FWIW. Similar percentiles in the two senior year APs (AP Bio and AP Eng Lit) get 5s as well. So maybe the school is making the AP classes more intense than in some places, and lightening the load by offering fewer of them…who knows. I’m sure learning a lot here about how different AP courses can be in different schools.
Methods of teaching math
I think I’ve mentioned before that our calculus teacher wants to teach by memorizing formulas and this clashed horribly with DS’15 who wanted to understand the underlying concepts. He ended up teaching himself through online videos, solving the problems his own way, then going back afterward to fill in the “work” that she wanted to see to avoiding losing points for not showing work. WAY too much drama that year 
. DS’17 really likes her though and is asking for a LOR from her. Go figure!
@carachel2 - We have requested info from PITT a week or two back and today they sent email saying that application is open. I tried to look for their regional events in CA and found none. We are interested in BS/MD program.
^ we also received the Pitt email about the app opening – we also sent ACT scores. It would have been nice to get a fee waiver
I think I’ve said enough about APs so I’ll move one (although I pleased to say that D17 didn’t have to do any handwritten notes. I can tell you now, that would NOT have flown.
@CT1417 @Mom2aphysicsgeek On the topic of math teaching, I highly recommend reading Paul Lockhart’s “A Mathematician’s Lament” (the book is available on Amazon, but I have a link to a PDF that is a shorter version.) Basically, he contends that the way we teach math is akin to teaching someone how to read and play musical notes without even hearing a symphony or teaching art to someone by explaining how to mix colors and teaching brushstroke technique without ever seeing a painting. Interesting stuff.
https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
DD checked her AP scores and got a 5 in Calc BC and Eng Lang. French says it won’t be available until Sept. 2.