<p>My son is a rising senior. When he prepared his schedule in the spring for his senior year, he asked for AP physics, AP English, and AP computer science. Guess what: they are all three offered only in first period. They placed him in AP Computer Science, which he wants to take. The bummer is that he went ahead and read the five very boring novels for AP English, and now he has been placed by the school into Honors English which has a different required set of books for summer reading. So he actually got punished for being diligent.</p>
<p>I am so p***ed off about our high school, which seems to cater to the average students. I see other kids on this board who take 10-15 AP classes while in high school. At Western Branch High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, you are lucky if you can get 6 in your entire four years.</p>
<p>Two things I've learned in the process....he can still take the AP English exam without having taken the class. Since he's already ready the books, he'll still be prepared for it. Don't consider it a punishment...and in fact, if he takes the exam and does well despite not having the class on his transcript, that will look even better.</p>
<p>Second, the colleges know a lot about the different schools and how rigorous their programs are, so the fact that his schools only have a handful of AP classes, they'll know that. The important thing is for him to take the hardest classes he can, and do as well as he can in them.</p>
<p>Is there a community college that's any good near you? He can take some classes there instead of in high school, and that will look really good. It will show initiative that he went for harder classes on his own when his own school didn't offer them. I think you have to talk to the guidance counselor about it. I know someone who did this. Definitely try it.</p>
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At Western Branch High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, you are lucky if you can get 6 in your entire four years.
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<p>Please, don't worry about this. At my even crappier high school a total of 4, that's right 4, AP classes are offered. I took the 4 -- two junior year and two senior year -- and it didn't hurt me one bit. I'm off to the the ivy league school of my dreams soon. I know there is a lot to worry about, but the number of AP classes your school offers should not be on your personal worry list. I believe the schools when they say that they judge you according to whether or not you took advantage of the opportunities available to you at your school, not how well you stack up against students from other (better) schools that offer more. --coldcomfort</p>
<p>Thanks for the tips! Unfortunately, dual enrollment English is offered, but that conflicts with his advanced conversational French class (he wants to major in French). </p>
<p>He did take a pretty hard schedule junior year, and made all A's. That will hopefully impress the colleges.</p>
<p>You're lucky if you can get 6 in? My high school "offers" 5, but people never sign up for two of them, so we really only offer three classes. It's pathetic...I agree with you on the whole catering to average students thing, we have 2200 kids in our school and 3 APs? Right...</p>
<p>Yeah, just follow the tips everybody else posted, that's more-or-less what I'm doing</p>
<p>Hahahahaha, my school owns all. We have around 2600 kids and we have a total of 2 AP classes offered (other are supposely "college classes" that a local CC accepts). I only get AP English and AP Calc, and funny thing is.... I could ONLY take AP Calc and not AP English because of scheduling conflict. The situation I am is, either I take AP English and drop 3 college science classes, or take College English and keep my science classes.</p>
<p>namtrag: i hope my situation makes you feel a tad bit better about yourself.</p>
<p>it does make me feel better. I just thought everyone else on here took 15-20 AP courses. At least you would think so after reading some of the posts.</p>
<p>namtag: i know what you mean. I've also heard that adcoms would understand your position. Adcoms try to make sure that you make the most out of your opportunities.</p>
<p>APs aren't weighed as heavily as other tests for this reason. Public schools differ in their AP offerings while many private schools don't even offer APs. The adcoms want to know that you're taking the most challenging courseload possible, so you have nothing to worry about for your son. If he wants, he can still take the AP test on his own. I did so and it was fine.</p>
<p>Opposite here. No AP classes in my school are offered in the 1st period because music is always 1st period, and all the smart kids are in music. That made havoc of my schedule. Still, by the end of the my high school career I would've taken 11 AP classes, so I guess I should thank god for a good shool.</p>
<p>It is all relative to the school. Usually, adcomms in your area take the time to understand situation of each program, and to see how certain things (like your story) can prevent your child from taking, let's say, the most difficult courseload in the school compared to something not as difficult. Your son will still look diligent and willing to take on those tough classes.</p>
<p>-Edit- FYI, I'm one of those kids who will be having 10-15 APs. 14 to be exact =/. But that's because my school offers about 30 or so of them at my school.</p>
<p>Ray, my other son, who was a great singer, dropped chorus after 10th grade so he could take AP classes which were only offered 1st period.</p>
<p>I think Western Branch is actually decent (we have 8 kids from my older son's class starting at UVA this fall), I was just ranting becuse they always seem to do something like this every year: offer AP courses which conflict with one another. I guess there aren't enough kids interested for them to offer 2 periods of each AP class.</p>
<p>I wonder if the school schedules the conflict on purpose? My d's school has a lot of AP classes (but you can't start taking them until 11th grade, so the most anyone can have by graduation is, I think, 8 and very few do.) They specifically schedule 2 AP science courses (Chem and Physics, I think) in the same period because they want to limit the load kids can take.</p>
<p>the answer to scheduling conflicts is self-study. In my school there are about 2000 kids and a total of 23 AP's (more or less), but since students can't take all of them, there are a lot of people in my school that self-study most of the subjects that they can't fit into there schedule, that way they can still take band and Physics B...</p>
<p>wow i can't believe some schools could really be this bad! and i thought my own school sucked, yet i know people who took up to five ap's in just their sophomore year. Since my school has block scheduling, it's easy to get ahead in the sequencing of classes and alot of people actually complete all their credits by their junior year, so they do nothing their senior year.</p>
<p>I'm interested in this phrase "crappy public school". There is only one way to do something about the prevalence of schools that do not meet the needs of their students: universal school choice. Where there is little competition, there will be little incentive to improve. Send an e-mail to your state reps and senators, write a letter to the newspapers. As an aside, my son's huge public school does offer a lot of AP classes, and he already took 9 by 11th grade, but on the other hand, his wallet was stolen during PE today, and that IS pretty crappy.</p>