Good luck to all the APUSH test takers today! May the questions all be familiar and the essay be on your favorite topic!!
D20 took Lit the other day, has APUSH this morning, and Bio next week. I think next year sheâs doing Calc AB/BC, Econ both, and CS.
@bigmacbeth - those specific critiques from the teacher, while annoying, do not signal a bad letter (the opposite in fact). If my opinion is worth anything! 
@VickiSoCal thatâs how our HS is too, especially in Jr/SrâŠregular or APâŠwhich is why DS selected the all AP schedule as do many of his friends.
Iâve heard APush is hard.
It just started being offered as a freshman only class at our HS; and from what iâve heard the pass rate isnât super great. What have you guys seen with it with other kids? and was it hard for your juniors this year?
my S20 has calc, history, cs, and language AP test next week. He has NOT been studying. Iâm holding myself back with not pressuring him.
@bgbg4us My S20 did not find APush very hard but history has always been his strength. The grading was quite harsh at times. It required some work to sometimes read ahead and to prepare for the written essay-type tests. What saved him third marking period was an easy project where his grade was 97%.
Not too different from @octagon, here. S2 has loved every bit of APUSH, despite the harsh grading. (Iâm hoping heâs managing to show his love right now.)
I do think itâs one of those classes that varies tremendously depending on the teacher. Dâs class never really came alive; she said it was just a forced march through the material. S1 and S2 had teachers that kept the classroom both intense and interesting.
Seems like an odd choice to offer to 9th graders. The more experience youâve had as a critical thinker and writer, the more you can soar rather than struggle in APUSH. (Or maybe Iâm just used to the fact that in NY 11th grade is American history, no matter what level, so it seems right.)
APUSH hasnât been that hard for D20 this year but she did have AP Euro last year which kind of whips them into shape at their school as 10th graders (itâs the first AP class for most kids at our school). I can see where APUSH would be really hard if it were a freshman class. I think in most (?) schools itâs 11th grade. Or maybe not most, but all of California at least US History is the 11th grade subject.
@bigmacbeth my D15 just graduated from nursing last weekend, and she lived with all those type of comments too. âYou are so smart - be a doctorâ- D doesnât want to be a doctor. She had planned on doing NP right after graduation but has decided to work for a few years and take a break from school. She also choose the University with a great medical program that gave her a full scholarship, and turned down other âhigher rankedâ schools. She was stronger than I was about this, but she followed her own path and is very happy,
O. did APush last yearâŠgot a 5 on the test, B+ in the class and decided to never take a history class again unless forced. Absolutely hated how the class was taught and how the material was presented. Had loved AP World History the year before and had planned on 4 years of AP level history classes. Decided not to take AP Gov/Econ this yearâŠwill take regular Gov/Econ senior year.
On the other hand, same year as APush, O. fell in love with Chemistry (had not liked Honors Biology at all). So senior year is going to be very science/math heavy with both AP Chem and Physics, as well as AP Calc. It is amazing how each student can change so much year to year. And how influential specific teachers can be.
At our town public school, where D20 does not attend, APUSH is a two year sequence beginning in 9th grade. I think the pass rate is pretty good as they are a very committed group of kids. My S19 who is there is an engineering type kid so he didnât take it. D20 is at a boarding school and the class is very hard but she claims it prepares them well. Weâll seeâŠ
@washugrad is correct in that courses offered at California schools are most likely based on what the UCs/CSUs view as weighted. For many years, in order to be approved as a weighted course, it had to be considered âjunior level.â For example, Bio H is often a 9th or 10th grade course and is rarely given UC GPA weighting. The UCs usually only weight one course in a subject area and they choose to weight AP over H. So if your school offered Euro History H and EHAP, the UCs will approve the AP course for weighting and not the honors course. Iâve seen both Chem H and Chem AP as UC weighted so there are some exceptions. English H is rarely UC weighted. Alg 1H, GeoH, Alg 2H are rarely given UC weight. Pre-calc H is often weighted but it is considered a junior level course.
For those on this thread who are new to the UC/CSU system, you can check which courses at your high school are approved for UC weighting by looking up your HS here. https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist The UC/CSU weighted courses have an orange banner and star next to the name of the course.
The GPA posted on UC websites and in UC data is the UC GPA, not your high school GPA. They use grades from the summer before 10th grade until the summer after 11th grade. To calculate UC GPA, check to see how many semesters of courses taken during that time frame are considered UC weighted on the link above and then plug the values in here. https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
@redfraggle
We unfortunately didnât see much impact with local honey. If allergy shots are in the plan, it could take at least six months or longer to get to the maintenance stage, which means you may want to have your DS to start the shots well before he leaves for college (presumably out of town). Building up to the maintenance stage will require weekly/biweekly shots and have epi-pen ready.
@bgbg4us
DS loves history so APUSH was not a hard course for him. He was glad that the AP exam didnât have many obscure fact-based questions like those on the subject test.
@bigmacbeth
I might be wrong, but I thought nurse practitioner (NP) is equivalent to physician assistant (PA). I think both are wonderful and rewarding careers.
I have a question. Iâve seen it mentioned a couple of times to ask your GC whether they will check the âmost rigorâ box on the school report. Why does it matter? Is it important when applying to top schools? Honor programs? Merit scholarships? Limited programs (e.g. nursing, engineering, etc.)?
Just curious, because I was going to ask D20âs GC and then realized I wasnât sure why. Haha. Just went thru the whole process with D19 and Iâm still learning.
@momzilla2D
At college tour, paraphrasing what AOs often stated: their admission process is âholisticâ, regarding academics, they very much focus on the rigor of the courses the student has taken IN THE CONTEXT of the studentâs hs. They want students who have taken rigorous courses and getting good results.
In one of ur conversations with DSâ GC regarding his course selections, GC told us IB history is considered the most rigorous course among DSâ IB social studies options, but because of DSâ strong interests in politics, his selection of IB government suits well with his ECs and interests. So even though he might not have taken âthe most rigorousâ course available at his HS, it is perfectly ok.
We shall see! 
@momzilla2D Colleges, whether elite or not, want to see if students have challenged themselves given the opportunities available. Students who regularly stretch themselves are likely to do so in college and beyond. Every college wants successful students, and so this is one metric that is somewhat predictive. Just another point of differentiation.
Of course there are always interesting circumstances, like @makemesmart and his/her son which I donât think would be held against the student. Hence, holistic reviews. But I think, in general, embracing challenge is a good marker for success.
Thanks @makemesmart & @fencingmom
I know that (all?) colleges look at rigor. And looking at the CDSâs many/most put it in the âmost importantâ category. So I know that rigor is important. No question there. Iâm just not clear on why itâs important that i know whether the GC labels it to be the âmost rigorâ. If the kid is taking mostly Honors and AP classes, seems clear that itâs rigorous. And with a high GPA and test scores, seems like that would be enough for most schools.
So thatâs why Iâm wondering if the âmost rigorâ label is more of a concern for specific circumstances. So if youâre not applying to elite schools or programs, or chasing merit, is this less of a concern? I donât mean that rigor is less of a concern, but knowing whether the GC checks the box is less of a concern.
Re: course rigor (see #4 below). According to one recent survey of AOâs below are the most important factors by rank:
- Grades in all classes;
- Grades in college prep classes;
- Standardized test scores (ACT/SAT)
- Strength of curriculum
- Essay and/or writing sample
- Counselor's recommendation
- Demonstrated interest (for colleges that care about that factor)
- Teacher(s) recommendations
- Class rank (for ones that rank) 10.Extracurricular activities
Of course there are going to be differences among individual colleges but you can get a flavor for the types of factors that are important to AOâs.
@momzilla2D
From our perspective, we knew our DCs are taking rigorous courses, because we knew what are offered in each of our kidâs HS, âmostly honors and APsâ. From the AOsâ perspectives, they are looking at students from vast different schools with wide ranges of course rigor, the GCâs âmost rigorous boxâ is kind of a âcheat sheetâ for AOs, IMO.
@momzilla2D I think if the student is not applying to an elite school, or chasing merit then it is less of a concern. Schools lower in the ranking will be unaccustomed to seeing a student with 10 AP classes on the record, and so would not be expecting it.
The importance in the GC checking the box, is that there is some authority at the school who agrees with the student about the rigor of his/her classes. Students may think they have taken the most rigorous classes, itâs up to the GC to varify if that is indeed true. They probably donât split hairs â like, oh you took AP Environmental Science instead of AP Comp Sci so you donât get the check markâŠ