<p>For the most part you can choose, but there are prerequisites and corequisites, and most APs you can only take as an upperclassman.</p>
<p>Honors classes are mostly joke classes at my school. You usually get a form signed by your previous teacher if you decide to move from regular to honors level. Out of a class of ~60 there was one regular level on English, two honors levels with ~20 people and then one AP class. Honors classes are boring and most of the people in the class don’t deserve to be there. English and History classes are mostly a joke but Science/Math are more serious. </p>
<p>AP Classes are at a whole different level. The student has to first get the permission of the teacher who is teaching their current class. After that permission is taken then they must write a letter to the head of the department explaining why they want to take that AP class. Usually AP Calc AB students don’t need a letter if they had an A in Pre-Calc.</p>
<p>We choose. If we sign up for it, we get it…
Some AP classes have prerequisites, only 3 in my school though. (AP Calc, AP Bio, and AP Stats)</p>
<p>You only need to fulfill the prereqs. But if you don’t do well in a class, it’ll be “strongly recommended” that you drop out.</p>
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That’s pretty insulting… it also makes absolutely no sense.</p>
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Then shouldn’t your gpa be stellar? I don’t see how you can make these assertions and expect anyone to take you seriously.</p>
<p>I’ve just remembered an exception. The science AP’s are pretty much a give-in to anyone who took Physics last year because the teacher would pretty much let anyone in; all you had to do was choose between AP Bio and AP Environmental. But I’m sure she got fired, so that could change…</p>
<p>We need a recommendation, but not necessarily for just honors/AP courses. Anything advanced needs a recommendation, including nearly every senior class available. Recommendations aren’t too difficult to get though, so there’s still some Honors students that would probably do better on the Regular track, and vice versa. A couple of classes have prerequisites, but many of those are electives rather than honors courses.</p>
<p>My current school is really arbitrary. Technically, there are no recommendations or applications to fill out. But since the school is so small, the GCs know the students and decide if they can handle the AP courses or not. A lot of the ESL students are pretty much automatically barred from taking any APs.</p>
<p>To just be put in there, you need a teacher rec. But if you or your parents go to the guidance counselor, it doesn’t matter what the teacher wants, the guidance counselor has the final say. In my experience, GCs are easier to convince than teachers, esp. when parents do it.</p>
<p>At my school, you only need a recommendation for honors classes, and we only have honors for some math, sciences, and english classes. For APs, no rec. needed.</p>
<p>Our school has no prereqs for Honors classes, but gfor AP’s you generally have to take something like AP Chem=Honors hem, AP Bio=Honors Bio. It makes a lot of sense.</p>