The AP Trap

Parents Forum
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<p>[AP</a> classes: A problem for Massachusetts high schoolers? - Boston.com](<a href=“http://articles.boston.com/2012-10-07/magazine/34270139_1_extra-classes-juniors-and-seniors-newton-south]AP”>http://articles.boston.com/2012-10-07/magazine/34270139_1_extra-classes-juniors-and-seniors-newton-south)</p>

<p>This article in the Sunday Boston Globe Magazine examines the effects on high school students who take many AP classes, the drawbacks of AP’s, and also clarifies that college admissions do not really depend on taking the maximum number of AP’s offered at a given school.</p>

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<p>Big deal…sounds like a typical college bound kid. The point they failed to make is that by not taking the AP classes, you are put into classes with kids that aren’t as motivated and that can be an issue as well. DD took an honors World history class vs AP World last year because she just doesn’t like history. She had 4 other AP’s so we were not concerned. She regretted doing that from day one in class and pretty much used the class as a study hall.</p>

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<p>All this article illustrates is what we already know: kids don’t get into elite schools on the basis of test scores alone. Those schools are looking for the kid who can handle their school’s most challenging curriculum AND participate in ECs and have a life. The girl in the article is a cliche: the Asian student staying at home self-studying AP exams instead of participating in sports and other ECs. That’s the problem. Not the fact that she is taking mostly AP classes. If she and the thousands of others out there trying to get into the Ivies by self-studying AP exams and racking up more 800s on SATIIs would only listen.</p>

<p>As many of us have said, over and over again, our kids took AP classes because they wanted to be in class with the brightest students, move at a fast pace, and be challenged instead of bored. Getting college credit or placement simply did not play into it at all. College admission wasn’t something they particularly thought about either. (Although their parents certainly may have! :slight_smile: ) Senior year, my kid was able to take AP Calc BC, Chem, Physics, Spanish, and French Lit (as an independent study and 7th course) plus several required electives and a unique year-long honors course while being a 3-season varsity athlete and participating in fairly demanding music ECs. He got plenty of sleep, and had time to hang out with his friends. And yes, he got 5s on 6 of the AP exams he took, and 4s on the other two.</p>

<p>If his school had offered other classes that met his criteria, he’d have take them instead. (And in fact they did: Humanities, a year long honors course created and taught by the heads of the History and English departments. The English department actually offered a list of semester classes that could be taken as part of the “AP thread,” rather than straight AP classes.) The school now offers IB, but it didn’t then.</p>

<p>As an aside, the fact that our HS did not offer Jr year AP English Lang and Sr year AP English Lit and Jr Year AP Cal AB and Sr year AP Calc BC probably means it lost a few hundred spots on those ridiculous HS ratings when measured against the other top HSs in the region, which use this method to pump up their number of APs taken.</p>

<p>Anyone who thinks that AP classes are real college classes, at least college classes as they are taught at good schools, is delusional. But they still offer a way for public schools that do not have the luxury of curriculum development illustrated by the expensive private schools cited in the article to offer their more able students something that is geared more to them than to the average student.</p>

<p>When school budgets are under constant attack, it doesn’t do much good to bemoan the fact that every public HS cannot provide the same course offerings as Exeter. Or even Concord Academy.</p>

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<p>Seems like the school has a vastly inflated idea of what an “honors” (or even a regular) history course is supposed to be.</p>

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<p>Actually, a few are (or could be if taught properly, e.g. calculus BC taught over one year, not two). However, there has been a proliferation of low value APs that correspond to (at best) relatively easy one semester college freshman courses (often for non-majors), such as human geography, statistics, psychology, and environmental science. Some others are probably best thought of as honors or otherwise better or more rigorous high school courses, such as biology and physics B.</p>

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<p>I agree with everything in this article. The number of AP tests a kid takes doesn’t necessarily mean they are MORE prepared for college. The kids should also be taking higher level classes in subjects they are actually interested in pursing in more depth. My one kid is taking three APs this year because she is interested in two of the subjects (the third is because she has no more choices in math) and my other kid is taking zero APs this year. She had initially signed up to take AP Bio to fulfill her bio credit but ended up switching to the regular bio to reduce her stress level during the college audition cycle. It was an excellent choice. She doesn’t intend to do anything science or math related and would have hated the course and the extra stress.</p>

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<p>It really depends on the student. My kids actually preferred AP classes to honors classes at their HS - the AP curriculum was more straightforward so they could study more efficiently, which actually left them more time for their sports and ECs. They felt that they spent more time in non AP classes because the teachers tended to focus more on projects and unrelated material. That said, I do think that there is a burgeoning sense that students do not have to take every AP offered, and they should only take the APs they are interested in and can handle. It’s not advisable to overload and not have enough time for ECs, and it won’t really help with college applications anyway.</p>

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<p>At D’s HS the class rank has apparently become a measure of sorts of how many AP’s students have taken. The top kids have to be the ones with the most AP’s since they are worth more in the ranking systems. So schools who want to have a student appear in the top 1-2% can’t turn around and say they don’t want the same students to take as many AP’s as they can shove into a schedule.</p>

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<p>^^^agree with SteveMA above as well. My one kiddo is completely bored silly at school even in most of her AP classes. The regular classes are a complete joke. We used to have an honors curriculum at our school but they’ve sort of dropped it. The honors classes teach the exact same material as the regular courses but move like a turtle instead of a snail. Lordy…</p>

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<p>ucbalumnus–not when you are used to taking 4 or 5 AP classes each year. The pace is a lot slower in the honors classes, slower yet in the regular classes. Typically the kids in the honors classes are still college bound but tend to end up at state directionals or the flagship. The kids that take mostly AP classes are those that end up at the better private schools. It’s pretty much impossible to take all 32 AP classes at our high school anyway. No college expects kids to take EVERY AP class offered.</p>

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This.</p>

<p>DS took a combined 14 APs junior and senior year. Fourteen solid APs. Not an AP “lite” in the mix. 13 5s and a 4.</p>

<p>He tells me that this was a breeze compared to college, admittedly in a very rigorous major at a very good college.</p>

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<p>I think that course selection in a school has a lot to do with how many AP courses kids take. My oldest took 6 APs in high school. He could easily have taken a few more, but his school offers a generous selection of interesting and engaging honors classes like Constitutional Law, Business Law, Marine Biology, and quite a few Sports Medicine classes. Many students opt to take these honors classes in place of one or two AP courses. They are typically taught at a high level and require a teacher’s recommendation. These classes are full of motivated and engaged students.</p>

<p>The local public school does not offer that much in the way of advanced courses outside of the AP offerings. If a motivated student wants to be in class with other motivated students they have no choice but to load up on AP courses. From talking with parents of local public school students I don’t think the push to load up on APs really has anything to do with getting college credits. I has more to do with the learning environment.</p>

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<p>BTW, does it drive anyone else crazy that 50% of the articles about HS seem to bemoan students under too much pressure to perform on standardized tests, while the other 50% bemoan how poorly-achieving our student are on international standardized tests?</p>

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<p>Re: #9</p>

<p>When I was in high school, there were not three levels of courses as you describe (regular, honors, and AP). There were just two levels, regular and honors, but the honors courses in specific subjects like senior year English were designated AP (calculus at the time was only offered as AP following the BC syllabus). The regular courses were not the complete joke (equivalent to a study hall) you describe your school’s “honors” courses to be.</p>

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<p>Interesting article, thanks for posting.</p>

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<p>That’s the problem in a nutshell. If students ease up on taking AP courses, will they still get that “most challenging” designation from their high school counselor? </p>

<p>The varying poster’s opinions on how AP coursework compares to college coursework is a great illustration of how not all AP courses are equal, no matter how the College Board tries to standardize the curriculum. D1 had a few AP courses that were useless, and others that were just as challenging as some challenging coursework she’s taken in college. The useless ones tended to be the ones that hewed to the CB guidelines about what “had” to be covered. The best AP courses were those where the test was almost an afterthought.</p>

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At D’s hs you have to pass Biology Regents or Honors Biology BEFORE you can take AP Bio. So if you are going to take AP Bio you have 2 classes in Biology, which to me just ties up time you could spend exploring different subjects to see what you find interesting. This is true of several others as well.</p>

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<p>Consolation–I was thinking the same thing.</p>

<p>ucbalumnus–whatever–again, when you are used to a full load of AP classes that move at a chapter a day or maybe 2 days for a long chapter and take an honors class that did a chapter a week, you could easily get your work done on Monday and have the rest of the week to work on your AP classes…again, according to you, our schools are a lot more advanced then your school so I don’t really think your classes were harder, but whatever…</p>

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<p>My son took zero AP classes and ended up at a top 25 Lac, along with getting into every other school where he applied - and getting gobs of money from every one (except our state school) He is having no trouble handling his very rigorous college classes.</p>

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<p>Here’s the basic fact: Yale only wants the students who can take the “most rigorous” curriculum AND excel at ECs. And get excellent test scores. And even most of them are NOT GETTING IN.</p>

<p>The girl who sits in her room self-studying for extra AP exams instead of doing sports or other ECs is NOT GETTING IN.</p>

<p>The kid who has to ease up on APs or whatever the most challenging courses at his/her school are in order have a life is NOT GETTING IN.</p>

<p>They will get in somewhere else. And that will be fine.</p>

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<p>Consolation, agreed. What I’m wondering about is if the high schools are going to walk the talk. If they are saying that they want their students to take fewer AP courses, are they going to give the “most rigorous” checkmark only to those students who “break” the rules and take more APs than recommended? Because I’d bet that’s exactly what would happen.</p>

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<p>The other thing I dislike about AP is the school’s choice of what classes within the AP realm to offer. If the school does not have labs or like ours, has labs with no equipment and budget, why the hell are they offering AP Chem?! At my kid’s school you are also supposed to get recommendations before you can take some of the AP classes. My kids APUSH teacher decided ignore the AP World teacher that made the recommendations. He let in anybody who wanted to take it. Lots of kids failed that class. I don’t think that is a wise use of resources.</p>