<p>Food for thought from the NY Times. This video comes out strongly against the snowball effect of the AP class.</p>
<p>Op-Ed:</a> Advanced Pressure - Video Library - The New York Times</p>
<p>By the way, the NY Times video is an excerpt from the film “Race to Nowhere”. Here’s an article about the film from the San Francisco Chronicle:</p>
<p>[Film</a> provides lifeline to stressed-out teens](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/25/DD731BH7CG.DTL]Film”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/25/DD731BH7CG.DTL)</p>
<p>They make AP classes seem impossible, in which they aren’t.</p>
<p>I mean, I expect to get 5’s on all my tests, and I have a social life (and track everyday til 6), and I never stay up past 12 on school nights.</p>
<p>Although there are some kids that do, who take the same classes as me, which I don’t get. For instance, we had a HW assignment in AP world (HW assignments are big, because in the grading scale we have; tests count twice, HW’s count once) and it took me all of 2 hours, while procrastinating and watching 24.</p>
<p>The next day in class, everyone complained how they had to stay up past 1 to finish it.</p>
<p>But that goes back the kids who suck as SS, are in AP World just to boost their college chances.</p>
<p>There are people who honestly don’t have time in the day to eat, sleep, relax, and do all their AP homework. But all of the people I have seen like that are the people who, quite frankly, should not be in AP classes.</p>
<p>Because honestly? If your 4 AP classes take you so much work that you really can’t ever get to sleep, you need to consider whether or not a top-tier college is the right fit for you. It’s not like once you get to college the classes are so much easier than APs…</p>
<p>AP classes are a gift of the gods. The only problem is people who place themselves into AP classes and then fail the class and/or the AP test. This deteriorates from the prestige and thus weakens the impact of AP classes on admissions in comparison to previous years. </p>
<p>However, people deserve a class to challenge themselves. Students make the leap from a normal class (College Preparatory) to an AP class and cannot make the change because intellect is required. Not that these students don’t possess sufficient intellect, but they have not been cultivated into the student that some AP classes require one to be, thus why some can breeze through APs, and others cannot.</p>
<p>Why is it “bigotry” to say that people who find AP classes too challenging are not the people who should be taking them? I don’t go around claiming sports are bigoted because they’re too hard for me…</p>
<p>Agreed. I don’t go and take every art class my school offers because I wouldn’t do well. I would struggle. If I had to spend every waking hour practicing for varsity basketball just to be on the team, would it be worth it? The same concept applies here.</p>
<p>“Students make the leap from a normal class (College Preparatory) to an AP class and cannot make the change because intellect is required. Not that these students don’t possess sufficient intellect, but they have not been cultivated into the student that some AP classes require one to be, thus why some can breeze through APs, and others cannot.”</p>
<p>I find this an interesting concept. Maturity of thought is not something that can be rushed (or even automatically assumed in even an excellent student) and that’s why it bothers me to see 9th graders taking AP classes. If you see a middle school child reading Jane Austen, they will take out of it something entirely different if they read the book a few years later.</p>
<p>Maybe the posts were elitist or ignorant, but I am not seeing bigoted.</p>
<p>@CouncilMember</p>
<p>I agree with you on some points, but I disagree on the fact that “students take the AP class because they want to learn.” </p>
<p>As a majority, this may be true. But there is also a sufficient number of students who feel inferior to their classmates who have schedules filled with APs, and feel it necessary to make an attempt at competing with them.</p>
<p>“It’s not like once you get to college the classes are so much easier than APs…”</p>
<p>Generalization not proved in practice; totally dependent on:</p>
<p>1) where you went to HS and whether AP courses were killers</p>
<p>2) where you attend college</p>
<p>Authenticity and meaning in one’s course selection combined with high grades will always be more impressive than racking AP courses up combined with high grades.</p>
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<p>If you like learning, and are taking AP classes because you want to learn, I don’t care how much time you take doing the work. Heck, even if you’re just taking them because you want to look good to colleges, that’s fine with me.</p>
<p>The problem comes when you then declare that they’re too HAAAARD or take too LOOOOONG. Because you know what? If I’m a mediocre player on the JV basketball team, and I’m explaining to that star forward that we should cut short all the practices by an hour because I suck at basketball, he has every right to say “well then get off the team if you don’t like it”.</p>
<p>@motion12345, thank you, well said!</p>
<p>^ I agree. I think too many kids take AP classes and are simply unprepared. If they love the subject, but are “bad” at it, then they can take more college prep courses in the area, if offered. I’ve seen too many teachers cater to students who struggle in AP classes and, in turn, they don’t devote enough time to actually teaching the course to students who can handle the work.</p>
<p>AP classes can be good and bad.
Good, in that they’re often challenging and ensure that students learn a broad range of material to prepare for future experiences and college courses.</p>
<p>Bad in that a canned curriculum leaves little room for creative ventures (although in my experience, this is not the case), and hurts a lot when not taught by a good teacher. </p>
<p>But after all, Advanced Placement is a product of CollegeBored, so I’d think that they’re mainly for admissions.</p>
<p>@Councilmember</p>
<p>I understand whining about the work you have to do. I know that a lot of people do that. But I didn’t get the impression from OP’s video that they were just whining; it sounded like the people there honestly thought that AP courses were just too much of a workload for them, and therefore must be made easier. That’s what I have a problem with.</p>
<p>AP classes, no matter how many times they say they’re a college course, are nothing like actual college courses. It’s impossible to create the college academic experience in a high school.
My brother took 5 APs his senior year and, being the academically rigorous and brilliant person that he is, always got A+s. He double majors physics and math at a very prestigious college but none of his AP credits transferred because at that level every one of the students had already taken high school APs in the maths and sciences, and it was time for them to learn college math and science.
I have never taken an AP course in my life and I am glad I never will. It seemed like a lot of regurgitation with no basis for creative exploration of a subject. I’m full IB and while that requires more work, it’s less multiple choice and more presentations and papers, which I feel help a student grow as a student, not a memorization machine.</p>