How do kids take so many APs?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Obviously the title is a hyperbole. But there are so many kids on CC that have taken 10+ APs! And a lot of them take around 5 a year! I dont understand this. My school doesn’t have as big of a selection of APs, but kids are still able to take quite a few. However, the max at my school is like 6 (over two years), tops! And taking more than 3 a year is heavilyyy discouraged because of how strenuous they are. And I agree with that! I took AP govt this past year, in combination honors and one regular course and that was TOUGH! There was so much more detailed work and reading for govt than many other class, which was fine, but I don’t see how kids can juggle 5 at a time.

My school is certainly not a top tier high school, so I don’t believe see that my APs would be taught differently, or more difficult than everyone else’s. Plus the AP tests are standardized so it’s not like anyone is getting easier information. I just don’t understand how there is such a huge discrepancy! Any possible explanation?
Sorry for sounding frazzled but i have never understood this.
Thanks :slight_smile:

2

Some are obviously easier than others, Idk about AP govt, as I’ve never taken it. I think most people with a lot of APs self studied quite a few of them. Just good time management and study skills besides that.

3

@Frigidcold, yeah but even then, taking 4 or 5+ at a time, with the boggling amount of ECs some kids take just blows my mind. I guess self studying makes sense, especially with those comprehensive Princeton review books.

4

My school isn’t top tier but we don’t have caps on how many we can take. I took 1 as a sophomore, 5 in-school as a junior, 2 onlinel junior as a junior, now i’m taking 2 more online, and I’m taking 7 senior year. only 17 total but i mainly took them to raise my hpa/rank. For some courses like AP World and APUSH you must pass the exam to move on to the next history AP at my school but you can usually work around it if you talk to the teacher.

5

@Gatortristan hmm the history thing makes sense, but aren’t you worried about being able to juggle them all? I’m not trying to worry you, but when I was scheduling my senior classes I had 3 APs but dropped one because I thought with my other honors classes it would be too much. Plus I have a lot of ECs.

Idk, I might just be overthinking it. Anyways, thanks :slight_smile:

6

All the classes in my school are minimally honors level which is why they unfortunately don’t do weighted. I honestly don’t see what the big deal is. I rarely study for anything other than my APs.

7

I guess my school must just be really different then.

8

I took 10, and 6 my senior year. I got three 5’s, two 4’s, and a 3 in Lit, but I didn’t put my full effort into the exam because I only needed a 3 for my college.

In my AP Gov class, literally nobody did any reading, and I probably did 5 hours of homework at most for the entire class. I still got a 4 on the exam without studying, and probably could have gotten a 5 with minimal effort.

In Stats, we had homework every night, but it was very easy, and most of the answers were in the back. I got a 5 without any studying except required practice tests.

In APES, there was a lot of busy work, and I probably spent the most time on this class. I spent multiple hours in one night a few times, but probably only averaged about 15 minutes a night. Most of the time it was 0, with an occasional lab or project that took some time. I got a 5 by only doing required practice tests before the exam, but I did study about 30 minutes before every unit test.

In Lit, we had a few projects, and I only read 1 of the 6 required books because all of the tests were AP-style, so reading Sparknotes worked just as well as reading the book. I got a 3 with no prep.

In Physics 1, we had quite a few labs, but a lot of work was done in class. The workload was similar to APES, except less busy work. I got a 4, but the curve was extremely rough on this exam.

In Psych, I studied for about 30 minutes before every unit test, but my teacher was awful and wasted a ton of class time. I spent about 10 hours studying the weekend before the exam, and got a 5. This was the only exam I actually had to prepare for.

Most nights I had no homework, but I am the type of person that would rather save a lot of work for one night rather than spread it out over many nights. I don’t think I ever stayed up past 11 working on schoolwork, and I played a sport for the first quarter of the school year. My high school is ranked somewhere around 500 in the nation, so it isn’t bad. It is a top 5 public school in Indiana. It also helped that I stayed away from the more intense APs like USH, Physics C, Calc BC etc. I’m not trying to brag, but taking this schedule wasn’t a stretch for me, and I probably could have handled at least a couple more APs if necessary. Getting work done in school and paying attention in class also really helps

9

Our school had a hard cap on WHEN you could start taking them, which I now think is complete bullcrap. Under no circumstance were we allowed to have an AP class until 11th grade, and even then, the offerings were scarce.

At the same time, we were not allowed to take more than 3 a year. Again, bullcrap. At the time, I was worried about 3 at a time being too difficult, but later realized that it wasn’t too bad. It sucked not having the option to take more of those classes, since there were more interesting ones open to seniors at my school.

10

Wow! Well I couldn’t handle it, that’s for sure! I am actually very organized, and incredibly thorough in my work, however because of that attention to detail my work tends to take me a bit longer. However, my teacher for govt is notorious in my school for being difficult, so maybe that is why my view of APs seem a bit off. I got a 5 on the Govt exam, and I just read the Princeton Review, but in order to do well in class you had to read the textbook and pay attention. He did this weird thing where he use sold AP test Qs and his own Qs on tests, so the info didn’t always match.

Maybe I just got unlucky with that one teacher! Plus I did have ridiculous ECs during govt…orchestra was like 3 hours every night and 10’hours on weekends…so maybe had it not been for the ECs and teacher it wouldn’t have been that bad! Thanks for the perspective!

Thanks everyone! :slight_smile:

Also, I’m taking AP euro and AP Lit next year’s those should be…fun! Although, the govt teacher also teaches euro…uh oh.

11

Same thing I wonder when I come on this website the majority of the time lol…

12

Some schools offer 30+ AP’s and do not limit the number of AP’s that can be take in a given year not when the AP’s can be taken. The good news, is that If you go to a school that offers few AP’s and/or has limits, colleges will not be expecting you to take 10 AP’s.

Also note that College Confidential is not a typical cross-section of HS students.

13

My school offers 6 APs, so I guess I’m in the same boat as the OP when looking around CC. The most APs anybody I personally know has taken is 8, and I’ve managed to take 7 over the course of 3 years. I really think it matters more about where you are rather than what you can actually do. In my area, kids just don’t take more than 8-9 APs in their HS career. It just doesn’t happen. The Val and Sal of my school took 7 APs as well.

14

If you look at published College Board statistics what you will find is that most of the kids in the country who take 10+ AP courses post regularly on College Confidential. The total number of National AP scholars each year is something like 12,000. In order to be awarded National AP scholar, you need to have 4 average on 8 or more AP Tests. For some classes like Physics there are more than 1 AP Test per course. My D took 12 AP Tests throughout high school and she took 5 AP classes senior year. If she had it do again she would take 4 or even 3 AP’s senior year. So,

don’t let the College Confidential population distort your sense of reality

15

Some people are just really smart, you know. They like taking risks and hey, a challenge like AP is always welcome to them.

16

I was very surprised to see so many people taking 6 APs a year on here. That’s not even possible at my school. Some people take 5 a year if they’re taking calc and are in spanish 5 or 6, but the other foreign languages at my school don’t even have AP classes available. Because of that, even the most dedicated kids usually only take 4 a year. (I’m taking 3 this year and I feel like a total slacker when I read this site.)

17

I don’t think its the # of AP classes that really matters, but how well you do on the exam and in the class…BUT, don’t take my advice too strongly, considering I’m going to be done with around 18 AP exams by the time I graduate…BUT HONESTLY, I wouldn’t compare yourself to other people (Especially not on this website, considering everybody here are child prodigies). A lot of AP classes are interesting, and if you’re up to the amount of work, then by all means, go ahead. But, I don’t think you should be peer pressured into your academic interests.

HOPE THAT HELPS :slight_smile:

18

Time management and not being lazy

19

When my daughter started her high school no one could take A until Junior year. Starting this year, they no longer have that restriction. She would have been happier in high school if she could have started AP sooner. She didn’t find AP any harder than the rest of the unweighted college prep curriculum and was a bit frustrated to lose some class rank due to the high number of students who moved in with the higher number of allowed AP offerings from other places.

20

I wasn’t one of those students who was a freshman/sophomore and took 5 AP classes and joined copious amounts of extracurriculars alongside volunteering at two separate places (^_^). But, I did have to take 4 AP tests my senior year and the most APs I had taken were 2 sophomore year and 2 junior year. So my senior year I had to take Calc BC, English Lit, Psychology, and AP Physics.

How I handled each one:

  1. Calc: I took Calc AB junior year so BC was just an extension and it wasn't really time consuming. Also most of my classes didn't have homework and were more classwork oriented. Got a 5
  2. English Lit: After taking the SAT, I just applied the test taking strategies I learned to AP Lang and Lit and got 5s in both.
  3. Psychology: The class wasn't AP persay (it was a college course tho), but the material we learned in class was essentially the same as AP. I also attended afterschool reviews with about 2 more kids who were taking the AP test. We all got 5s.
  4. AP Physics: I'm gonna say right off the bat, I got a 2. And I'm not a bad student at science lol. I got a 5 in AP Chem Sophomore year and this is my only score less than 4 out of 8 APs (6 5s and 1 4 in World History). The teacher was SO BAD. And I mean so bad she told us she doesn't have any physics knowledge but rather engineering knowledge, that we shouldn't ask questions because she won't understand them, and that other students should teach the class. So I guess the teacher has a really big impact on how students do on APs; yes it's up to students to study, but let me tell you I studied for all my APs and this one was a lost cause.