Top Students' Social Lives: What are they like?

helloworld0987 · July 20, 2008, 12:47am

Well, I’m a little confused as to the tone of some arguments here as well… if people claim to have taken multiple AP classes AND have quite lively social lives, why is the assumption made that those AP classes must be inadequate? Kind of insulting, in my opinion.

In my defense, I went to a very small, very liberal private high school, where it is considered “average” for students to graduate having taken at least 5 or 6 APs in their high school “career”, with many graduating with 10 or more. In all the classes I took, teachers were very diligent in NOT simply “teaching to the test”, using outside supplementary material, etc. Still, they didn’t babysit us and make us do unnecessary grade school projects or hundreds of practice problems. And students consistently score 4s and 5s on their exams and go on to succeed at top ranked universities, including a handful of ivies every year.

So no, I did not attend a “mediocre school”. Yes, my school has students who have to work very long hours and sacrifice their social lives in order to take lots of APs; it also has some students who don’t force themselves to do so and thus take fewer challenging classes. I count myself as one of the lucky ones who could simply manage to do the work in a shorter amount of time and with much less stress. I can only conclude that this is a result of my ability to work faster and more efficiently.

epiphany · July 20, 2008, 1:27am

Re Post 101:
I admit to being way too lazy at this hour to re-read & cite all those posts on this very thread, from students claiming to spend “no time,” “5 minutes,” etc. on their homework, including AP classes, but there you have it - not from supposedly insulting parents, but from students admitting how little they study.

rainynightstarz · July 20, 2008, 3:08am

Not all high schools are privileged enough to provide many classes to their students. I went to a pretty highly ranked hs in California (API index was 912 recently). Students are only guaranteed at most 6 classes. No one is allowed to take more than 7 classes, and you are not allowed to double up on sciences. My junior year, my school pretty much denied 1/4 of the seniors and a few juniors of math classes simply because we finished Calc BC. The only math class left- stats AP has priority for students who were too lazy to take calc, so most post Calc BC students didn’t have a math class. (After much arguing by the parents at the district level, they finally opened another after school class for only about 10 kids from my school and 10 from a near by high school. It was still not able to accomodate the all need, making many students gave up trying to get a space for a math class). Other than the normal math, english, history, language, and science, there aren’t many classes for Juniors and Seniors. I only took 5 classes at my high school both my Junior and Senior year. Most people take only 5 classes senior year (even the people who are like top ranked in the nation for math, physics, and bio and got into Ivys).
However, the few classes that we do take does require a lot more than 5 minutes. AP Bio alone is about 1-2 hours of reading and hw. Calc HW might not be that hard but still takes up to an hour to finish.

Anyways, back to the topic:
GPA wise, I wasn’t even the top 10% of my school (thanks to unweighted GPA). I didn’t take the most APs. My SAT scores weren’t spectacular. I’m probably considered dumb and under-achieved according to CC standard. I took the AP classes that I was interested in, did stuff that I enjoyed(art, math, and robotics).I had random BBQ or like billiards stuff with my EC buddies, and managed to waste hundreds if not thousands of hours procrastinating. I spend decent amount of time on HW. I took a community college class that starts at 6PM and ends at 11 PM on a school night. I still got an average of 6-7 hours of sleep every night. I got into all the colleges that I applied to (2 of top 10 Universities, 1 Ivy, the top UCs , all are ranked before 50)… so I guess among those things, I did something right.

To everyone: no matter how smart you , your S, or your D are, there will be one point, probably in college, where just that intelligences won’t be enough to catch up to other people’s hard work. I guess, don’t get used to the whole “i don’t need to spend time studying in order to learn” attitude.

Poisonous · July 20, 2008, 9:18am

I’m hoping that I can help to shed some light on the situation, and maybe cool the tempers in here with this post.

I’m a Senior-to-be, and I have taken quite a few AP’s and college classes. In fact I will graduate wth about 20 AP’s and five college courses. When I read through this topic I came to a rather startling conclusion; Parents and many adults that are not in the current school generation do not understand the level of difficulty of high school courses or the way that they are taught.

It is my firm belief that the poster on the last page that said they spend about an hour a week on APUSH and a few minutes on another AP class was telling the truth. As a student I have noticed that AP teachers tend to model their classes after college courses where there is very little actual busy-style homework, but a much stronger emphasis on independent study and large projects. I received a 5 on the APUSH exam and was the only student in my class with an A, and I can honestly say that I studied at most a few hours a week. How is it possible? I believe that there is a declining emphasis on homework due to the amount of resources that educators have at their disposal. Teachers can look over the AP tests from the past 20 years, read numerous AP study books, and get input from millions of websites that all tell them what is most important to teach. For the educator this means that they know what they have to focus on, how much time they have, and how to mold their students for the test. The fact that there is little homework in AP classes is a testament to the efficient teaching "to the test style that most educators are now practicing. In order to get an A and a 5 all I had to do was pay attention, take notes, and participate in classroom discussions, and I believe this applies to all other AP classes as well. (online classes are a completely different story).

To theGFG:

I was actually the one that posted that, and I think your deduction is a bit generous My time management skills are decent, but nothing extraordinary. I procrastinate, spend too much time on one thing, and enjoy playing guitar hero like any other teenager. I just know when its crunch time and how much work I can get done. But, I think that what I said actually sounds more time demanding than it really is. Let me explain. The AP courses I was talking about are Comp. Science, Micro Econ, Macro Econ, Gov, and Art History, which are all fairly easy (minus comp science). The college courses are Freshman English, Spanish Lang, and Government, which are also easy :). The hard part about art is actually making it, which I have already done, and in comparison getting it published is much less time-consuming. The History research paper I’m writing/publishing is much more demanding, and consumes inordinate amounts of time. But, there is no “due” date on it, so I only work when I feel comfortable.

I hope that my story has helped to shed some light on the social lives of “top students”. I’m not an academic Olympian (yet :P), but from what I know about myself I can say that each of those students make a conscious decision to do the amount of work that they want to do. As students, we all know the system, we all know how much of a social life we want to entertain, and we know what is required of us to become accepted to the college of our choice. If a “top” student wants a social life then it is more than possible for them to have one, but it really depends on what they want. Chemistry Olympian would probably enjoy chemistry more than hanging out with friends and will probably plan to take on difficult and time-consuming projects. But, their lack of a social life is due to the fact that they chose to take on that work, not because they had to do it to meet some arbitrary standards. This is why I said the social lives of top students will vary tremendously, and sweeping generalizations are bound to be inaccurate.

TheGFG · July 20, 2008, 9:31am

I understand your point, but here’s where I have the problem understanding it. I’ve taken college classes at a top LAC, and S is at in Ivy. Based on both experiences, I would never say that good college classes require no more than a few hours of homework or studying per week. So even if AP classes are modeled off of a system where students just have one midterm, a final, and maybe a project or paper, the amount of reading and research and probelm solving required still entails a significant input of time even assuming you have a photographic memory and never have to actually memorize / study.

Poisonous · July 20, 2008, 9:59am

Haha well, most students poorly. I guess my memory is pretty good, but thats what the few hours a week of studying are for.

mathmom · July 20, 2008, 10:31am

I do agree that at many schools there is a certain amount of teaching to the test on APs. Sometimes this may mean that the course could cover more material than a college class might (notably AP bio), but in other cases it could be less. All the AP classes around here require some summer reading (usually 2 or 3 books), but that’s more to make up for the fact that our school year runs till the end of June and starts after Labor Day. There were a few AP classes that were time consuming - notably bio and Latin, but most weren’t. Could the classes have been more difficult? Probably, but they were comprehensive enough that both my kids have gotten fives on every AP they have taken.

BTW Mathson is working MUCH, MUCH harder in college - but only on the computer science courses. He’s found the physics, history and English courses there to be just as easy.

gladmom · July 20, 2008, 10:36am

My 2 kids were both top students in HS. D got into a top 10 university, and S into a top 5. Both took as many honors and AP classes as were allowed by their mediocre 750-student HS, spent plenty of time studying and were time management stars. Neither of them had what I think of as the typical “social life,” but both were happy with their choices.

D did everything - pres of 3 major ECs, vice-pres of 1; 3 sports a year for all 4 years, state qualifier & captain in 1 and MVP for 3 years in 1; in all 4 plays and 4 musicals; madrigals choir; and much more. She was busy from 7am until midnight every day of the week, her choice. H and I tried to get her to do less. She hardly ever watched TV, and if she did she was stretching or working on other things at the same time. I can attest that she did all of these activities to their fullest and never scrimped on academics. Her “social life” consisted of her interactions with classmates at all of these activities.

S did 2 sports to their fullest through junior year – MVP, qualifying for state in 1; many awards in both – and quit them in senior year. He did band full-out for 2 years, first chair in regular, jazz and marching bands. He did scholastic bowl for 3 years, captain in senior year. He did one other low-time EC. He took 4 APs senior year - physics, calc, eng, euro. He studied as hard as he needed to in order to master the material, no matter what the teachers’ requirements were. He wrote many a 10-page paper, and longer papers, even though in many cases the teacher would have been satisfied with much less, because S wouldn’t allow himself to turn in a bad paper.

By choice, he never went on “a date” or hung out with other kids after school or on weekends. He said he had plenty of interactions with his peers at school. For the first 2 years, he was busy every minute of the day on school activities or homework. For the last 2 years, he had much more “free time”, which he chose to spend doing things for himself. He studied subjects that he was interested in that weren’t offered at his school (world history, computer science and programming); he continued his beloved sport doing it HIS way, not the coach’s way; and figured out who he was and what he wanted to do in life.

epiphany · July 20, 2008, 10:54am

Post 105 is absolutely correct. Poisonous, come back here after completing your first year at any respectable 4-year college, and tell me that you’ve spent a few minutes per night, or one hour per week, studying. (Not “doing homework,” but studying as you were actually assigned to study by your profs.) Because if you’re really learning the upper-level concepts you are expected to assimilate & analyze & apply in your classes, the quotient per night, divided out over even 20 academic days/month (or over the semester or year, take your pick), will not be 5 minutes per night or one hour per week – unless the class is a joke & the professor should be fired.

AP classes as you & some others have described them do NOT, in that respect, mimic college. In fact, ironically, I think they are possibly the opposite of what they originally were, at least in some high schools of today. I don’t know if I was the first cohort who took one, after they were instituted, because I’m, haha, too lazy to look up the year they were inaugurated. But I would surely be of a different generation of AP students. We were allowed to take exactly one AP class. It was reserved strictly for the seniors in high school who had already proven themselves capable of doing college-level work. The style and requirements of the class were not a standardized examination, as I recall. It was a serious college-level paper, graded on college-level standards. In between the first & last days of school, the class was conducted seminar style. You were expected to prepare the literature & discuss it the next day. You were also graded on the quality of that participation.

For myself, the AP class didn’t take “more” work, quantity-wise. It did take a lot of very unlazy thinking – no five minutes or one hour. OTOH, the school that I attended was so rigorous that all the other classes were similar, even without the AP label. So in my case I wouldn’t have ‘noticed,’ I guess you could say, that “more” or “a lot” of work was required, because this was a school with no short cuts. (And, LOL, because of that, I had zero social life in h.s. but nevertheless had a blast because I enjoyed, & forever enjoy, being a student – like D#1.)

EDIT to paragraph one:
Come back here after attending a non-grade-inflated college, where you’ve earned A’s in all your classes, and proclaim that you’ve averaged 5 minutes per night or one hour per week.

My D’s school must be like some other schools mentioned on CC, where graduating seniors come back & declare that the requirements of their college are “easier” than high school. (I quote) That’s because a very demanding high school may even over-prepare, if I can use that word assumptively. This is also why I look askance at the threads on the student forums that ask if it’s a benefit to attend a low-performing high school. Well, not if you plan to be prepared, it isn’t.

Poisonous · July 20, 2008, 1:32pm

To epiphany and others:

I think you took my words the wrong way I meant to say that AP teachers style the courses after college classes. I was trying to infer with that comment and the “teching to the test” that AP teachers are in fact more lazy when it comes to grading than they used to be. My graduating class has over 650 students, and due to college pressures we may have 250 students in one AP course (AP lang for example) with only one teacher for it. That means that if the teacher assigns a writing assignment, she has to read and grade 250 papers, not a small task. The problem with AP courses is the amount of students that take them. Anyone that asks to be placed in an AP course, whether or not they meet the recommendations, will get a spot. The pressure is on the schools to have more students taking the classes, and the guidance counselors are happy to obey.

But, I can say that it is my firm belief that college will be easier for me than high school is. During last school year I took a grand total of 10 APs, one honors course, and one dual-enrollment. I went to bed at about 2am every night and I had to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. I never got a B. Compare this to a college where you take 4 courses a semester and the scheduling is much more lax. You have to remember that with an AP course, students are showing up 5 days of the week for up to an hour and thirty minutes every day per course. Thats seven and a half hours without studying, add in homework and projects and you probably average 10+ hours a week in each course. So, for me I was doing about 100 hours of school work a week, which is about 60% of the week, and I was sleeping about 46 hours, which is about 27% of the week. That means I spent 13% of my week doing something other than school, not counting EC’s (Commander JROTC, pres. NHS, pres. Jr. Civitan, student council, pres. science club, quiz bowl member, track/cross country). How many college students can compare to that?

epiphany · July 20, 2008, 2:00pm

Poisonous,
If you think your second paragraph was an argument to my post, I’m not sure why. You are merely reaffirming my contention that there are some, I stress, some, aspects of college that are “easier” than high school. Most importantly, scheduling, as well as e.c.'s, as well as the rarity of a commute, as well as meeting high school time requirements which are absent at college. (Attendance at non-academic activities, etc.)

HOWEVER, that does not mean that the class content, the level of expected college student performance (weekly & ultimately) are “easier.” They are not. Not unless one is planning to attend a super-safety or a community college in which over 90% of the student body is very under-prepared.

What will be easier for you in college is time mastery – vs. someone who goofed off in high school, needed to be reminded constantly by teachers & parents to get their work in on time, etc. Because you & many others (including my D) have multi-tasked, you may be efficiency experts by practice. That’s terrific. You’ve also proved yourself to be independent in your habits & to have independent motivation. Another huge plus to the college start, & clearly you already understand this.

Your time is your own in college. Secondly, your e.c.'s, if any, will be purely optional & with only implied commitments, if any. You can drop them at a moment’s notice, but hopefully wouldn’t drop leadership positions irresponsibly, without a replacement. Thirdly, zero commute. Fourthly, non-daily classes (but be careful of this one: the science students enrolled in research U’s-- I don’t know your major – often have daily classes & labs). But yes, overall, less “nightly” homework.

The above, however, is a two-edged sword. It can leave one with the illusion that you have all the time in the world. (Whereas in high school, homework, assignments, & study time were a little more “programmed” for you.) Secondly, it often means that there are fewer components to your grade. If the course is a new field of study for you, you may unexpectedly run into challenge, and not realize that until your first grade appears, which may be a C on a midterm you expected a B+ or A- in. You have generally fewer opportunities to raise grades in college, & sometimes less generous time to master complicated material (which is what GFG & I have been talking about). Depending on the size of the college or U, available help may be plentiful, but it may not. THEREFORE, new course material, or more complex levels of studying require more self-discipline early on in the course, to avoid such panic moments. Students who think they can skim by with the cramming method and/or doing minimal reading are mostly fooling themselves, unless the college in question is terribly grade-inflated, etc. You will be expected to be proactive about what you don’t know – by contacting the professor, by obtaining outside reading, by visiting the library, & by asking questions in classes which you attend with a nearly 100% record. Nobody is necessarily going to walk you through what is not explicitly stated in class or in a text. This is a surprise to many otherwise excellent high school grads. Perhaps it is not a surprise to you. :)

I would just encourage you to reserve judgment until well into your first year of college.:)

Evan_M · July 20, 2008, 2:22pm

I didn’t read much of the thread, but I want to say that it is very possible for a top-notch student to have an active and normal social life. You can’t really be out much on weeknights, but you can definitely have some fun on weekends. The people I know who are going to Ivy schools or whatever are all very interesting, energetic, and fun to be around. I found that all the extracurricular activities I did didn’t isolate me, but rather helped me meet the friends that I most enjoyed. But I also consider the best students to be the ones who live truly (not just extracurricularly) well-rounded lives, and in that I may be different than some who post on this forum.

d101parent · July 20, 2008, 10:51pm

Everyone has great points on this thread, but the truth is we just can’t compare! It depends on individual motivation, strength of the high school, and yes, IQ does have something to do with it. S is a top student in his high school, and it IS a very good high school, but I’m the first to recognize that until he works harder, he won’t be successful at a top college with other really smart kids. He’s the kid who will do what is needed for the “A” (often it isn’t until the final that he pulls off that A-). In his mind a 90.1% is just as good as 98% and requires much less work and effort. He will not study for the final if the result can’t harm his grade. Although he has taken all the toughest courses, he still makes sure he has a study hall every semester. Contrast that to the parent who wrote that her son wouldn’t turn in anything but a stellar paper. My S. isn’t one of those kids, and rather enjoys his reputation as a “genius who never has to work for it.”

His high school is a public with lots of high achievers…5 of the 1000 received perfect ACT scores, my son being one of them, along with a perfect SAT (1600 scale). I do not know why teachers do not call him on doing homework during class but they don’t. And he has been successful, so who’s to say?? He is the kind of kid who learns by reading, not by listening, so for him it works to do the assignment rather than listen to the teacher. This of course may not work so well in college.

I wish he was more motivated to do well just for the sake of learning, but he isn’t and well, in the meantime, he has learned how to be social and how Not to be a perfectionist (a skill indeed!)

HoppingLass · July 21, 2008, 12:07am

Well, one offspring seems to have near total recall of anything he decides is “interesting.” He’s also highly articulate (always has been). Those two traits have saved his academic bacon more than once. Lots of play, lots of friends – I think he was just well suited to his high school life (well, most of it). 
Little brother is more a late blooming rose instead of a bright, early daffodil. That’s cool too.

epiphany · July 21, 2008, 12:47am

Once again I don’t think we have agreed to terms. Or at least it seems that way. My D also has a veritable photographic memory (the first time she reads or hears something). It comes for some people. That has definitely been a plus in terms of study efficiency, esp. on days when she had performances & rehearsals, but to say (imply) that recall is all one needs to earn A’s, esp. in challenging classes, is, in my mind, to cast doubt on the quality of the course syllabus. Her research papers were not about recall. Nor were the seminar discussions. Nor the applications in science & math classes. I’m beginning to seriously wonder about the level of challenge in some of the nation’s high schools, and just what an “A” signifies in terms of depth & scope.

hops_scout · July 21, 2008, 1:40am

I would not consider myself to have been a “top” student, but I would have fallen into the category of one of the “better” students.

I was a 3 sport athlete. Played football, basketball, and baseball. 8 Varsity Letters between the three. I was also a member of “Students Helping Out Waterloo” (SHOW), NHS, Lifesavers (drug-free and alcohol-free lifestyle), computer club for a short time (it fell apart), Renessaince Student Steering Committee, and I sat on a couple other committees throughout high school including a couple of school district-wide ones dealing with technology. I had a 28 on the ACT and managed a 3.5 GPA in high school. I had what would be considered one of the harder schedules in the school my senior year with the honors classes.

Outside of school, I was also involved in the Boy Scouts.

Many people would tell you I had no social life in high school. I never went to parties, very seldom did I do anything with my friends really, and I seldom left school. My social life revolved almost entirely around athletics. It still does and it will for awhile. I’m not a “star” athlete-- good enough to be on the high school team and compete, but my name wasn’t constantly in the newspaper that’s for sure. Athletics are my life-- plain and simple. Always have been and I intend for them to always be there. That IS my social life. I don’t need anything else.

On my downtime in high school (first of all, what is that???) I normally spent that sleeping. My weekends were sleep times. In the fall, I’d come home from football around 10:30 or 11AM on Saturdays and then sleep until 7 or 8 that night, was back asleep by 10 or so and sleep pretty much the entire day Sunday. Get up Monday morning and do it all again. The winter and spring weren’t much different.

d101parent · July 21, 2008, 10:22am

[Online</a> Extra: Cracking the Books](<a href=“Businessweek - Bloomberg”>Businessweek - Bloomberg)

I hope this link works…Kind of interesting how little college students study according to this article…

epiphany · July 21, 2008, 10:50am

Post 118:
Well of course that’s business school, neither undergrad nor high school. I can’t comment on the named programs in the article, not being intimately familiar with them. However, FWIW, a business school that is not on that list but whose non-professional (undergrad/grad) schools are highly ranked & rather prestigious, I am familiar with. I don’t want to name it because I don’t want to ‘bash.’ I did work with those business grads. They were considerably more limited in their knowledge (depth, scope) than any of the employees at this prestigious firm I joined – staff that went to excellent undergrad schools with demanding academics. Thus, I do not know how business students are chosen, what the criteria are. I was not impressed. Those who had not been “formally educated” in business way outperformed them, in business. (!) That’s the part I found most interesting. It’s because business skills require very good analytical training, excellent written communication, etc. And again, that was all one particular business school, so perhaps their grads were not of the quality of a Wharton or Stern or Michigan, etc.

And I’ll just say that at my D’s school, I never heard of anyone spending “5 minutes” on classes of any kind. There was one student recently, gifted in math (VERY gifted; they had to create special classes for her) who apparently slacked off in her other classes toward the end of high school. She got into MIT but not into peer U’s like Harvard & Stanford. Overall, it was not possible to do the minimum at the h.s. & graduate with less than a D+ or C-. That was every class, CP or AP. And obviously grades like that do not get you into great U’s, either.

sf606508 · July 21, 2008, 12:05pm

The notion that an efficiently-taught AP Eng. course denotes a lackadaisical school is not only thoroughly elitist and breathtakingly arrogant, but also completely misplaced and absurd. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fan of ludicrous school rankings. But just for the ballpark figure, my school is ranked 2nd prep in Canada. That is no indication of lax standards. Moreover, for most of the class, the intense grammar and syntax training undergone during the junior grades, and for some, even Latin, is no recipe for the lazy.

I did get 5’s on both English Lang. & Eng. Lit., courtesy no doubt of excellent pedagogy.

About required reading: if you want to read gloomy Russian monoliths in their full glory, you are more than welcome to. But I think using CliffNotes for Russian Lit. is more than adequate for a good grounding in Western civilisation, and makes me no less of a being. I do, however, read Joseph Conrad and Dickens in their full glory, often repeatedly. The notion that more equals better, is perhaps just as absurd as GFG’s (misplaced) elitism.

It would perhaps surprise GFG that my curriculum included the likes of The Waste Land by Eliot? Or that I had to pen a paper on it?

d101parent · July 21, 2008, 12:15pm

Epiphany, Without giving too much information (if possible), where did your daughter go to school…For example was it an elite East Coast Boarding school (you may have mentioned it, so forgive me…)? For example, Massachusetts PSAT’s just blow everyone else away, and I’m sure it is because the high schools are that much more demanding?

Top Students' Social Lives: What are they like?

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