<p>
[quote]
Parent's of HS Class of 2012 thread.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How about Class of 2013?</p>
<p>You should start one Columbia_Student!</p>
<p>Yeah, my D's GC said something similar, but I don't know how it would even be possible.</p>
<p>I can see how 4 classes a year for 2 years can easily be AP:
English (Lang one year, Lit the other)
History/Govt (pick 2 of APUSH, Euro, World, Comp Gov, US Gov)
Science (pick 2 of Bio, Chem, Phys, Enviro)
Math (Stats, Calc -- this is the hardest, because Stats isn't REALLY a math class, it's Statistics, which is different)</p>
<p>Then, you assume 1 more AP class is foreign language which gets you 5 one year.</p>
<p>That means you have to take an additional elective that is AP. That can be one from the categories above (an additional science or history), an additional language (or additional year for Spanish), or one of the other AP offerings (Psych, Micro, Macro, HuG, Art History, Studio Art, Music Theory). </p>
<p>It IS do-able. </p>
<p>It's pretty rough because it means that you're asking the students to carry the equivalent of a college load + a few more classes (college load would be 4-5 college-level courses; you said the school schedule is 7 courses), although some of the AP courses might be slower than the corresponding college course.</p>
<p>My daughter's school assumes this schedule of AP classes:
Freshman year: none
Sophomore year: AP World
Junior year: AP English Language, AP USH
Senior year: AP English Lit, AP US Govt</p>
<p>The other APs are available beginning junior year. I would imagine that most people in the AP track take 3-4 APs their junior year (add an in AP science and perhaps an AP elective like Psych or HuG) and 4-5 their senior year (add in AP science, AP Calc, and an AP Language).</p>
<p>I am thinking that IF he did this (5 AP's junior AND senior year), he would take junior year: AP Bio, AP US history, AP Calc AB, AP Human Geography and AP Lang. Then senior year: AP Econ/AP Gov (I think those are half year each), AP Lit, AP Calc BC, AP Psych. This really seems too heavy though for my particular son (though he would currently contest me on this - he thinks he can do anything at this point). </p>
<p>My IMPORTANT question is, if he dosen't do this, (and of course that would hurt his class rank since there will be at least 15 kids who DO this) does this really penalize him with the adcoms of selective colleges??? Are the admission's criteria really that different depending upon which high school you attended? So candidate X from high school A gets into a selective school with 6 AP's where as candidate Y from high school B gets rejected from the same college because, although he took 7 AP's...he could have taken 11????</p>
<p>what an awesome and thoughtful question...hope we get some good feedback!</p>
<p>seiclan, at some point you just can't worry about it and have you and your son pick the load which is right for him. Although the colleges want to see "rigor" they also want to see good grades. I was at Tufts a couple weeks ago and the admissions officer said she did not expect students to take every AP available. If you know your son is focused more towards math/sci or eng/hist, have him take the APs in those areas and maybe cut back in some other places. If he isn't interested in classes like Human Geography, or Econ, or Psych, those are also ones the colleges won't hold against you for not taking.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>
<p>I'm not an an admissions person. However, what everyone says over and over again is that you must take the most challenging courses available to you. That's going to vary pretty widely (for example, your school offers about 10 more AP classes than my daughter's does).</p>
<p>Note all the other differences -- number of courses per year (standard schedule gives you 6, you say your school is 7, block would give you 8), homework load (my daughter rarely has more than 1 hour of homework a night, some people talk of 3-5 hours), courses offered, when you can take AP courses, extracurriculars offered, and whether sports are required (they are at some local private schools).</p>
<p>Note that the most competitive schools could probably pick several complete disjoint sets of entering freshmen that would be perfectly qualified, diverse (geographically, ethnically, etc.), and do well. However, they only get to pick one. To some extent, it's a crap shoot as the kid and parent -- you can do everything right and not "win".</p>
<p>Also, at my daughter's school you wouldn't want to be in the regular class for any class where AP was an option -- you'd be bored stiff.</p>
<p>I've never asked the question this way, but I have heard over and over from admissions officers at Ivy league schools that they don't expect you to take every AP offered. However they also rarely take anyone outside the top 2% of our high school class (which would be the top 12 to 15 students at our school). We weight honors and APs the same, so as long as you can find an honors course instead, your ranking doesn't suffer. My oldest couldn't find an AP he liked for one of his slots senior year and took Astrophysics. Would he have been better off take AP Euro? Who knows. He certainly got rejected from plenty of reaches, but there are plenty of other explanations for that, that are just as, if not more likely.</p>
<p>For what its worth, I think a typical load at our school is no APs freshman year (though mathson took CompSci), 1 or 2 APs sophomore year (AP Physics B or AP World), 2 or 3 APs junior year (AP US History, AP science, and a few take AP Lang), 3 to 5 APs senior year (AP science, AP Calc, AP Econ or Gov or Euro, AP language, and some take AP Stats or AP Lit or some of the fun ones like Music or Art.)</p>
<p>mathinokc, not to debate, but yes they do say "take the most challenging" and often this is said as "take the most challenging for you." They also say "do well in all classes." They also say "you don't need to take every AP available." They say many things and often the things they say can conflict. </p>
<p>Also we both agree there is vast differences between schools. In many schools what you say is true that the AP class is really the only option for the academically minded kid. In other schools, where there is 1 hour homework on average per subject per night, and all the kids are college bound, it is not as big of a step down to a non-AP or non-honors class. There are also schools with pre-reqs for APs as well as some without. Some also limit by application and other criteria. Loads of differences out there, hopefully made clear in the context of the school report to the colleges.</p>
<p>jackief, I think we're agreeing. :-)</p>
<p>I think the admissions people have an almost impossible task to pick among kids from schools that are so different.</p>
<p>You might want to think of it from what mathmom said -- the very top schools (which is what I think you said you were looking at) rarely select out of the top 2%. My daughter's class is currently < 600 kids, so she would need to be in the top 10-12. </p>
<p>You said that you estimated that at least 15 kids will take the load the GC suggested. Would that put your child out of the top 2%? If so, would there be anything else that would make him stand out?</p>
<p>Do you think that your school is an anomaly in recommending this or are other schools in the area doing it, too?</p>
<p>How important is it to you and him that he go to one of the very top schools? Would he be willing to gamble on taking a lesser load? (All hard to decide when he's a freshman!)</p>
<p>If there's a cadre of kids taking the heavy load is there some sort of companionship-in-suffering built up?</p>
<p>Are you sure that the AP classes have a heavier load than the regular and/or honors classes or is it just a DIFFERENT load? I know a local boy (different high school than my daughter) who dropped to regular English from AP English for his senior year (note that at many schools around here there are just 2 levels -- AP or regular). He thought AP would be too much work. Instead, he's had to spend a whole bunch of time on projects (he calls it all "arts and crafts" and says it's only tangentially related), when he'd prefer to do actual reading and writing in English class. He would have been better off in AP English.</p>
<p>Because our state will pay tuition for concurrent enrollment classes for seniors, high achieving kids take 6 hours each semester at a local college. That's the equivalent of 2-4 AP classes there (depending on the classes). Juniors are welcome to enroll, but have to pay their own tuition.</p>
<p>I think part of the reality is that many kids are ready for college level work before "college age". The problem then becomes the inflexibility of the high school schedule (which often requires more class time and more classes than the college equivalent) and the whole stress of "packaging" a kid so they look good to colleges.</p>
<p>I do like the attitude that "if not doing x which would be a bad choice for me results in me not getting into college y, then college y isn't the kind of place I want to be." It can be a hard attitude to hold if you REALLY want to get into college y, though.</p>
<p>mathinokc, I agree that we are agreeing :D</p>
<p>the rest of your comments I think are then directed towards seiclan, who is in the best position to judge if competing in the arms race at her S's school is the correct decision. </p>
<p>good point about if the higher levels are more work or different work. In our school to get an honors designation for Chem last year, you had to do extra work. They ran an embedded honors program but are going back to a separate class next year. So hopefully (for D2, the one in the age range for this thread) it will be different work as well as some additional work.</p>
<p>The other great point you bring up is the fit of the kid within the classroom. At the school you mention, there is a big difference and the kid doing craft projects in regular English is obviously not in the right place. The Tufts admin woman I mention above, who said you do not have to take every AP available to you, also said she doesn't want to see kids coast and get all A's. She said that a B is ok! That is actually the first time I have heard that statement from an admissions officer, maybe the fatigue of reading season had gotten to her :)</p>
<p>In some places (read all the threads by the Texas parents) it really is an arms race if your heart is set on UT or another numbers driven school. For kids/parents/families of that ilk, they probably do have to play that game. I am glad at least my older daughter, although she is easily taking the most demanding courseload at her school, is looking at colleges with a more holistic admissions process.</p>
<p>One last thing, the rankings are also so relative to the school. In our school's classes of 60-70, the top 2% is not even the top two kids. Our school doesn't rank, provides a grade distribution of jr classes only, and will not even estimate the percentiles. All kids are four year college bound, and more than the top ten a year get into really great top tier schools.</p>
<p>Most high schools say they don't rank but most colleges know of the relative rankings of each student based on GPA and such. I never did see anyone from our high school naviance who are out of the top 5% got into any tip top colleges.</p>
<p>In our HS if you take an IB diploma route you automatically get a check mark as the most rigorous.
I have a spin on this. My S will most likely have to take classes at the local college starting as a sophomore. It will obviously go in the way of how many Ap classes he will take at the HS. There will be some kids in that class that will definitely take more just becasue they will stick with the HS courses. However, I think that this will go under the umbrella of "most rigorous" for you. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>I just checked. D's school offers 26 AP classes, but I do not have any clue how one person can take all of them given they are full year classes, there are only 7 periods in a day and there are requirements which cannot be waived such as PE and Tech.</p>
<p>Kelowna --</p>
<p>I'm hoping that this does count as "most rigorous" -- my daughter is out of math after this year. However, we're probably going the distance ed route as school and outside activities make scheduling an on-campus college class nearly impossible. :-)</p>
<p>Queen's Mom --</p>
<p>No one CAN take them all. With that number, hopefully your daughter can find AP courses that interest her.</p>
<p>How many do you have to take for your GC to check off that you've taken the "most rigorous" courses available? That's how this all started. The OP's school offers 27 and the GC would require 5-7 courses each year for junior & senior year to say it was the "most rigorous".</p>
<p>I am back. Yes, it does feel as though son is competing in an arms race. He really wants to do this but I, as the mother who has to deal with the "potential overwork meltdown", am very leary. I am just not sure that he is mature enough to handle such a workload (since he does already about 4 hours of work on any given night as a freshman in gifted/honors but NO AP classes). My son is smart and a hard worker. I don't think he is CC smart (as said before) but HE WANTS TO BE. He is pressing me to sign a "parent preference form" so that he can take AP Stats next year as a sophomore (with AP World) instead of a breather elective. He wants this. Granted, his Honors Algebra 2 teacher loves him and he has been running a perfect math score all year so far but.... I guess I have to let him try but I think that I am worried that when he has to juggle more - he will drop some plates and his grades will knock him out of the game that he so wants to win.</p>
<p>The GC claims that she will not check off that box unless each academic class (5 per year) were APs for each of 4 years of school. Apparently she has never checked off that box since this is completely impossible even with that many APs offered (since many of them are language) and she is insane. The most rigorous course load possible seems to be 1AP freshman year (APUSH); 2 APs sophomore year (gov and AP chem); 5 APs junior year (Eng, World, CalcAB, AP Language, AP bio/AP Physics); 5 APs senior year (There are a lot to choose from and by then the requirements are out of the way). There are almost no kids actually taking this heavy a load. I am just saying that this is a possibility given the structure of the school's graduation requirements and pre-reqs.</p>
<p>i enjoy (not really) hearing how colleges use such double-speak. we want kids to enjoy their time as kids (while taking many many ap courses) we want passion (but no need to dabble around and see what you love..i guess that was what you were supposed to be doing until age 12 or 13). the real world rewards team work but as parents have noted only the top 2% in certain schools get in where they want to go so school turns into an 'arms race' no wonder parents and kids are confused..i know i am and i actually read CC!</p>
<p>Just spoke to a GC from a private HS (that my other children had attended) about the AP issue. She said that adcom's evaluate each student based upon the school that they are coming from. In essence, we are screwed at our huge competitive public HS. If the top kids are taking 11-15 AP classes in their hs careers, then my kid has to do it too to be considered one of the top kids at his school.</p>