Also know that many schools do not give credit for AP but give placement. So consider that as well. If the college has a FL requirement, you can often satisfy it with an AP score of x or higher. That frees you up to take another class that interests you.
I agree with everyone else that it depends on your school.
My Dās HS limited APs - 0 allowed freshman year, 1 allowed sophomore year, 3 junior year, and 3 (or 4 with permission) senior year.
There were honors requirements in math, science, and FL before you could take AP. History and English had AP options from the get go (history in 10th, English in 11th)
In my Dās school, the AP classes had the best teachers and the most engaged students. They went way way beyond teaching to the AP test and there was plenty of flexibility.
Plenty of kids took the AP class and didnāt take the test. There was no push from the school.
That said, my Dās university gave her credit for all her AP classes which opened up her schedule to take classes for a special certification and add a concentration. Some students in non engineering disciplines were able to graduate a year early.
Apples to apples, a $98 exam fee to get out of a 3 or 4 credit college class is a no brainer in terms of cost comparison.
As noted by others, you also need to understand what is typical in your studentsā school in terms of perceived rigor by the guidance counselor.
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I live in a pretty competitive area of NC. What I see more and more is that kids are taking AP classes to get into selective colleges versus to get credit for college. If the goal is to get credit and reduce tuition, then DE through the HS is the better option IMHO. Most colleges will give credit for community college work as long as it is a C or better but not so for scores below 5/4/3 (depends on the school.)
To add to that, what we have experienced is that not all HS have good AP teachers. So, for a lot of the harder APs, students need to get outside help from a tutor or similar. And that aināt cheap. My DS23 is not self-motivated to study and dig hard when things get hard and we are dealing with AP trauma right now. Add to that COVID and I would steer parents away from harder APs unless there is a very good reason to do so.
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Same here. Itās logical in a test optional or blind environment that certain schools might look to APs for an objective measure. Itās APs to get into more selective schools around here. The DE classes are known to be much easier. My D21 did not have great teachers for his hardest APs but he is a work horse. My D24 will not want to self study or tutor so Iām wary of leveling up for her too much. Unfortunately her HS has more APs available.
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Agree on spotty teaching quality in AP courses. At D22ās public school, it became clear early in the semester that one particular AP teacher didnāt understand the class material - her efforts to answer even straightforward student questions were somewhere between confusing and gibberish. Eventually the teacher abandoned any efforts to actually teach in favor of simply assigning textbook passages and giving quizzes. D22 and her friends are teaching each other the material after class and online, with help from online resources.
That said, there arenāt many alternatives for students interested in selective schools. If you avoid the tougher APs here, you wonāt have the highest level of rigor - the DE options are generally designed to be accepted at local community colleges and are far less challenging.
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Iām kind of at the point where mental health outweighs selectivity. Iāve accepted that my D24 will not take APs in subjects that are her least favorites and will only have a handful. Stepping off the hamster wheel of highly selective admissions to some degree. Fortunately D24 is not interested in the most competitive majors. My S had a tough go last year with amazing stats, good rigor, 400+ hours of community service. It really changed my attitude and expectations quite a bit. We will help her put her best foot forward and it will be what it is.
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I agree! Mental health should always be first and I always cringe when I read or hear of the kids taking classes that are way out of their comfort range, causing 4-5hrs of homework every night. It is ridiculous and shouldnāt be that way. No kid should be encouraged to do that and yet so many are.
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Iām so with you on everything you just said. My S25 was already stressed out last night over his current grade in his honors Biology class. I had to really comfort him and express to him that possibly getting a C in this class is in no way shape or form going have negative consequences in his life. While I could appreciate that he cares about his grade, I donāt want him constantly living his high school years stressed about them to this extent. He wanted to take this class, so I supported his decision.
He will not be taking the course loads my D21 did. After the shakedown of the admission season last year and the effects of this pandemic our family is doing lots of reevaluating. We want more balance, we want off the hamster wheel. Admittedly, prior to my daughter applying to college I was getting caught up in the prestige game. Now I can plainly see that there are hundreds of schools who will gladly accept my S25 and provide him with an excellent education and experience. At this point I wouldnāt be surprised if he goes the CC route. I will support him and I know he is trying his best, and his best is good enough!
We are definitely prioritizing mental health in our house now. For all of us.
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She could do all that my S did but weād all go nuts trying to get there. Definitely not worth it. The process is too arbitrary to invest that kind of angst. I also look back and see that Sā high school years werenāt completely enjoyable. Some of this did have to do with the quality of teachers - hit and miss. Not sure that honors level will have the cream of the crop but at least there isnāt the extra anxiety of a giant standardized test at the end.
@Picklenut totally agree too that these are different times. Even the fittest I think have their struggles. I know in our area this is especially true for girls for some reason and I have read the same. Iām totally here for your approach!
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I think too often we encourage our kids to apply to colleges as the students we think colleges want them to be rather than the students they are. There are some students for whom 9 AP classes arenāt that stressful. Let them take them if they are suggested to them by their guidance counselors. Perhaps it will help them get into some selective schools if that is a goal. On the other hand there are students who may not be ready for that kind of work yet and there are a lot of universities that will be a great fit for them. They may find that once they reach a college thatās right for them they can flourish. Making students feel like a failure for getting a C in an AP class or not getting into the highest ranked university they apply to is not motivating. I always told my kids āIām proud of the effort they put inā āIf they succeed Iāll celebrate with them if not Iāll commiserate with themā. Either way they arenāt failures.
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Absolutely true about the girls.
Huge congrats! I am a nurse and it is awesome- crazy in the time of Covid but so glad I chose nursing.
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Our school feels everyone can learn at the Honors level, which makes those our mainstream classes. This means that most of the population at the school is in them. My S19 took 15 APs and can graduate a year early with an aerospace engr degree. The money on those AP exams was the best money we spent! He made the choice to take so many APs on his own, and now my S22 is doing the same after seeing how beneficial it was for his older brother. The only APs we āforcedā our kids to take was AP Seminar and AP Research because we feel those are great classes. I know the number of APs my boys took/are taking would be a lot for some, but mine seem happy with their choices. Itās such a personal choice, and definitely depends on the school, too.
For us, AP exam credit was on par with more than a year of free tuition!
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If students are heading to public universities in mountain states (think Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, etc.) admissions and merit aid are usually based STRICTLY on unweighted GPA (and test score if the student wants to submit one) without a bit of attention paid to course rigor. Our counselors and administration push AP classes and tests (and only AP classes count toward weighted GPA at our schools) seemingly to get a plaque on the wall from the CB or USNWR or whatever. My kids have taken a lot of APs, but a couple have kicked themselves because theyāve ended up at these public universities and received the second-best-merit package (say 65% off in-state tuition) for having a 3.9 u/w GPA, whereas their friend who took 100% āregularā classes and got a 4.0 u/w got 100% off in-state tuition. (This is a very weird feature of the mountain region as far as Iām concerned:/.)
Curious - are you saying that the University of Utah (Very Important), Utah State (Considered), University of Montana (Very Important), and Montana State (Very Important) are all lying on their most recent CDS when listing the importance of āRigor of secondary school recordā in admissions?
Idaho is the only ānot consideredā that I found.
Factors for admission may differ from factors for scholarships, and rigor may be defined as meeting a specific set of course requirements.
My DD25 was making her 10th grade course schedule and I advised her to cascade out to 12th grade, so she could see what classes she will work up to. I made one myself and I had her take Geo/Alg 2/Stats/AP Stats and the feedback she got from the kids with older sibs is that ānobodyā takes it like that and would be redundant to take Stats before AP Stats. Granted, this is a competitive high school where everyone is gunning for top UCs and most take two years of Calc. But I was really surprised at the answer.
For some subjects, there is a two year sequence and AP is the second year. (Chemistry at most schools would be an example of this.) In others, the subject is simply offered on two levels and AP is the higher one. (U.S history, for example. )
Stats is likely in the second group at your school, so what you are hearing is that students donāt ārepeatā stats.
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AP statistics tries to emulate a college introductory statistics course that generally requires only algebra 2 or intermediate algebra as a prerequisite (does not require an even lower level statistics course as a prerequisite).
Unless she is certain she will not need to take calculus in college, it would be better to take precalculus after algebra 2 (AP statistics can be added as an elective) rather than taking the math off-ramp in high school.
It is mainly the sciences where taking a high school level course before the AP course is common:
- Biology: high school biology ā AP biology
- Chemistry: high school chemistry ā AP chemistry
- Physics: high school physics or AP physics 1 (or 1/2) ā AP physics C (also requires calculus)
Of course, there are other subjects where the AP level course is just the next step in the progression. Math and foreign languages are the usual examples. In math, one does not normally take āregularā calculus or statistics before taking the AP course.
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Iād replace stats/AP stats (students take one) with precalculus and AP calculus. My kids took AP stat instead of BC calculus or ad an elective.
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