Not everyone wants to add several years of grad school after undergrad.
It is expensive.
It is, but it doesnât have to be (again, another topic). Certain degrees will always be costly (med school).
It is expensive at least from the point of opportunity cost 
Food for thought, questions Iâd like to hear an actual AO opine on: at a high school that offers plenty of APs, are students who âonlyâ take 6-8 AP classes, vs 10 or 12 or more, viewed less favorably in college admissions, with regard to rigor of transcript, or is there some number of APs at which the rigor is deemed sufficient for AOs? If student X takes more APs than student Y, and both students have all As, is student X more likely to be admitted than student Y, either because the transcript has more rigor, or because the class rank/decile/quartile is higher, or both? Does the outlook change if student Y has slightly more interesting essays or ECs or recommendations?
4 Likes
But why forfeit your learning program to an AOâs opinion?
Thatâs true, but some may feel itâs worth it if they are moving to a career that they truly want.
1 Like
To be honest, Iâm not sure whether youâre trying to say that what AOs think (i.e. college admissions) shouldnât be a consideration in choosing oneâs learning program or that more (or fewer) APs = a superior learning program.
No one can answer that question because at schools that practice holistic admissions the totality of an application is greater than the sum of its parts. Personally, Iâd be surprised to find that a difference of 1 or 2 AP classes is determinative, but what do I know. My sense is that once a certain academic threshold is reached (that may differ from school to school), the more subjective aspects of an application determine who gets in.
3 Likes
Generally if you are taking the most rigorous courses consistent with what you want to learn, and what you can manage without getting poor grades, you donât need to worry about anyone elseâs opinion beyond that point.
I think that in the ideal world, students who take a lot of AP courses are doing so because they want to take those particular courses and not because they think that they need 10-12 APs in order to impress Admissions officers.
The flip side is that in the ideal world, students who take fewer AP courses are doing so because they prefer the alternatives over the AP offering and they arenât avoiding APs because they are worried that AOs would second-guess their motives around course selection.
Either way, the choice should be about the student selecting a course program that meets their learning goals and interests. However based on this thread, it seems like some worry that AOs will look down on students who take fewer AP courses than their classmates while some worry that AOs will look down on students who take an âoverloadâ of AP courses. Both scenarios lead me back to thinking that students should not spend their high school careers obsessing over how their choices will appear to admissions officers at a handful of colleges.
3 Likes
I should rephrase to a retrospective consideration rather than prospective. One might want to know quite a bit about AO opinions, such as how the number of APs affect admission chances, when creating and categorizing the college list, and deciding whether to bother applying ED to a top school, for example.
The answer may be that it doesnât matter, but if it did, then that would be helpful for students to know.
Weâve had one kid take 12 APs and half a dozen post APs, and another kid take 9 APs,5 Honors, and probably no post APs.
We did not think about callibrating each kidâs course selection to what someone would think. We as parents also did not influence either kidâs course selection. After the chips fell where they did (in terms of what the transcript showed), we (the kid exclusively in one case, and the kid with parent input in one case) made college decisions. I donât know of an alternate way of doing these things.
The ED (or EA, as the case may be) decision is also a function of what grades show up in the transcript, what reccs you expect from teachers, what ECs you have, the quality of your essays etc â not just a function of the number of APs. The kind of APs also matters a bit â i.e., in the count of 9 above, that included AP CS P and AP CS A â strictly should not be counted twice. Also Calc AB and Calc BC. So I would net them out to just 7 APs effectively.
In both cases college outcomes were consistent with what I had expected for both the kids. You will have a very good idea by that point, after looking at your schoolâs Naviance etc. You wonât have surprises. It is a holistic judgment on your part. Not just based on the number of APs. Indeed in the case of the kid with the 12 APs, it is the post AP courses that are more relevant from a rigor point of view. And what the reccs would write about them.
No, I understand. Youâre talking about having motivation or not (youâre also continually in your comments applying it to academic outcomes, which I am not limited to and is frankly tragic, but thatâs another story entirely).
Iâm talking about intrinsic motivation as distinct from extrinsic motivation. For my part, intrinsic motivation is almost always and universally a good thing. Extrinsic motivation may or may not be.
@1NJParent and what biases would those be? Do tell.
@TonyGrace I would agree that âmore for the sake of moreâ is almost always driven by extrinsic motivation, at least IME, and why it is not preferred to intrinsic motivation. IMO anyway.
@blossom couldnât agree more with your comment. Funnier, also tragic.
2 Likes
Yes, many AOs will say something like you are evaluated in your school context, but your sort of questions would help add some meat to those bones.
Thatâs a lot of APs and post APs (18?!). Did these APs begin in 9th grade?
My daughter (and I will go out on a limb and include her peers) would not be able to take 18 APs and post APs and still be as active as she/they were. It would cause too much stress, at least for my daughter.
Clearly you didnât have anyone apply in the last two cycles.
1 Like
The nature of outcomes at our school did not change in the past several years
I think just 1 in 9th grade.
17 APs/post APs in grades 10-12 seems like a lot, but what do I know lol.
1 Like