@PickOne1 - quite a few of the HYP students seem to be legacies, and even so many more apply than are admitted, even with the stats. So there is also a high level of interest. This is also true for the other Ivies and top 20 schools. Lots of students willing and able to apply to over a dozen lottery schools as well. Then there are others who shrug and go for merit money at a state flagship. About half of the honors/AP contingent.
@QuantMech - Good point about the AP classes. Many of the classes at our school go beyond what it takes “just” to get a 5 on the AP exam, and students regularly get 5’s without getting A’s in the classes. I don’t know about the specifics of all of these, but for years the rule of thumb has been that AB calc covers most of BC as well in addition to other topics, and BC goes on to cover most of what passes for calc 3 at most colleges.
Also students enter AP classes with different background levels even though they’ve all been taking the same classes, depending on their experiences outside of the classroom.
I don’t know how much tutoring goes on in our community, just that there is a regular cottage industry that cleans up after a couple of teachers who are particularly tough or inept, and that some first generation Asian parents will send their children to cram schools rather than directly confront teachers or GC’s with concerns. (My kids also tell me that several Asian friends complained that the cram schools were a “waste of time” and that students did not necessarily do better as a result of going there.)
Parents do complain to GC’s if they feel there is too much busy-work, unfair pacing or assignments, or too many AP/honors assignments or exams scheduled at once. They will also lodge complaints if grading is perceived to be unfair, and in classes such as physics there is usually a parent or two with a PhD in the field who is “in touch” with the school to offer input…So there is probably more efficiency in teaching as a result of “helicopter parents” proactively raising these types of concerns.
What surprises me about @TheGFG’s school is that students on iep’s are not permitted to enroll in advanced classes. At our school they can, and the iep specifies accommodations. Also, many teachers (particularly in STEM) are available before and after school to answer student questions. This means that students do not spend too much time spinning their wheels if there is a problem, and that teachers can adjust their instruction if several students present with similar questions.
Of course, it makes sense to pay the most attention to whether your own child is falling asleep in classes or not. On the other hand, if multiple students are falling asleep in class, this probably indicates a systemic problem, rather than an isolated one.
I think the OP should find out (from other parents/students) if other teachers in AP English at that school assign as much homework, and perhaps switch to a different teacher who doesn’t assign as much homework. A lot of times it really is teacher dependent. DS2 has a history teacher who loves to assign busy work. This is not even an advanced class, just a regular 8th grade history class. He has nightly “critical reading” assignments with a large amount of note taking, plus projects on weekends where he has to draw maps, make complex charts etc. Meanwhile, DS1 who took the same class with a different teacher almost never got any homework, and still aced all the tests. All the unnecessary busy work is taking away DS2’s enjoyment of history altogether, which is a real shame because that used to be one of his favorite subjects.
What are all of your kids doing in AP History classes that takes so much time? The thing my kids love about the AP history classes is that they don’t have a ton of busywork or stupid assignments. Tests, essays and participation. Do the reading, take notes and study independently or fail.
As for the OP’s question: I have two currently in college. Both were accepted at schools that are in the top 30, but not HPYS. They also went to a school that offered college prep, honors and AP level classes. Not all classes were offered at every level but the basic classes were.
Oldest took 6 AP classes (World Hist, US Hist, US Gov. Chem, Physics, Chem). He graduated in the top 5% of his class but was not val/sal. He was a 3 sport athlete and he also had over 500 volunteer hours.
Middle took only 4 AP classes (Human Geo, World Hist, US Hist, US Gov). He graduated in the top 25% of his class. He played 1 sport and was in many different musical ensembles.
Both are happy in their choices of colleges and both are doing well in college (oldest is in last semester, middle is in sophomore year).
It is your choice to get crazy with the schedule (or not).
My youngest is a junior and he is taking 4 AP classes, 2 honors classes plus weightlifting in addition to being a varsity athlete and participating in Model UN. He is happy and he does get to bed at a reasonable time at night. He is very good with time management.
I agree with the commenter who said there is a huge bifurcation between what is expected of students aspiring to the top schools, and those who are not AP/Honors etc. students. I do think that a certain amount of crazy work/raw talent is needed to signal to the schools with a sub-10% acceptance rate that you are worthy of admission. It is what it is.
Personally I dislike the AP regime because the college coursework rhythm is very different from the check-a-box daily grind regime of high school. There are several very fine private high schools and magnet schools which do not partake greatly of AP culture. These schools are characterized by open-ended, massive reading/writing, and research-based inquiry rather than fact-based cramming and standardized-exam gaming.
I have heard of AP history classes where students were forced to outline the entire textbook. My kids never had to do any such thing. As I recall there might have been 1 or 2 shorter papers or projects a long research paper and a midterm and a final. Biology AP was the worst. The teacher explained that if he’d been the professor writing the exam, he’d have chosen what to emphasize in the course based on what he thought was important and therefore put on the exam. His problem was that he didn’t know what would appear on the exam so he had to prepare them for everything. The whole mile wide and inch deep issue. In any event, although for both my kids bio, was probably the most time-consuming AP both got 5’s and got a good exposure to just about all the biology basics. Since neither took any more bio, I have no complaints.
My kids mostly got enough sleep, though one did get up at 5:30 am because he was in the honors orchestra that met at 7:00 am. They weren’t athletes though, which I think was a huge help.
Looking at the problem from another point of view…the OP may want to see if there are any little time sinks her daughter can reclaim from her day. In my experience (and this may not be the case with the OP’s D, but it is what I’ve observed in general) many kids are so addicted to electronics that they don’t realize how much of a distraction they are and how much of their attention they’re sucking up. The kids think they’re multitasking efficiently, when brains really don’t work that way. If they’re taking a 10 second break every 10 minutes to read a text they are not giving their work their full attention and it can extend the process of getting homework done. NPR ran a story recently about this and the research showing that it can take the human brain up to 20 minutes to get back to full focus after a distraction.
The D is leaving the house at 6 am. Is this because she’s taking the bus? Can Mom or Dad drive her instead? This would allow for extra sleep time as well as a few minutes in the car to read or review for a quiz.
Can she work while icing down? Are there brief period during the day when she can sneak in 10 or 15 minutes of work? These can really add up.
My D had a very busy schedule during middle school. At one point she was on two sports teams at once (c. 15 hrs/wk), was studying the violin with a demanding teacher (c. 9 hrs/wk) participating in two before-school extracurriculars (2-4 hrs/wk) and had an average of 3 hrs/nt. of homework. She found that she had to squeeze every moment out of her day, but that if she did she could sleep a full 8-9 hours and she had plenty of time to socialize on the weekends. What she really had to cut out was texting, Instagram, youtube, Facebook and other distractions. We helped her by driving her to school, which allowed her to sleep an extra half hour, switching her chores to less time intensive ones, making her breakfast in the morning, and picking her up from away games instead of having her take the bus back to school.
The OP and her daughter may already have done as many of these things as possible, but if not it’s something to consider.
I’m a senior this year who throughout high school has opted for the most rigorous course pathway our school offers. First, I can say that junior year undoubtedly is the most intense. Usually most AP courses become available at that junction in one’s high school career, so the honors kids take on as many as they can and thusly die. While emotionally and physically I barely made it out alive (GPA did not- 90 final average in AP Chem ), I do feel so much more prepared this year and for the years to come having experienced the pinnacle of high school intensity (I’m talking regularly finishing homework at 2:00 and waking up at 6:00, with some sleepless nights fitted in there). My situation was probably worse than most, as I run varsity track and xc (like OP’s daughter) and I trained every day in the winter.
But to my point- America is on a fast track to increasing academic rigor, and personally I don’t think there’s any other way to go. Yeah, we can claim that it is too much pressure on our youth, but that’s not going to get America anywhere in the global sense. China and Japan are encouraging even more regimented and demanding academic tenures of their children than we are. While I realize that these aforementioned nations produce less well rounded students as they lack completely sports and many extra curricular activities, I have to still consider the fact that our STEM fields are being rapidly populated with these foreign prodigies as they outsource rising American students.
To OP, while I fully understand and empathize with your daughter’s current situation, both you and she should understand that this path is in her best interest. Even if she will not be competing for highly coveted spots at the Ivies, these true tests of perseverance and tenacity will benefit her in whatever life she chooses to pursue.
Best of luck to you and your daughter regarding whatever academic path she chooses to assume.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for all teachers…some feel they must give busywork (though I doubt any would admit that it is!).
My D had a teacher that required them to write 3 sentences summarizing every paragraph of a reading. Then go through and highlight the summaries! In addition, they had to create notecards for ideas, themes, vocabulary words etc. But these were suppose to be drawings…and be colored in as well. Coloring?! In a so-called “college-level” course?! Sigh…
At parent night we had one teacher who said that one of their projects would be good for the kids to do on a long car trip over the upcoming holiday weekend. Because it didn’t require a lot of concentration, but it was kind of time consuming. No, she didn’t call it busywork in so many words, but the way she described it came pretty close. This was an honors math class.
Thankfully my kids have not had anything quite as ridiculous as what @ClaremontMom describes. the above teacher gave them 4 or 5 silly projects with artsy components. But they weren’t a constant thing like taking notes on every single thing you read.
Our AP history classes require detailed outlines, which are the bulk of the work, and it’s quite time-consuming. Most of the kids spend 7++ hours per week just on the outlines. I’d love it if they actually wrote papers instead. They do extremely well on the AP exams, and of course that is the goal, not to prepare the students for actual college-level history courses with actual term papers. It could certainly be better but the outlining does help them learn the material and at least there are no edible models or coloring books of world leaders.
No disrespect intended, but you are a senior in high school. You have no idea whether this will pay off for yourself or anyone else in the long term. A student who does this might get into some top echelon school or elite profession they have been striving for, and find it isn’t suited to them or has cost them in ways they didn’t anticipate. Or they may not want to actually go down one of those paths. Or they may not reach their goals in spite of giving up their social life, family life, activities they may truly enjoy, or their health. Or they may suffer physical or mental health stresses that make it not worth it. Someone can live a worthwhile life without doing this, that is for sure. I think there are plenty of people on CC who have not yet learned the lesson that sometimes you SHOULD quit something, and that blindly questing for the most difficult path isn’t always the best thing to do.
“I’m talking regularly finishing homework at 2:00 and waking up at 6:00, with some sleepless nights fitted in there”. Sorry, but this isn’t what prepares you for college. Getting <4 hours of sleep isn’t healthy and isn’t in anyone’s best interest. What prepares you for college is rigorous coursework, problem solving, writing, and finishing high school excited about learning, not burned out.
Of course there are some kids who are superstars and can do it all; my point is that there are many kids who are only “doing it all” because of a significant amount of help on the side, and because the schools don’t recognize this, they think that the workload is appropriate. I can only speak for my own (hyper-competitive) district. I’m not talking about the kid who is so brilliant that he is in BC Calc as a sophomore - I’m talking about the kids who can polish off that 25 page paper assigned on a Monday in AP Lang and due in one week, because they have someone to do most of it for them, leaving them free to do other important assignments, while other kids who are just as bright but have to do it all themselves are not able to complete all of the work required in the time frame given because there really just isn’t enough time.
So the parents are hiring people to write their kids’ papers? I’m assuming that such help doesn’t come so cheaply that the kids can afford to do this behind their parents’ backs.
At my kids public high school they had a district homework policy. Homework was only allowed on Monday to Thursday nites and no more than 30 minutes per class. It seemed to work out well for my kid. They got enough sleep and were able to engage in social activities on the weekends. They also got into lots of selective schools. My kid drove to school and wrote their college essay about the drive to school and how traffic lites can be annoying. The campus was also open so they could come and go as necessary. They left high school with lots of friends and not burned out even in the slightest
Our high school did not assign week-end homework per se, but students were using week-ends to catch up on reading and long-term assignments or study for tests. At least they weren’t assigned papers on Monday that were due on Friday and required lots of time to complete.
As I wrote earlier, my kids knew peers who were getting their scientist/engineer parents to look over lab reports, even into college. Each took one or more lab classes in which students were required to do write-ups before leaving the lab, probably to level the playing field.
If parents are editing college applications or discussing topics with their kids, I would not doubt that many are doing the same with papers, and that this saves students lots of time even if there is a marginal increase in quality.
I would guess that red flags go up only if there is a sharp difference between submitted papers and proctored writing. I kind of doubt that anyone is keeping a close eye on this, at least on the high school or college level.
One of my problems with excessive structure in AP classes is that it does not really prepare the kids for college level work. Students who are ready (not all are ready at age 14) have to learn how they learn. The AP history/government were/are my kids favorite classes. The lack of structure allowed them to fit the work in around everything else they were doing.
My oldest was a 3 season athlete (football, wrestling, lacrosse). My middle was involved in multiple musical ensembles (marching & jazz bands, mainstage musical orchestra) and he played lacrosse also. My youngest is still in HS and he plays lacrosse and does Model UN. Having at least one class with a flexible workload is very helpful. I just checked his 1st quarter record and APUSH had 8 graded assignments (tests/essays) and AP Comparative Govt had 6 graded assignements (some out of class assignments).
AP English Language has a very high workload but it is also somewhat unstructured. Our school has a school wide requirement that upper school students give a research based speech and do a research paper during the school year. Requirements vary by age/level but they all have to do it. However, in the lower levels they have outlines, drafts and the like due at various points. In the AP class the speech/paper is due on the day it is due without interim assignments.
There is a very high reading load for AP English. However, students who do activities can read on weekends, buses and even on airplanes if necessary. Weekends are big school days for my son. If he has a lacrosse tournaments he winds up staying up fairly late on Sunday to do his reading. If there is no tournament he uses Sat/Sun mornings to catch up on reading. He does manage to hang out with his friends and watch football on Sat/Sun afternoon.
AP Chem does have a lot of graded work but if I recall correctly so did my college chemistry class. My son is also required to do labs after school or on Sat morning. If it makes people feel better my oldest son got 2 semesters of credit for AP Chem and did not have to take any science in college.
I feel bad for those who say their kids have tons and tons of structured work in AP classes. My son has a lot of work with 4 AP classes but he has control over the work. It has allowed him to develop good time management. When kids have everything dictated to them they really don’t learn time management.
At any rate if you must be Ivy bound you probably have to play the game. If you kids are satisfied with a step below that (say top 100 but not top 20) you can probably allow your student to take only the AP classes that are comfortable for them. What they are comfortable with varies by school and child.
@frazzled2thecore -I don’t consider parents or friends editing papers to be cheating. When I was in college I was taught by my professors to have at least two people edit my papers. Of course in college it wasn’t my parents but my peers. We also had peer editing days in class where we brought drafts of our papers to class and got suggestions from our peers.
When I edit my son’s papers I don’t rewrite anything. He has to do the rewriting. My sons who are currently in college always get editing help from their peers and offer to edit their friends papers.
), I do feel so much more prepared this year and for the years to come having experienced the pinnacle of high school intensity (I’m talking regularly finishing homework at 2:00 and waking up at 6:00, with some sleepless nights fitted in there). My situation was probably worse than most, as I run varsity track and xc (like OP’s daughter) and I trained every day in the winter.