<p>Yes - I agree that the curriculum should be challenging, but it doesn’t need to be the “most” in that context. The common app form gives the GC these options:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Obviously it would not look good to have a g.c. check “average” or “below average”. </p>
<p>But a kid like the OP’s son who clearly has a lot of AP’s under his belt – (including courses like BC Calc completed in 11th grade) - is not going to get hurt if the g.c. checks “very” instead of “most”.) I think at a highly competitive school, a student would also be o.k. with “demanding” if his EC’s and/or other activities/accomplishments looked like they were time consuming. For example – the OP’s kid goes to an arts magnet. Let’s say there is some other musician at the school who is extremely talented, and is part of a musical ensemble that often travels to give concerts. That other kid just hasn’t had time for nearly as many EC’s – but he is challenging himself in other ways. </p>
<p>Taking advantage of the opportunities available at a school doesn’t mean doing everything. If you go to an all-you-eat buffet, you can take full advantage of the meal options without actually eating everything offered, nor gorge yourself because it said “all”. Some of the opportunities offered at a school are not academic – the arts magnet is a very clear example. Part of the school day is devoted to arts, not academics. Many of the the students who attend such school are involved in supplemental activities related to their art outside of school, particularly in the performing arts.</p>
<p>To the OP - Please don’t let your son take too many AP classes next school year. My daughter is currently a senior and overloaded herself with too many AP classes this year. She survived (barely) and she’s looking forward to college because she thinks it will be easier.</p>
<p>I think the thing she really underestimated was the amount of work/time required to apply to colleges and scholarships. She thought she’d be able to tweak her essays a little and plop them into multiple applications but that wasn’t the case. Most of them were different enough to require some amount of re-writing for each application and some applications required multiple essays. In additon, all of her Common App schools required additional essays. It was difficult to fit all that in around everything else that required her time. And, she isn’t finished yet because she is still jumping through all the required college paperwork hoops and scheduling her summer orientation. She had to do that during AP testing and now finals. We are just finishing up all the financial aid requirements/paperwork. The college process lasted throughout her ENTIRE senior year.</p>
<p>I wish your son the best of luck next year!</p>
<p>Op,
I looked at your original post. Your question is basically that your S is taking 14 APs and you want to add a 15th AP because you don’t think that 14 will be enough. Wow…really??</p>
<p>A quote from the dean of admissions at Harvard is below:
</p>
<p>Stanford says the same thing:
</p>
<p>It would probably be more help for admissions, if instead of trying to pack in a 15th AP class, the student took classes in a way that showed a genuine love of learning about the material. This might include taking a non-AP class about a unique interest that shows his personality… something that most other applicants will not take (the music courses might qualify, if it wasn’t a mandatory requirement) and something that his parent would not choose for him.</p>
<p>For example, I went to a HS that only offered only 3 AP classes. I took 2 of the 3, both while in 10th grade, which didn’t leave many advanced classes available for junior and senior year. So I also took several classes at a nearby state school while in HS, not because I thought it would help with colleges, but because I didn’t have high level classes that I found challenging available to me in my HS. This was reflected in my choice of classes at the college – some classes in the areas where no high enough level courses were available at my HS as well as some classes unrelated to degree requirements or what anyone would think a college wants, just things I found interesting. I had the same pattern in my choice of HS classes, a mix of core classes and unique electives each year. I ended up getting accepted to 4 of the 5 HYPSMs type schools I applied to, in spite of having a ~91 GPA, 500 verbal SAT, not being in top 10% class rank, and having hardly any ECs.</p>
<p>Thank you to everyone for very valuable insights. As always, the information on cc allows me to learn more every day about this process. </p>
<p>Let me explain a little more about how I got to my original question.</p>
<p>I spoke to S1’s counselor after he came home with the new schedule. He said it was pretty much set in stone (it is), that he had gone over it with the counselor and that while he would have liked to have taken AP Euro (loves the subject), it just wasn’t available.</p>
<p>Counselor (first time I have spoken to her - we have left it to him to plan his schedule with the counselor over the last three years - with a little guidance from us at home) said that while she would like to see him take AP Euro instead of AP Psych, it just was not doable. She thought that, if available, it would have made his schedule more well rounded. She knows what he is capable of, know about all of his EC’s and doesn’t have any qualms about his schedule being too demanding.</p>
<p>After talking to her I thought, “well maybe he could take it outside of school”. Talked to husband and son about it, they balked, I said - “I’ll see what the folks on cc have to say”.</p>
<p>I have heard what you all have to say and shared it with DH and DS1. If I could post a photo of the “I told you so” grins, I would :)</p>
<p>DS2 is also relieved to hear about all of the folks who have taken very few AP’s. As I’ve told him, it only matters in the context of the school you are attending. And his high school will not offer any.</p>
<p>Now if I could just get the youngest to try football… there is potential for a 300 offenisve tackle in that one :)</p>
<p>It sounds like the counselor is a little goofy. And it’s a good lesson that what you want is not always available in a convenient way and compromise is necessary. My D wanted to take AP Euro senior year too. Her school began offering it the year after she left. She had APUSH and AP World, and she loved history. Diss appointment, but oh we’ll. upshot: she got into her dream school and became an American Studies major and took very little European History. She is now in a funded history PhD program.</p>
<p>My mantra is, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” He get done in by perfectionism. I know I do.</p>
<p>Your son sounds like an unbelievable student. I am sure he will have wonderful choices next spring. Wish we could see his grin.</p>
<p>My own child just finished AP Euro and while the course itself is not hard, my child felt the amount of information they are expected to retain for the exam bordered on the unmanageable. Covers a huge amount of material.</p>
<p>This video takes awhile to watch but it is a panel of college admissions officers including Harvard, MIT, BU, Tufts, UMass Amherst talking about what they are looking for AND talking about the issue of stressed-out high schoolers trying to compete for admissions. The panel was sponsored by Lexington High School in Massachusetts.
[TelVue</a> CloudCast Video Player](<a href=“http://vp.telvue.com/preview?id=T01123&video=142220]TelVue”>http://vp.telvue.com/preview?id=T01123&video=142220)</p>
<p>That may be true, but you were not asking him to take AP Euro instead of AP Psych; you were asking him to take it in addition to AP Psych. That’s a totally different kettle of fish!</p>
<p>And, mythreesons, remember (as you said in your very first post), the schools you’re talking about are a crap shoot for everyone. So if he doesn’t take AP Euro, and he doesn’t get into one of them, please do not second-guess yourself or him! Don’t ever say to yourself, “Well, he’d probably have gotten in if he’d taken the extra AP.” Because there is no way to know that.</p>
<p>My nephew had all AP classes junior and senior year and had 2 his sophomore year. He had perfect SAT 2s and a perfect ACT and graduated # 2. Yale sent him an email requesting that he meet an interviewer at the local library for an interview- he never applied to Yale but sent in the app as an after thought after he was contacted. My nephew also had amazing ECs. He was rejected. There is really a lot more to it than perfect classes, grades, test scores. He is currently at a top non-Ivy school and loves it.</p>
<p>I looked at the title of the thread and I thought maybe someone had a bad mammogram or some serious problem, like a kid with a prom-night DUI. Are your worries justified? Absolutely not. On the scale of things you should be worried about with a teenage son, whether he should take 9 or 10 APs has to rank as WAY down on the list. I would be more worried about your being worried about this.</p>
<p>Very good point if the student is a prospective music major (especially in a professional rather than liberal arts music major).</p>
<p>Probably irrelevant if he’s not. </p>
<p>And there’s no harm in attending a specialty magnet school and then not pursuing that field as your major/career. It’s very common for people to do this. People can and do have multiple interests. (And people can and do go to magnet schools for reasons that have nothing to do with the subject that’s the focus of the magnet, but that’s a subject for another thread.)</p>
<p>Beantown - thank you for the link to an excellent article. Anyone with interest in the subject should take a look.</p>
<p>I was surprised to read that according to the College Board only 1.2% of kids take eight or more AP exams. I thought the figure would be much higher. </p>
<p>Thumper, I am glad that I have started a thread where there is across the board agreement - even if it was total disagreement with my intial stance :). I am happy to contibute something positive to cc!</p>
<p>To everyone - thanks for your input. You have eased my mind a bit.</p>
<p>I don’t think either of my kids attended high schools that offered that many APs. I think my son took 3 AP exams, my daughter may have taken 6 at most- and for at least 2 of the exams she took, she had not taken the “AP” version of the underlying class. I think you are getting a skewed view because your son attends a particularly demanding school, where apparently everyone expects to load up on AP’s. I think my kids experience was more typical for public schools: AP options were not available until junior year; there were not many APs available, nor were there multiple classes scheduled for any AP that was offered; and there was generally some sort of application or qualifying process to even be allowed to enroll in an AP. </p>
<p>You may find that your younger son ends up getting a better quality of education in his school without the APs. My observation has been that the AP courses sacrifice depth because of the need to cover so much material. It’s kind of “teach to the test” on steroids. Also, the kids might gain skills that are needed for the AP exam at the expense of the type of skills that would serve them better in college, particularly in the area of writing. It depends somewhat on the subject area, of course.</p>
<p>Beantown - I listened to the entire video (in the background while doing real work). It was long - but enlightening. Some stuff I already knew - some nuggets - and validation of some decisions my kids have made. Thanks for sharing.</p>