<p>Most experts tell students in high school to take challenging courses and try to challenge themselves with pressure and rigor. However, what is the purpose for that if those challenging courses would be truly what the student may thought: failure?</p>
<p>This is how I see it, you learn a lot from your failure. You can see you weak points and adjust yourself accordingly. I can cruise through easy classes with an A and barely do anything. But through taking AP courses (9 through out my high school career) I have discovered so much about myself and have made changes. You wont truly know who you are until you are under pressure; when you go in fight or flight mode. I failed my firs AP course because I was so use to not doing much and succeeding, I learned that I am a really bad procrastinator and that I lack motivation, aggression, and grit as well as organization. Over the years I’ve made efforts to correct this. And with all the rigorous classes I’ve taken I feel I’m pretty ready for college I can handle a lot ( especially after having to take 4 AP exams in 2 weeks). Moreover, don’t you want to know what you can accomplish? don’t let fear deter you from progressing as a person. The things we are afraid to do are often times the things we must. Colleges like to know that you can handle a lot and that you are committed. </p>
<p>You’re not supposed to fail them. The idea is that an A-student in honors classes will eventually take AP classes and work harder to get an A or a slightly lower grade (A-, B+, etc). If you’re going to fail a class, then you’re not ready for it and should not take the class. </p>
<p>I think you left off half the advice of experts - the advice is not to just take challenging courses, the advice is to take the most challenging course you can do well in. In an ideal world, you want to see a student just start to struggle, so you want a smattering of B’s with mostly A’s. People hate for me to say it, but in my world, if you get a 4.0, you didn’t challenge yourself - surely there was another course or two you could have added that would cause you get a B+ just from the workload. </p>
<p>Give me a kid with a 3.95 and 9 APs any day over the “slacker” with a 4.0 and 4 APs. And I’ll also take the kid with a 3.95 and no APs, but had to really work for those grades - there’s a lot to be said for anyone who takes themselves to the limit, even if their limit is lower. Maybe they don’t get into Harvard, but as an employee, take the hard worker.</p>
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Can someone translate this sentence?</p>
<p>My thought: “Why, especially if the student thought they might fail”</p>
<p>Sorry. I meant that if it was to be fate that the student takes those classes and fails them, what are they to avail?</p>
<p>It would be a learning experience. This is much more important than taking classes “to avail” an end. It is important to treat those classes as ends in themselves. Perhaps next time you take something easier with the understanding of what you can and cannot handle.</p>
<p>I hated taking chemistry in high school. It had far too much content (AP Chem is a joke in comparison), the classes were boring, and no matter how much I studied for it, it was never enough to ace a test. Even though I did fine on the final exam (which was what counted), I hated the experience. Nevertheless I learned very valuable skills: the ability to select details and to understand what questions are really asking, amongst others (and you had to look REALLY CLOSELY for the kind of questions I had to answer). These skills were extremely useful for my psychology and sociology classes and exams. I also realized that I thrive under pressure (esp when I procrastinated two years worth of material to study in less than a week lol), which very much influenced the list of colleges I chose to apply to and my decision amongst many fine options.</p>
<p>If you are constantly afraid of failing, you will never challenge yourself. If you never challenge yourself, you will never have a chance to grow as a student. In college and the real world, you will be faced with new and challenging circumstances, and you need to know how to handle that. Start early. Challenge yourself in school and learn how to handle failure there.</p>
<p>Also, I watched a TED Talk recently where the speaker found that the best predictor of success in life was “grit,” not grades or IQ. And grit was measured by how well a student confronted failure and dealt with it. And you can’t develop grit without experiencing struggles. Here’s the TED talk: <a href=“WATCH: The Surprising Trait That's MUCH More Important Than IQ | HuffPost Latest News”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>@nanotechnology Did you watch it because you saw a certain commencement address? ;)</p>
<p>What commencement address? I heard about it on a public radio podcast a few months back…</p>
<p>When students are looking at classes to take in high school, the chances of doing well in the class should most certainly be taken into account. Taking the AP Calculus BC course, would NOT be a good idea for a lot of kids to take, for instance, if they are not up there in math. If there is not a reasonable expectation of at least a “B” in a course, it should not be taken, in most situations. There are some people that get the same grade, pretty much regardless of the difficulty of a course–my kids were like that, so i preferred them to get their B in the more challenging courses. Taking the easier course never garnered an “A” in their cases.</p>
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If you actually fail classes that does not look good for college admissions. Even less selective colleges may not accept students that have failed a lot of classes. So if you think you can’t handle the material in those classes don’t take them, and adjust the set of colleges where you apply accordingly (eg no top 200)</p>
<p>I think it’s perfectly possible to take few to no AP classes, get high grades, and get into plenty of Top 200 schools - e.g. most state flagships. Top 20? No, but Top 200 is an awful lot of schools that will take a wide range of students. The rigor requirement generally only applies to about the Top 50, and even not all of them in all cases.</p>