<p>^Sometime resources are very limited. Rigid rules are required. As I have mentioned, nobody at D’s private prep HS could have more than 6 AP’s total.</p>
<p>In my school it depends on grades and teacher recommendations.</p>
<p>At my D school you have to be recommended by the teacher. Not just anyone can do honors or AP…and trust me, many many students are disappointed when they are not picked. </p>
<p>My D14 had to console one of her friends who didn’t get picked for Honors Spanish and started to cry!!</p>
<p>At D’s urban public school, placement in honors and AP classes is primarily by previous grades and teacher recommendation. Due to limited seats, getting into AP classes is very difficult and they are overcrowded, definitely over 30 kids and maybe 35. The white, Asian, and mixed race middle class are presumptively in these classes, and their parents are there to advocate for them. The poor Asian immigrant kids are in a more neutral ground, and the poor Latino and African American kids are presumptively not in these classes. The lines are somewhat permeable, but the SES divide is disheartening. JMHO.</p>
<p>Also – Class schedules are issued during registration which is the week before school starts. However, summer assignments for some of the honors and AP classes are handed out during June finals or so. If the summer assignment is not completed by the first day of class, the student gets kicked out of the class. It also pretty much precludes a transfer in.</p>
<p>At our high sch. anyone can sign up for honors/AP s far as I know. My kids never had to get permission.</p>
<p>My D was placed in Honors English!
Now I hope she will rise to the challenge and it won’t be one of those “Be careful what you wish for” situations!</p>
<p>My dd school was easy to take honors classes. In fact, they are doing away with standard level classes and making all the kids take honors or higher. They will still have a lower level for kids with learning disabilities or abilities. Honors will mean almost nothing at her school once they do it. </p>
<p>You could take AP only with permission in 9th grade. You could take one AP in 10th without any problems and more if you really wanted. No restrictions on AP classes once you got to 11th grade. IB candidates could take as many AP credits as would fit in their schedule. No students could take IB classes unless they were in the IB full diploma program.</p>
<p>I want to add, being in the State of Maryland with 1st place showing for education in America, it is a bunch of crock. We may be giving them the classes but we are teaching to the lowest denominator. This means kids can get these IB and AP classes but very few actually score well enough on the tests. The IB diploma pass rate is 32% at my dd’s high school and national average is about 80% to give you a frame of reference. There are pockets of grandeur in the state but the magnet schools are not the ones doing well in my county. I have always found it funny that our county put the magnet schools in the high schools no one wants to attend. Thus the students that would do well in these programs are not even signing up to do them because they don’t want to attend the bad schools.</p>
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<p>Amazing that all the kids are honors level! Will all freshman start out in calculus as well?</p>
<p>Wow, I am surprised to find out that in some schools AP classes are rationed; I had no idea. Students at our neighborhood public school can take as many AP classes as they want, but must take the AP test (which is free to them, paid by school district). Before they can enroll in the class they must attend an after-school information session for each class and must sign an AP “contract” stating that they understand the workload of the course. Students graduate with an average of 4 AP classes each, which makes our school one of the top public schools in the country for AP participation, and our scores have been great. There are no honors classes where there is an AP alternative; it’s AP or regular.</p>
<p>Our HS is fairly cautious about letting kids into 9th grade honors classes. My kids went to a small private school and had to jump through a bunch of hoops to be allowed in honors English & History, including submitting writing samples. For math and science, they allowed the kids to choose honors without jumping through hoops as long as their parents approved. After freshman year, it would be based on teacher recommendations.</p>
<p>Our local public is among the logic-challenged high schools. According to school policy, grades and standardized test scores and placement tests and prior-teacher(s) recommendations(s) and incoming teacher assessments are all considered when determining whether a student gets placed in the Regular or Honors section. Despite this “thorough review” many excellent students get placed in Regular sections. </p>
<p>In-the-know parents reality simply request that the student be placed in the Honors section, as there are no known cases where such a request has been turned down.</p>