More to the point, not all AP’s are alike. While the College Board dictates on what is taught, they do not dictate on how it is taught. The workload in any AP class depends on the teacher/district. Often the workload in the same class within the same school will vary if there are different teachers teaching different sections.
That said, an hour HW is not unreasonable; 3-4 hours (if really due the teacher and not bad study skills) is about 2-3 hours of busywork, IMO, and parents should be lining up in front of the Head of School’s office.
The quality of AP courses if definitely inconsistent at my kids’ supposedly “excellent” public HS. My D16 had AP World and it rarely had any homework. The teacher assigned ONE essay the entire year. It was a miracle that the kid got a 3 on the exam (which ended up earning her credit at her school). S19 skipped that one, too.
@mathmom, you mentioned that doing AP history helped get out of a semester of history in college.
Would this be true if the student did AP world history and skips APUSH?
Or do they have to do the whole series of AP world history, AP US history so on…?
@learning19 most universities publish exactly what AP credit they give for scores and tests. If you have an idea where they are going to apply, give it a read.
Most universities will give 3 credits for scores of 4 or 5* from AP USH. AP World History will not bring more, but brings 3 or 4 credits if you didn’t take APUSH, AND typically adds completion of the “diversity/global cultures” requirement too.
this varies depending on university. Some may not give credit for a 4, some give credit for 3, 4, 5. Obviously, the more selective the university, the less likely it is that a student would get credit for an AP course. However, doubling on AP History will NOT result in double the credits: most universities only give credit for ONE AP history and require the Humanities credits be fulfilled with another subject.
My daughter’s school has:
college prep and honors for US History 1 (required for all students to graduate - no AP option)
cp/honors US History 2 or APUSH and
either cp, honors or AP World.
For a 4th year there are a few AP options like AP Gov’t, Economics, Psychology but many of the students pick an honors elective that sounds more interesting to them such as Mock Trial, History of Law, Sociology, American Law and Justice Criminal Justice etc. We actually don’t have any college prep history electives other than independent studies. There are also some dual enrollment history/social studies classes to pick from.
If you know what college your interested in I suggest calling admissions. Some of the info in available online but if not they are happy to go over IB/AP/Dual enrollment. Some schools accept specific scores and up for credit, some just allow you to start at a higher level, some don’t count classes taken in high school at all etc.
toowonderful- My daughter will be a sophomore next year, and she just registered for AP World and AP Euro for next year. She is currently in AP Human Geo and making an A, so I am not worried about her being able to handle an AP class. But is taking World and Euro at the same time a bad idea?
@learning19 how AP credit is given varies a lot. At Carnegie Mellon there were three credit for APUSH and three credits for AP World or Euro. Since my older son only had APUSH he had to take an Gen Course in some sort of non-US history. At Tufts where my younger son went, they only gave gen ed credits for 5 APs, so my kid who had taken more than that, didn’t get credit for some of his APs. He didn’t need his history credits since his major required a bunch of history anyway. Some colleges don’t give credits at all, just will let you into the more advanced course.
Totally depends upon the college. IME, where credit in history is limited, the college limits the total # of credits (e.g. max 8 credits in history) or does not give credit for a particular exam. I’ve never seen a situation where a college would not give credit for both APWH and APEH if under the cap and they give credit for each. Which is not to say that there is not an outlier.
A common situation is that colleges rarely give double history credit toward graduation requirements because they typically specify two humanities courses in two different subjects or something of the kind. If there’s no cap and they give unlimited credit, it could turn into random elective credit but wouldn’t affect graduation requirements.
I agree taking two AP history classes at the same time would be very very difficult. If the student wants to double up, I think taking one AP history and one AP social science like gov or economics would be more balanced, or taking one class AP and one class non AP (or AP human geography, which is a 'gateway to AP’class rather than a true AP class. It rarely brings credit but is more rigorous than a regular class.)
My D’s school does not give credit for AP Euro. Only AP World and AP US. They do give credit for AP Gov and both AP micro and macro Econ. They all require a score of 4 or 5 on the AP exam for these.