Obviously, top colleges don’t think IB sucks. 
If anything, some top colleges are moving away from given credit for AP.
I didn’t say that; I just meant that it’s not for everyone. 
While true, I haven’t come across one that will give credit for IB in a subject that they don’t give credit for AP.
It sucks for the students due to its unsuitability for science/math oriented students. From what I heard from talking to parents who have experienced both, the diploma emphasizes writing intensive humanities classes, and in general is much more work than AP classes, yet most colleges treat them as equals. In schools that offer only IB, unless you do the diploma you will not get the “most rigorous course load” distinction from your counselor, which means it’s either the diploma or you can forget the top 20 schools. Our HS used to offer both IB and AP, most kids opted for AP instead of IB and even fewer opted for the diploma, so instead of giving the consumers what they want, they opted to drop AP instead to force everyone to take IB.
2 AP classes = 2 college courses. In your case two particularly intensive ones.
The work being assigned is the much better side of the coin than it was in our HS. These courses required way too little work and there was no way to sufficiently learn the material. It showed come AP time - maybe three scores of 4 or higher in each class.
Find someone taking those courses in a decent college and compare the workload to those classes.
S (engineering Sr), is routinely spending 20+ hours per week on HW for one 3 credit course. That is HW alone, not reading, not studying - actually working on the problems.
My sons easily had 1hr+ for each course and took many, many AP courses. High school was run on too little sleep.
My kids would not have been happy to drop down to lower level courses. They were chasing GPA, ranking and wanted to be in classes with better students and better curriculum.
Some HS have gone to limiting AP course to 2 in a year. So kids are still taking the most rigouous curriculum, but maybe not killing themselves with course load.
Don’t get me started on gym classes, Pa required four years of gym, and our school did not consider dping a high school sport to replace gym. Athletes had gym last period so they could leave for their games, and they then had to make up the gym class when they missed to play their sport.
One thing that did help was to have our kids think about their effort and return on their effort. Was spending 4 hours on an essay getting a better result than spending 1 or 2 or 3. If you can get a 95 after an hour, is it worth to spend 3 more hours to get a 98. Also finding out how long classmates were spending on assignments sometimes helped put things in perspective or underline areas where maybe they needed help if they were spending much longer than the other students
My S definitely had this attitude…he knew when it was “good enough”. I’d laugh when he would say something like “I did the minimum I needed to do in school”. I would say, “No you didn’t—you don’t do the minimum and get straight A’s”. He’d grin and say “I did the minimum I had to do to get an A”.
I remember talking to my older son’s AP Biology teacher. He occasionally would have extra credit project you could do in lab time. My son never did them. Instead he was reading computer progamming manuals. He was getting an A in the class and saw no need to get an A+. Which is why he graduated in the top 1%, but was not val or sal. The bio teacher didn’t mind, he knew bio was not my kid’s area of interest.
Even if she wants to continue running, at our school, the runners at our school are supposed to take off 2 weeks between seasons, even if it means having the varsity runners miss the first events of the next season. So that would be a good catch-up time. Also, at least at our school, indoor and spring track are both considerably less time-consuming than XC. Practices are a little shorter, the season is shorter (our XC season begins in May and runs through the summer), there are no required fundraisers, no endless “spirit” activities and “spirit” gifts to buy or make, and for JV athletes there are way fewer meets and certainly none that run all day with 2-3 hours travel time each way as we have in XC. I’d say half the time commitment overall, so the worst is definitely behind you.
Python hit the nail on the head. I think that lots of cc parents, myself included, had kids who did enough to do really well but had no interest in trying to be at the top of the class. My kids took a rigorous schedule and made mostly As but didn’t freak out over getting a B in BC Cal junior year (and they both made 5s on the test). The were both varsity athletes and had all the requisite ECs and leadership and volunteerism and loved being busy, busy, busy (ds2 moreso than ds1). But they also got plenty of sleep (ds1 moreso than ds2). They knew that I would enforce a bedtime, and if they weren’t done with homework … oh, well. They learned to be good time managers and to be happy with a reasonable amount of effort.
Not saying it’s what’s happening here, but usually when I hear a parent complain about how overworked their kid is in school there’s some perfectionism/keeping up with the Joneses (be that kid- or parent-induced) and an overwhelming desire to do everything. A friend who complained about her dd’s workload, blaming the school, was blind to the incredibly time-consuming dance EC her dd did. I’m talking nightly practices, etc as part of a professional production. Of course, she would never dream of pulling her dd out of her lessons, but she also demanded great grades in a rigorous academic program. It’s no wonder the family felt stretched so thin – it was! In OP’s example, it seems an easy solution to me to have the dd drop XC and take PE as part of her regular day; it would buy her more hours outside of school and provide a mental break in the school day. But at my kids’ HS, taking PE during the regular school day means losing an opportunity to take another weighted course, thereby endangering the all-important GPA/rank.
At our school you’re going to lose the weighted grade either way, because the sport takes up a period (and gets a non-weighted grade) just like a PE class does. (BTW, our school also included Band and Dance as replacements for PE)
At our school, XC can be counted as a class if you want to use it for PE but because practices are before school, that leaves the entire regular school day open for academic classes. Same with things like swimming and rowing and other “lesser” sports. We also count band and dance for PE credit.
Current [NYS regulations](https://www.hesc.ny.gov/prepare-for-college/your-high-school-path-to-college/regents-requirements.html) require only two years of PE for the Regents diploma.
Either it’s changed or what our school did was make it a twice a week course for all four years.
When my kid was on the swim team…for all four years…she still had to take the required PE course…which was twice a week all year long…with one term being health. If she had been excused from PE, she would NOT have taken an additional academic course. She would,have done a part of her homework in a study hall.
but thumper, your kids only took 3 APs each. You and your kids aren’t the kind of people worrying about an unweighted course weighing down their GPA. 
@Youdon’tsay yep…and mine are both college grads from fine colleges.
Re IB and STEMish kids; we discovered this late in the game and DS was pressured to get the IB diploma. Not catastrophic, but unfortunate.
That said, a great benefit of IB is learning time management. When work is piled on at school, just as in later life at a job, you have to learn to make judgments. Which chapter MUST you read carefully, which one can you skim, and which one can you skip? OP’s daughter needs to learn how to do triage.
DS played travel hockey, had a gf, had friends, and didn’t have a 4.0 (damned French), but was accepted to a “tippy top” school.
OP, my D runs xc, indoor and outdoor track, and is taking a schedule almost identical to your child’s. The workload you describe is about 2.5 hours less per night than what D has, though when I wrote about this issue on another thread, the response from posters was a bit less understanding than what you are getting here. In some competitive schools, this is the way life is for the better students. The top students in our district take even harder schedules and sleep even less!
The AP History classes are a huge time sink. My daughter did not love history. She took regular global history in 10th grade just to maintain her sanity. She, too, is an athlete. But, even without that, I’m not sure she would have opted for the AP version. She did take AP US History in 11th. It was incredibly time consuming, more so than her other 2 AP classes that year. But, she learned how to more efficiently study for quizzes, and on take home essays, was very practical. She did what she had to do to get the grade she wanted, and did not work a minute longer. She got a 4 in the exam and is happy to be in college and not have to take a history class! So, she got through it, but it wasn’t perfect or pretty.
My daughter was not striving for Harvard. She applied to and was accepted to very good schools. She took a good number of AP’s but not every one offered. She mostly focused on the courses that appealed to her. Some students took almost every AP offered, and there was virtually no difference in college admissions results. If your daughter is looking to go to an Ivy, I don’t know what the right advice is. Otherwise, it’s ok to back off. She does not have to take every AP and get a high A in every class. And she should have time to participate in an EC or two, whether that’s sports or robotics.
I do not think complaining to teachers or admin will serve any purpose. Coaches are not too flexible as far as missing games/meets or practices. But, maybe she can ask on a particularly difficult day if she can miss practice.
She should definitely check with fellow students to see if they are experiencing the same thing.
And I agree, a half hour of homework in an AP course does not sound realistic. I would expect more, especially in history.
I think the answer is in the title to your thread. Quit a fabulous class. Decide which one you can live without. Sounds like it is the English class, in your case. It will be okay.