Ap Track Recommendations

Parents Forum
21

<p>Hey relax. I'm not a killer mom. Far from it - my S has had no enrichment classes, so far- I've never believed in Kumon or Sylvan or other supplementary edu. for early years, despite practically everyone in my neighborhood - my son has never spent hw for more than 2 hours (max) - I always encourage him to play outside when there is sun before he does his hw (not finish hw and then play - I would'nt want to work after I come from work, unless I really need to) - I've encouraged my S in Music (Piaono - he's gifted, practices less than 1/2 hour per week and still manages to win competitions) and has been taking serious art lessons in summer, for years - I've encouraged ecs over academics (since I believed it is hard to make time for these when U are an adult)</p>

<p>He is very quick to do his HW, and has too much time in hand. With regard to academics, while he is good, he's not overachiever - I cannot imagine him doing Calc in 9th grade (as mootmom's son) or maybe even in 11th (I cannot either, and I'm a Ph.D in Computer Science from 'near Ivy' - and pl. lets not get into 'near Ivy' there is already a silly thread on that)</p>

<p>I'm an immigrant, so I've not been to HS or undergrad school here. So I don't know how the system works. I'll be more than happy (and I say this genuinely) if my S goes to a comm. college, but at the same time there is no harm in trying higher (provided as I said repeated that my son doesn't kill himself or let the AP courses get in the way of the other courses)</p>

22

<p>Before you do anything, talk to his high school, they are all very very different, learn the system...its good to hear you are listening and asking questions, just go to the high school!!!!!</p>

23

<p>Apologies for calling you a nut. I echo citygirlsmom about talking to the school counselor about typical AP-track-type schedules.</p>

24

<p>17 is way too many...I'll have taken 11 by the end of high school, and I wouldn't have taken so many if I could do it over again</p>

25

<p>mstee,</p>

<p>I sent you a private message. Would like more info on music theory AP. Thanks!</p>

26

<p>I'm only going to say what others have said, but here is something I havn't seen anyone else say-- you say your son doesn't do much work right now. If you put him in this course it will be like dropping a glass that's just out of the oven into some ice water. He is going to crack. It will be such a HUGE workload difference. I took Human Geography in my sophomore year and it was easy so that class in itself wouldn't be bad, however to combine it with all of the other classes is ridiculous. It looks as if after his freshman year he'll be taking all APs. In line with what everyone else has said, how will he meet the prerequisites for the courses?
I took one AP last year, I'm taking 5 classes and 6 tests this year, and am taking 2 my senior year (I'm only taking 2 classes at my HS, hopefully) although I will be taking actual college classes in non-Euclidian geometry and whatever comes after Linear Alg and DiffEqs. This is the heaviest workload at my school. Probably ever. It is manageable for the most part, but doing it for three years straight would be way too much. I will be done after this year...</p>

27

<p>You need to relax and your son needs to go out and play more.</p>

28

<p>u need to... first of all, this is not only ambitious, but preposterious. no way its gonna work out. first tell us what college ur aiming for.. i will tell u this, u dont need to take all these classes for harvard or something like that. infact, this fact 17 ap will rpobably hurt ur chances.</p>

29

<p>Lighten up. Let your kid choose whatever he wants.</p>

30

<p>I'll jump in from the other side and say, because I have lived overseas, the proposed workload looks quite reasonable for a teenager. Ambitious, yes, but insane, no. Many Americans have it very soft in the teenage years, by worldwide standards. The Americans who are most competitive in college admission DO work about as hard as the model schedule being laid out here--perhaps with a different allocation of classes, sports, and nonsport ECs, but they are that busy. </p>

<p>Having said that, however, I will note that there may be an issue here of a child's intrinsic motivation. I like my children to be busy (they don't hang out at the strip mall, and they don't play many video games) but I am very willing for them to choose most of their activities and learning goals. Mostly my kids self-educate by how much they read or are read to (when they are little). Taking an AP test at eighth-grade age is unremarkable in the local circle of friends I have, but the kids vary in which AP test they take, based on their interests. If the child doesn't have "fire in the belly" to learn something, signing up for a class may not make the learning happen. </p>

<p>Best wishes to Silly Sally. I think your screen name shows you are not trying to take yourself too seriously. But you are asking serious, thoughtful questions about what might be possible in what you know to be a competitive world. I think the most important issue is to find out what motivates your son and inspires him to take on challenges, and then you will have an idea what educational path to lay out with him.</p>

31

<p>yeah, I definitely agree no one should take that many APs. I will have taken 9 APs by graduation... but when i look back on my high school years, it strikes me how most of what i learned came from pursuing my own interests outside of school - reading books i picked up at the library, newspapers, magazines, etc. it's important to allow time for this kind of learning...in the end (from what i've experienced), kids will learn most when pursuing their own interests, not plugging through endless pages of AP textbook assignments. </p>

<p>it's not like all APs are so extremely challenging and thought-provoking either.i can think of some that were really interesting (World, Physics, Lit), but others were fairly simple, rote memorization courses, and the takeaway wasn't great. what i'm trying to say is, this is what i learned in high school: overloading on APs isn't the answer if you desire a great education - ultimately, you have to take the initiative yourself.</p>

32

<p>I have an eigth grader too and there is a certain amount of early planning for the high school schedule that has to be done in order to make sure the student doesn't miss out on necessary prerequisites. It's important to meet with the guidance counselor and find out just how things are done in your school system. I'd leave the choice of which APs to take to the student when the time comes though. I expect my daughter will be more interested in math and science but that could change in the next few years. What matters now is that she has the right schedule so that she has the option later on to decide which APs she's motivated to take. </p>

<p>From a college admissions standpoint, I think there's probably an oversaturation point with AP's. If such focus on academics comes at the expense of passion in some other part of the student's life, it may be a negative.</p>

33

<p>Found this on another thread....the letter is very telling"</p>

<p>Let me quote a letter from the Dean of Admissions at Stanford:</p>

<p>Like many of you, I am deeply concerned that the overwhelming stress burdening teenagers today are rising to an alarming level. You may find it odd for me to say this, as colleges like Stanford are often considered central to the problem. That's why my staff and I spend so much time talking about these issues, often discussing what it's really like to be a high school student now, and what we need to be aware of so as not to make things even worse.</p>

<p>One thing we are trying to do is dispel the myth that a curriculum loaded to the brim with Advanced Placement courses--with no regard to a student's happiness or personal interests--is a prerequisite for admission to Stanford. Such a course load is not required, nor is it always healthy.</p>

<p>Whenever we talk to students and parents, we encourage them to work with you to develop an appropriate course load. Of course we want students to challenge themselves, but we don't want them to hurt themselves physically or mentally along the way. We try to explain to families that the students who will thrive at Stanford are those who are genuinely excited about learning, not necessarily those who take every single AP or Honors or Accelerated class.</p>

<p>At Stanford, we don't want the high school years to be one long road of drudgery and stress, and we have structured our selection process accordingly. Although we could, for example, bring in a student body with even higher median test scores, we choose instead to value a set of qualities that sometimes shows up in high scores, and other times does not.</p>

<p>Similarly, we could bring in a set of students who have taken even more Advanced Placement classes. But we want to be clear that this is not a case of "whoever has the most APs wins." Instead, we look for thoughtful, eager and highly engaged students who will make a difference at Stanford and the world beyond, and we expect that they have taken high school course loads of reasonable and appropriate challenge.</p>

<p>--
Needless to say, more schools need to adopt this attitude.</p>

34

<p>Ah, more evidence of Stanford's wisdom and clear-headedness. I believe that Stanford did some checking of the average number of APs of admitted students, and I believe it was in the 5 to 6 range. </p>

<p>On the other hand, I think at some schools "AP" has become synonymous with "honors" or "accelerated" and doesn't really mean that much. At our school, the APs that are generally considered significant, I think, are: Calculus, the major sciences (Bio, Chem, Physics), English, foreign languages, US History. Others are offered but no one seems to think that they are particularly important or helpful in college admissions.</p>

35

<p>My children's school is very AP oriented and the curriculum is built around kids taking a lot of APs in 11/12 grade. My college freshman son (currently at Stanford) took the following:</p>

<p>10th grade -- Statistics, Euro History (all easy for him)
11th grade -- English language, Latin Ovid, US History, Art History. Art history was very difficult for him. US history, generally considered difficult, but came easily to him. Latin was torture but nothing to do with AP exam, he just does not excel at foreign languages.
12th grade -- Calc BC, Physics, Micro/Macro Economics, English lit, Latin Virgil. Physics/Calc difficult courses AP or not but he ultimately did fine. Latin ditto above. Rest easy.</p>

<p>In AP exams he mostly has 4/5 with Latin being the low 3. Several AP awards. </p>

<p>This was not atypical for his school and he had plenty of time to do drama and other activities. No burnout. But I think this was basically because this is pretty normal at his school.</p>

<p>Personally I can't see that AP classes are all that different from other classes. His 10th grade Physics, which was not AP was REALLY tough, AP Physics was much easier (ironically, same teacher). Art History, considered a fluff AP was very hard for him since it required memorizing a massive amount of stuff. Euro History was something he was not even preparing for, end of the year Western Civ teacher told 3-4 boys in the class, you know enough Euro History, take the AP test. </p>

<p>I think the trick is to challenge kids enough that they work and retain interest but not to overwhelm them. We just went with the flow in our son's school. Interestingly, he is at Stanford now and found that some APs are helping him a lot by allowing him to take more advanced courses (physics, economics etc.) others enriched his thinking but have no practical consequences. He does however have 40 credits so can graduate early .... if he can ever figure out what he wants to major in ;-)</p>

36

<p>Mom2003 - The exact same thing happened to my son at Stanford - he is a junior now. He had a lot of AP credits so he was able to take more advanced courses and now he can either graduate early, or complete a double major or a coterm, which he wouldn't have been able to do without being excused from so many intro courses. You are welcome to PM me or email me if you want to compare notes further.
By the way, Stanford only allows up to a maximum of 45 AP credits (not for placement, but just as credits toward the 180 required to graduate.) So taking 17 AP courses would far exceed the maximum credits allowed toward gradation.</p>

37

<p>If the AP classes were easier, what does that say? Curious.....and 2 AP's as a sophmore, our VERY competitive prep school does not allow AP until 11th grade...what were the pre-recs for statistics? And as a Senior, they cannot take more than 4 and that is with all kinds of special permission, yet we somehow manage to get 5-10 kids into Stanford a year....go figure....</p>

38

<p>AP's freshman year? I know my daughter's school would not allow it.</p>

<p>Also, AP Euro soph year, depends on the school. At my daughter's school it is known as the hardest class at the school. (She goes to a large, well known public.)</p>

<p>There are 25 APs at her school. She will have 6 by the time she graduates. This is her senior year, she has four AP's and spends an average of 5-6 hours a night on homework.</p>

<p>On a happy note, she is taking her last final of her high school career right now. YEAH!!!!!! She won't have any finals in May, due to taking the AP tests.</p>

39

<p>AP Euro is also known as one of the hardest courses at my son's prep school. S is taking it, doing well, but said it is really hard. And he is an "older" junior. You can't take it until junior year. The school really discourages more than 2 or 3 APs at a time. They say there are very few kids who really can handle that kind of load- or have the true interest in it! Next year my son will probably take AP Physics (in regular physics now), AP English, regular calculus and Economics (not sure if that is AP or not). He also has to take a fine art or religion course.</p>

40

<p>AP Euro is the only 10th grade AP at our school too. And the kids find that it is harder than AP US History (11th) which is in turn harder than AP US Govt or AP Psychology (which are 12th grade courses).</p>