Way back when I was in college, a few of my peers who went on to have respected careers in medicine admitted in the dorms to having paid others to write up term papers that they considered a tedious waste of time that could be better used to study for tests. They were obviously never caught.
I am surprised that anyone nowadays will admit to this, but then again my kids were aware that in college quite a few of their peers turned to parents who were experts for help with papers and lab reports, or to other students who were not part of a writing center. Some professors required lab reports to be written in a proctored setting, and others tried to level the playing field by offering to take a look at and offer revision suggestions for papers submitted ahead of deadline.
I did not personally know of any parents at our high school who were hiring tutors to write their child’s papers, but I’m sure that this might have been happening. Many of us tutored our children or found others to tutor if we thought classroom instruction was not adequate, the curriculum did not meet our child’s needs, or our kids were ready to move beyond the curriculum and were seeking direction.
The school did not want to hear about it and considered any progress the result of excellent teaching. It could otherwise take years to effect any change in curricula or methods that were not working, especially if parents who complained were told that they had unrealistic expectations or were in denial.
I myself would like to see proctored writing samples required of all students completing the Common Application, that can be compared to additional , edited essays that are submitted.
The way I interpret it, Harvard wants the kids to take advantage of all resources and opportunities both in and out of the classroom. It’s not an either/or. So, get a PhD by 12th grade and change the world.
And why not? It’s not like the college adcoms are going to tell everyone what really lies behind holistic admissions. That would be admitting by stats (qualitative and quantitative), kids will get better transparency and will be able to optimize their study life balance, and there will be no complaints about preferential or otherwise treatment by race.
But no, we can’t have such transparent admissions. Instead, let’s ask the kids to do everything.
@anonymous26 No where does it say you need 3+ AP’s for success. I think it really depends on the school district, the traditions in your area, and your definition of success. I have never heard of what @GossamerWings talks about - it’s not done in our school district, but we are not in a hyper-competitive area. I am not doubting it happens.
Our district does not have an honors level except in English. So, the choice is AP or not. I would say most of the top kids graduate with 6 or 7 AP’s and get into good schools. We rarely send someone to the Ivies - so maybe more AP’s are needed. I can’t say for sure.
This all depends a lot on the kid and on what the regular classes are like. My kids had years of regular classes before they had the opportunity to take honors classes and neither one of them would consider going back to be an option. It’s not about weighting and GPA. They like learning, and they appreciate finally being in classes where a significant fraction of the class is also motivated. And yes, they appreciate not always having to do all the work on every group project because no one else cared or was willing to do the work. I think those are more common in regular level classes because they help the weak students prop up grades (at the expense of the better students’ weekends). I might force my kids to choose an EC to drop but I would never “force” my kids into a regular class.
I think the stakes for college have risen with the cost of education and the job market hence we have created a rat race to college. We are expecting our children to be philanthropists, Einsteins and Michael Jordan’s that was once reserved for adulthood. Many kids are getting injured from no breaks in their respective sports and burnt out by the time their 18. Would our kids all be doing these things if it were not for college admissions? That being said I think it is important to not push too hard, expect more than is feasible and to sometimes pull back from the rat race. Balance is so important. If your child is playing a sport not because they love what they are doing they shouldn’t do it. If they hate history why be in AP? However if they love history don’t be in on level just to sleep during class. Neither creates a happy kid. If your child has no time something has got to give. If she doesn’t like cc than deal with pe. If some class is just too much go down a level. My d took on level world history because she had no interest and doesn’t like memorizing stuff she doesn’t care about but then took AP US History which she loved. She took on level Spanish one year because I forced her to lighten her load as she was undergoing surgery. She never even took AP Spanish and still placed out of two plus years of Spanish on an exam. I am not going to lie did she like the on level classes? No but she wasnt the only student in there who was above the curve but it was better than killing her, the lesser of two evils. Having freaked about college with my eldest I have learned from it all to chill out a bit. My son who hates Spanish will only take two years in high school and if colleges don’t like it it is their problem. And remember there are people who went to every type of college who are successful and those who are not. You have CEO’s from no name schools to baristas from Harvard and vice versa.
Much2learn, it really depends on the level of college what they are looking for in their athletes. Some schools want almost exactly the same academic standards as they do for the non-athlete population, and those expectations are not only very demanding but more than what you list. D2 is a runner searching for colleges schools now, and found an article in which a Div. III coach at a very good school she likes (and it’s not Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, or Middlebury) said he not only cares if his athletes take AP’s, he says he looks down on the “lower” AP’s, like AP Environmental instead of AP Bio. I can’t find the link, unfortunately, but trust me that that was a sobering article.
@VMT “The AP History classes are a huge time sink.”
This is our experience too, except for AP US History, which is the most worthwhile history course and not overly time consuming.
We avoided the AP Euro because with the degree of difficulty of their other courses. It seemed like too much time to invest when they were focused on Honors Precalculus, Honors Chemistry, and Honors English, and Honors Latin, so they opted for an easier class.
@TheGFG “the kids who can handle it often have their secrets and cheating is one of them”. I think that’s a huge generalization. Are there kids that cheat? Yes, I’m sure there are. To accuse a whole group of high achievers of cheating is irresponsible and not fair to students who are able to handle it honestly.
You have to make sure that you check to see what your school district requires for graduation (the state gives the minimum standards) Cities and local districts could ask for more.
For example: while the state requires 2 PE credits,
My kids get PE credit for sports, but the do have some PE classes.
Their school, until recently, only allowed AP with permission. Now anyone can take. Also, they don’t take unill grade 11. So it cuts down a bit if pressure, though they do take honors from grade 8 for hs credit.
My oldest takes the APs that interst him. He was not interested in AP Lit, which is fine…why put all that time in reading lit if you hate it! His aps are mostly math related.
"I wish APUSH and AP Bio would split into two separate classes. " I am puzzled why they split Physics B, which wasn’t one of the harder APs, and left APUSH alone. Our school, like many others, already requires a year of bio before AP Bio, so I don’t think splitting it makes sense. The honors class seemed to cover most of the same material, just in less depth.
I did what was, for my school, a ridiculous schedule in my junior year. Senior year, I was having none of that and dropped down to one AP (Stats because I needed another math credit) and the rest were a mix of honors in-name-only and regular classes (like environmental science which was considered the stoner class).
I wanted more time for my ECs- theater and president of an animal rights club (along with some coaching and other side things) and friends. The rat race didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t go to a super duper top 20 college but I’m now in a PhD program at a top 3 program for my field. So, I guess it works out. If I could do it over again, I wouldn’t have taken such a rigorous schedule my junior year and I’d bet I’d still be in the exact same place.
When my younger son refused to take AP English for 12th grade his GC tried to persuade him to do honors English instead. He dropped it after taking one look at the reading list - if anything it was even more onerous then the AP list. This is a kid who loves to read and writes well. He took AP Euro both because he loves history and the teacher has the reputation for being the best writing teacher in the school. He’ll admit that taking an English elective was a big step down in terms of rigor, but it was fun to be the star of the class. He and his best friend had a great time writing a mystery as a joint project. And he got introduced to a lot of classics of the mystery genre.
“the kids who can handle it often have their secrets and cheating is one of them”. This is a rather insulting to the many kids who can handle it without cheating or paying tutors to do their work. Yes, there were kids cheating in my daughter’s honors/AP classes. But they were not the kids who were the best students. For instance, there are kids who copy their history outlines off the web. My daughter commented, “they don’t do very well on the tests”. Our school has about an 85% AP pass rate so 15% of the students only scored 1 or 2. You can draw your own conclusions about who is cheating.
@shoot4moon, mental health trumps all. That would be my priority.I wrote a post very like yours 5 or 6 years ago when my daughter was struggling with the same thing, a crushing workload that really turned her off to school. It was more an endurance contest than an education. Her junior year, we ended up pulling her out of her top-notch public high school and putting her in a small Christian school with rigorous academics, but a much better view of a balanced life.
It was a great decision and we have no regrets. She graduated as salutatorian, was a NMF, and regained her love of learning. She still deals with depression and anxiety (family inheritance, I’m sure!), but I don’t think she’d even be alive today if we hadn’t made the change.
While I agree that you aren’t going to change the culture (and it does need to be changed–this “suck it up and deal” attitude doesn’t benefit anyone!), you don’t have to put up with it. If your daughter isn’t thriving, then you do need to make some choices. If private school isn’t an option, dropping a make-work class (and I think many APs and honors classes are taught this way at many schools) may have to suffice. If she is not having fun, she will not be mentally healthy.
And I will say that it is very possible to teach an AP class without the piles of homework that so many teachers think it necessary. My daughter took 6 APs her last two years of high school (the lower pressure school) and scored a 5 on every exam she took, so clearly, the more relaxed teachers were able to cover the necessary material. I don’t buy the argument that those classes have to be so demanding in terms of workload.
If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. My kids were high-achievers without cheating, so of course I don’t think all top students cheat. (They also barely slept.) But in our school, which is more intense than most, cheating happens. For example, both of my kids witnessed peers getting caught cheating on the actual AP exams, and nothing was done since the school did not want to risk losing their status as a testing center nor jeopardize all the honest kids’ scores. We tried to report directly, but CB told my kids their own scores could be invalidated if they reported. Students also regularly cheat on ordinary schoolwork. Some kids who were lucky enough to have their older sibling’s work, were able to use that until some AP teachers got wise to it.
Also, I said cheating is ONE of their secrets and then mentioned tutors and parent-“helpers.” Tutoring here is BIG business; one of the main roads in town is chock full of these outfits. Not all of them are scrupulous. I know, because parents openly admit it. Gossamerwings reports the same.
@theGFG That’s unfortunate that that happened at your school, but to make gross over generalizations about many schools is still irresponsible. And since when is hiring a tutor a bad thing. I’m sure there are quite a few “intense” schools out there where high achievers achieve and sleep as necessary.