Our students earned A’s, B’s and even some C’s in AP classes. This came from teacher and parent reports. Many did transfer out once they realized the work was hard and it was possible they would earn a C.
Many parents waived their kids in, despite not being recommended for AP. Grading was not adjusted, and some parents complained about course difficulty even though they waived their kids in.
Unfortunately it was hard to keep kids out because they usually honored parent requests, but many dropped down.
Wouldn’t they regret their decisions? Wouldn’t the parents of next year’s class learn something? Why should the school let the parents make those decisions alone in the first place?
Good question. The parents in our district did not always listen to teacher recommendations, and the school allowed it. The following years class did not learn.
We had the same thing with college apps. Some did not listen and got a list of rejections.
Many do not acknowledge reality. They feel their kids are stronger students than they are.
People should be free to take whatever academic risks they want to take. Why raise kids to be super risk averse? How will the kid know what their limits are unless they try and fail. It’s all good.
It didn’t have any effect on my child. She was recommended for APs and did very well in them. If parents want to sign a waiver, as long as they know what they are getting their child into - that’s their business.
As far as the school, they allowed these waivers all the time. Many kids ended up dropping down.
I remember in 9th grade my D was in an honors class (no APs in 9th grade) and some kids were in there by being waived in (parents told me). These same parents complained to the principal that the class was too hard. Thankfully the principal supported the teacher and did not lower the standards.
So… As my kid was leaving the LPS in 8th, he had not been recommended for any honors classes. He was (and remains) very bright and capable and was an A student. But he was quiet. He was not a “look at me” kid, and that, in the eyes of his middle school, didn’t make him seem like the kind of student they’d recommend for honors classes at our regional high school. Had we stayed in the public system, I would have been one of those parents who would have had to make a fuss and "know better than the school ", which I fully appreciated was not without its risks.
Fortunately, we opted to send our kid to BS, where based on their testing and assessment, DS was accelerated and he did more than fine. Rather than seeing his quiet as disinterest, they commended him for “always advancing the discussion” when he spoke. And with 5s on his first 2 AP exams, he became more confident in his ability as well.
I fully sympathize with teachers who end up with students who cannot do the work and who are then dealing with the fall out from that - whether complaints about grading or excessive demands for help. And for that reason, I understand the gates around AP classes. But I also know, firsthand, that teachers can - and do - misread students, and when they tell them they can’t do more, the kids just may believe them.
Perhaps one aspect of the AP and math acceleration race is that some have commented on common high school weighted GPA calculations with AP = +1 but honors = +0.5.
For example, a student at +0 in math progression but in honors math gets less weighted GPA benefit than one in +1 or +2 math progression where the honors math sequence leads to AP calculus.
His advice is likely sound for the average student targeting averagely selective schools and unimpacted majors. But many schools including the UCs make it a point of looking at course load and difficulty in the context of the high school.
Sometimes a student focused on a specific major may max out of APs simply by taking 1-2 each year (say an engg focused student taking AB, BC, Physics C). But even those students might benefit from adding Humanities APs.
I would be very cautious about interpreting this advice in the context of popular majors.
This is maybe only partially related to APs, but I have a question:
My DS26 is in a summer art program with kids from all over the place (mostly Bay Area) and yesterday he met another rising sophomore who is in Calc 3. How did this happen?
My son loves math. He goes to a great public high school, and will get to AP Calc BC his senior year. How does a 15 year old land in Calc 3? Online classes that their school accepts?
+4 math acceleration may happen “naturally” in that the student is just really good at math and parents and teachers are along for the ride while accommodating the student with appropriate course work, although it can also happen due to parent pushing in the math acceleration race.
Don’t worry about your student being “only” +1 math accelerated.
Thanks—yeah, I find I’m not very knowledgeable about what stem-oriented kids are doing these days. My D22 is more humanities oriented so I never looked into advanced curriculum opportunities in science and math. The stem world seems very different and I only want to make sure DS26 is happy and challenged at the level he’s working and that he’s a competitive applicant for the opportunities he would like to pursue.
We see a couple of kids like this each year at our BS. Almost always they are international students from China. The school will put them wherever they place based on testing.
The majority of the top students will finish in BC Calc or Multi depending on the MS track they came from (whether it included geometry or not). A number of excellent students only get to AB and it does not hinder them in any way.
It’s really not related all. If your question hasn’t been answered, maybe @ucbalumnus can link the math progression thread he started so that this thread doesn’t get even more off track with users sharing stories about math acceleration
My kid was NOT in the top math track-- and was a math major at MIT (and did very, very well academically). A student does NOT need to be accelerated beyond their own comfort level in order to pursue math at the college level.
We had one conversation with the head of the math department (I think at the beginning of 8th grade?) to ask about his math placement- and she assured us that he was “a strong math student” and was placed appropriately. So we let it go. He LOVED math-- loved his teachers, felt appropriately challenged (learning new stuff, not at the point of frustration) so there was no reason to push it.
And he got to college and lived, ate, and breathed math. As I tell people who want to accelerate their kid, push, insist on a higher level “The world is in no danger of running out of math”. Nobody gets a prize for chewing up all the math during HS!
My son went to a HS with a math-focused program that continues on from a few middle schools that have accelerated math programs (taking AP calc tests in 7th or 8th grade). This means that the students on that track can go well beyond calc BC if they want. I’m not sure that I would advise it though.