D18’s large public HS (around 3000 kids) offers a whopping 30 AP classes. Fairly evenly split between English, Math, Fine Arts, Science, Foreign Languages, and Social Studies. D18 is on track to complete 8 AP classes: Bio, Calc AB, CS-P, Chem, Calc BC, CS-A, Physics-C, and Lang. The last four next year. I think that’s too much but “I need to keep my rigor up”.
In D18’s school there are basically three levels of classes: AP, honors, and on-level. She refuses to take on-level classes in school because they’re ridiculously easy and full of behavior-problem kids. She takes those classes online. On the other hand, you have the kids competing for Val who take >10 AP classes in school, online, and during the summers. They watch their GPAs closely and try to keep secret how many APs they’re taking so other competitors won’t up their AP count in the AP Arms Race. It’s crazy.
Note that this crazy competition is almost exclusively between Asian kids. D18’s HS is around 70% white and 20% Asian yet the top ranks, STEM classes, clubs, etc. are >90% Asian. D18 is usually the only white kid in the group. Why? Because this is a high tech area north of Atlanta. The parents of these kids are in STEM fields and are the cream-of-the-crop of India, China, Korea, etc. Actually, I think its an even more select group, most of the parents of the ultra-high achievers are not US citizens. Those kids are driven very hard by their parents according to D18 (“you guys never pressure me to do well in school like the parents of the other kids”).