<p>Here is what I can say from personal experience. While AP can give you college credit the demands of the colleges vary widely. Some won’t even acknowledge AP scores of a 3. However, there is a benefit being it has no effect on your college GPA. Although if the student has enough will power and devotion I would recommend dual enrollment. For as long as you pass the class and your staying within the state when you graduate from high school the credits should transfer. Also a years worth of AP class only translates to to a semesters worth of college.</p>
<p>Better than what? It’s going to entirely depend on your particular school and what your school offers. S3 finished Spanish 1-4 by the end of junior year and liked Spanish so taking AP. S1 who graduated as a business major from college ‘liked’ economics so took AP Econ because it was the only Econ class the high school offered. S2 only picked 2 AP classes one because adored the teacher and had taken a class in middle school and a class in 10th grade so took this particular teachers AP English class and took APUSH because he loves US history. Take them because you want to or take them because they are better than anything else in your schools curriculum for what you want to study. I’m sure they are popular because public school education exists to educate all kids and sometimes in the second half of high school there simply isn’t anything else challenging or interesting enough for college bound kids. But don’t ignore your school’s curriculum just because it isn’t AP branded. There are a several courses in my kids’ high school that are rigorous, interesting and generally better than the branded AP curriculum just about everyone headed off to college takes them like the article points out).That is what the school profile that goes with college apps should illuminate - what classes are rigorous and suitable for a college bound student and did that student take advance of what was offered. It’s not really a “game” where the school district with the most available AP classes wins…a small district can’t offer and shouldn’t offer offer a slew of AP classes because they won’t have teachers that can teach AP in the manner that was intended. And I guarantee you there are huge districts with a slew of AP classes and some probably have very mediocre teaching…and then what is gained? Or a school offers AP and allows everyone to sign up…does the teacher teach a’la college on a straight scale or does the class end up curving to toward the middle 50%? Lots of things can happen - there is no one solution.</p>
<p>See the pros and cons of AP rich course offerings thread but my questions would be “For whom?” and “In what circumstances?”. Pixel8 explains that dual credit may be better for some students - typically dual credit courses are more expensive than an AP exam and the credit may only be useful at your local colleges, however the passing rate is higher and you aren’t gambling everything on one 3 hour test. In some circumstances, such as in some urban schools, more AP courses are better just because the alternatives are poor. My kids took many AP courses because if they hadn’t they would have been stuck in classes with less motivated students and worse teachers. Their AP courses weren’t always good preparation for the exams but those courses were better than the alternatives.</p>
<p>^ Agreed! Our school is rather poor and in a place where most kids either join the military, or join a community college or one of the in-state public unis (we’re in a rural state - they are okay but not spectacular). We do not offer any sort of honors classes, advanced classes, etc. - only regular and AP for juniors and seniors, which means if you don’t take AP courses, you’re pretty much stuck with kids who don’t care about learning and are only in a class to fulfill graduation requirements. Most kids in our AP classes only score a 1 or 2, maybe the rare 3 if they’re lucky, but the quality of education is much better than regular classes. Here, AP classes essentially function as honors classes, since our school is forbidden from implementing any kind of honors or advanced classes beside AP.</p>
<p>I really think the sheer name alone really improves the class quality by self selection of classes. Kids in AP classes may not be smarter than those in regular classes, but they definitely care more about academics than the kids in regular classes. Separating kids who want to learn and those who don’t in and of itself improves the quality of our classes.</p>
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<p>Definitely the case in our school too.</p>
<p>For admission to selective colleges they want to see that you took the “most rigorous courses your school offers” . I’ve seen a lot of students get rejected from their preferred colleges because they just didn’t want to take 3 AP courses their senior year.</p>
<p>My kid took 2 APs junior year (English Lit and French) and 2 APs senior year (Political Science and AB calc). Other than the Calculus, these were some of his favorite courses/teachers. He refused to take AP Bio even though the teacher was amazing, by every account. The workload was also amazing and I wasn’t going to be doing it, so I said my piece and then shut up. He was accepted to every college he applied to. His AP French teacher, on his LOR, made the point of saying that my son had taken the most rigorous curriculum offered by the school. It wasn’t quite true, but I guess it was true enough. His high school offered about 6 AP courses and they didn’t allow students to take them before junior year. I thought that was a disadvantage until I started hanging around on CC. Why should a high school student have to take 3 or 4 years of college level classes in order to get into college?!</p>
<p>When weighing dual enrollment vs AP it is important to realize that many colleges do not let student ‘double dip’ when it comes to fulfilling HS graduation requirements. Some schools will not give college credit for a class that was used to fulfill HS graduation requirements. However, they do not make such distinctions with AP courses.</p>
<p>This information is usually available on the school’s website.</p>