<p>My younger son just got a B+ in World History even though he got a 5 on the AP. Now I wish he was at one of those high schools that change your grade to an A if you get a 5 on the exam! I believe our AP courses fall somewhere in the middle as far as truly demanding vs. merely teaching to the test. The discussion and reading for the course was top notch, but I don’t think they wrote enough. They only had one long research paper for the whole year. But they did take it pretty seriously - a large contingent went into the city several times to use the resources of the New York Public Library. </p>
<p>I do want to make one point, while we would all like a great high school education for our kids, there is more to high school than just academics. I wanted my kids in a diverse community both economically and racially diverse. I also don’t think it’s particularly healthy to be going to a school where kids have no free time. I believe it’s a fallacy that the only way to be prepared for college is to go to a high school that is even more demanding than college. That’s the logic that got us giving homework to kindergarteners. For my older son at least, having spare time meant that he could teach himself computer programming at a level far beyond what any high school in the country (as far as I know) offers. I don’t think he missed out *that *much because he didn’t write as many research papers in AP US History as other schools make you do. (I think he had two biggish ones.)</p>