Congratulations, @ninakatarina on the TASP nomination!
@homerdog , my D is taking AP Stat, in addition to AP Calc, this year. It’s a slightly different approach. The teacher is awesome. She gives a lot of smart work. May be, because of the teacher, she likes statistics a lot.
Kid signed up for AP Stats next year. One of the majors under consideration is psychology, and that relies heavily on a basic knowledge of statistics from what I can tell. I made a joke about putting him in for Calc BC and was threatened with bodily harm.
My S19 is planning on AP Calc, AP Stats, and AP Physics. These will be his first and only AP courses.
My S19, who still has no idea about any potential college major, is planning on AP Calc (not sure which one), AP Music Theory, AP Physics 2, and maybe one more, which could be Chem, Stats or Comp Sci Principles.
It’s too late to suddenly jump into the “most rigorous” curriculum offered so he’s just choosing what he likes. I’m sure he wishes he didn’t have to take English 12 or US Gov!
@eh1234 Our high school just started requiring AP Gov or American Politics. The class of 2019 is getting out of that requirement and it’s starting with class of 2020. I’m pretty happy about that. It would be a bummer if S19 had to find space for it. I think they let the 2019’s out of it because some of them would have a hard time at this point fitting the class into their senior year.
Not sure what DD’19 is going to take next year. Picking classes probably won’t happen until March. On top of that she is on an out of district and has to reapply every summer so the counselor won’t actually even try to request her classes in the system. I think she is leaning toward Calculus BC because her brother ('16) told her the first semester is basically a repeat of AB which she is in now. They will not let kids jump to BC here. She will only needs an English and Government for graduation but must take 6-8 classes.
@Dragonflygarden I have heard that story about BC Calc from other posters as well. I don’t get why a school would allow kids to repeat the AB portion of the AP Calc curriculum. Kids only take AB or BC Calc at our school. They either do AB and cover the AB curriculum in one year or they take BC and they cover the AB concepts first semester amd the BC concepts the second semester. Does anyone really take the AB test one year and the BC test the following year when part of the BC test would be a repeat of the AB concepts?
@homerdog my son took both tests (11th & 12th) but they were paid for by a grant and the kids received $100 checks from that same fund for every Science, Math or English AP they passed. Son loved math got 5s on AB, BC and Stats. We no longer have the grant so no more bonuses. We are in a poorer underperforming school district. BC is the highest math offered at our school and only about 15-20 kids take it per year (out of a school of over 2200 students).
D19 took AP US History over the summer last year. A ton of work (40 weeks of curriculum crammed into 8 weeks) and she swore she would never do that again.
So I was shocked when she said she wants to take AP classes this summer also. AP Government and AP economics. Both are half semester classes, so 4 weeks. But her classmates apparently swear that the summer version is really easy.
She wants to free up schedule for the actual school year because she’ll be doing some off campus program that takes up multiple class periods.
For the actual senior year, her HS requires a 4th year of math, so that’ll be AP stats for her. A 4th year of English (AP Lit). A 5th science (AP Bio). She’ll also take XC/track.
Mine will end up having taken just three AP classes. Of course, those three AP courses are the only ones her school offers, so…
As much as I hate her having to, D will be going from 2 AP classes this year to 5 next year…AP Lit, AP Calc, AP Physics 1, AP Gov, and AP Psych. She could drop down to regular Psych, but she is very interested in that topic so I’m guessing that will be a “No”. AP Gov would have been an easy drop except this year they made it a full year course and so the school waives gym which she is VERY anxious to skip. But given how much APUSH is kicking her butt this year, gym sounds like a nice reprieve about now! She will also continue with her PT job and probably go out for spring musical. I’m going to heavy persuade her to skip the fall production…just too much with apps and schoolwork.
Kids are allowed to take Calc AB followed by Calc BC in our schools, but most of the students who are advanced enough to take Calc as juniors (or earlier) are ready for BC.
My S19, who likes math, is finding honors pre-Calc more difficult than expected. If he doesn’t pull out a B+ in this class, I think he will take AB next year. The slower pace should help him get a firmer grounding for future Calc classes.
(He’ll probably want some type of STEM major - hopefully a B in HS math isn’t an indicator that he shouldn’t because I have no idea what else he would do. He really doesn’t like trig, but they move on soon).
@ILMom13579 I hear you! My son has 2 APs this year and will take 4 next year (along with honors English & Gov, orchestra and jazz band). He loves AP Psych and it’s easy - it was his highest grade last quarter, there’s not too much hw, and he never studies for tests. AP Physics 1 isn’t too bad (so far). They don’t seem to do a lot of labs compared to other science classes.
My d will end up with either 8 or 9 by graduation, depending on whether she takes APES next year. But our school allows them for sophomores and she took 2 then, so it wasn’t so bad.
No way I can convince my son to skip any of the upcoming school productions. They’re a huge part of his social life and he loves hanging out.
Our plan is to start filling out applications August 1st and be ready to hit submit on the top 3 before the end of September. The fall play doesn’t ramp up for actors until mid-October so he should be OK.
I think I’m going to be jealous of those who will be submitting a bunch of EA apps next year. S19 has very few schools on his list that do EA. Just Richmond and Dickinson and I don’t think those will be favorites for him. We will be waiting until the very end and getting almost all decisions in March/April!
I think my son will probably submit most of his apps EA. I don’t WPI has EA, only ED though.
Lasy year my son17 had submitted quite a few EA apps, and got into the schools with moderate acceptance rates. He was deferred into RD round for the rest which sucked. That seems like it’s happening more and more. The schools are only admitting the cream of the crop EA, and then holding off until they see what other applicants they get in RD.
In hindsight, we probably should have had son17 apply ED to a school he really wanted to attend, but he wasn’t quite 100% sure, more like 96% lol. Anyways, he got deferred and ultimately waitlisted. He was kind of bummed, and I think he would’ve been accepted had he gone ED and done an interview. Oh well, he’s happy at his current school and it might actually be a better fit in the long run.
So, I wouldn’t be opposed to son19 applying ED to a reach “dream type” school if he has one. But so far, most of the schools he likes only offer EA/RD.
He will have everything filled out and essays written by early Fall so he can just apply when he wants to. The Fall is very busy with soccer, not much time for working on apps.
I’ve been lurking on the 2018 page and it definitely looks like TONS of kids getting deferred at BC, all Ivies, Michigan, even Wisconsin. I don’t know if ED is even the way to go with these schools anymore. Seems like they are taking so few kids ED. You’d better stand out big time in some way to get in for the early rounds. Kids with perfect scores and super high grades getting deferred so they can be compared to the other perfect score kids RD. 
I’ll go one up on all y’all looking at EA schools, and mention that my D19 will be applying to a handful of rolling admissions schools, including at least one where the application opens mid-June (with purely stats-based, and thus effectively immediate, admission). 
There are more kids getting deferred from ED now too, that’s for sure. But that may be because more " less than perfect" candidates have figured out there might be a benefit to applying ED and it might boost your chances.
So, I think that if you have a good chance at admission anyways and want to go there ( and can afford it) then ED shows you are serious and not just kicking tires. I think it is the right move for a certain kind of candidate. I don’t know If my son19 is the right kind of candidate, we’ll see next Fall. The worst case is you get deferred which means you can now apply to more schools if you want and compare offers from schools you applied to EA. That’s not a bad thing. If you get in ED, great! But getting deferred is not the kiss of death.
If you get deferred ED you just have to stay in contact with the schools to let them know you are still interested and update them with grades, awards, accomplishments etc. which is also not bad. Sometimes the kids accomplish stuff in their senior year which is quite compelling, but happened too late to add it to the Common App. The schools appreciate the updates.
So far D can’t decide on applying ED anywhere. No schools thrill her. She is being so picky, nothing is quite right. She’s very down about it because she thought for sure she would have a ‘dream school’ picked out by now.
Hoping she starts getting excited about going somewhere, anywhere, by applying season.
I am also insisting D take a lighter load next year, anyone else have to talk their overachiever down? This year she’s taking 4 APs, & 1 AICE class, plus an Honors medical class & art. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do all her homework. And I insist she take Saturdays off as a mental health day & do something fun (which she doesn’t always do). As of now, her schedule will look something like this-
AP or Honors Physics
AP or Honors Calc
AP or Honors Econ
AICE Spanish or AP Bio or ??
Med Lab 4 Honors
Computer Design 2
She only has to take 6 classes next year instead of 7 which is nice but I REALLY do not want to see her take 4 APs again. Any advice on which classes would be okay to skip AP wise and do honors? She’s going to be a biology major.