<p>Question for everybody: it's that time of year when selecting next year's classes starts at my son's school and it's the first year (sophomore) when the AP class will be available - AP World History. How important is it in general and also, does the timing of it matter? Do colleges prefer kids start taking these classes as early as possible? If he decides to select the computer related major, would it matter as much if he is or is not taking AP World History which would be an unrelated subject?</p>
<p>He said he didn't want to take it next year and I agree with him but wanted to hear what others think. He is already taking all honors classes (except science which is at the accelerated level) and is in the gifted program so it seems like it will really be too much for him to add an AP class also. </p>
<p>What is more important - challenging curriculum that includes AP classes or good grades? </p>
<p>Our high school does not offer World History (and I believe the course is not that well regarded by colleges). I do not think there is a downside to not taking the course. I also think it is better for a student to do well in a course that is challenging but not excessively so. If that means Honors rather than AP, so be it. There’s no point making oneself miserable only to pull mediocre grades. Misery in one course will affect performance in others, so the GPA won’t be affected only by the mediocre grade in that one course.
Most students only begin taking APs in junior year.</p>
<p>Increases GPA if schools give them added GPA weight</p>
<p>Selective colleges like to see that a student has taken the most challenging curriculum available.</p>
<p>The classes tend to have the “cream of the crop” students in them.</p>
<p>The college credits awarded can make it easier for a student to graduate college early (saving money), do a double major, or do a couple of minors. The latter two can help if the student will be applying to top med, law, business, or grad schools.</p>
<p>The AP Euro test is not that difficult. Of course, the actual difficulty of the course work will vary school by school. At my D’s school it was laughably easy (annoyingly so). I was certain that she was so poorly prepared for the exam that she would do horribly, but she managed to get a 4 with bad prep!</p>
<p>Grades matter more for college admissions if you’re talking honors versus AP, not standard. AP will get you more college credit and will prepare you better for college because the pace of the material is essentially college level - with the added bonus or torture that AP in high school requires note-taking while almost no one in college will look at your notes (or even if you show up for class). </p>
<p>The AP history classes require a lot of material, a lot of note-taking and the tests are quite detailed. The AP exam is not that bad, certainly not when compared to BC Calc or Chemistry. In general, the AP humanities classes are easier than the AP sciences unless you’re well grounded and confident in math. </p>
<p>Depending on the level of the college you might consider, showing AP’s on your transcript may or may not mean a lot.</p>
<p>The admissions page of D’s college answers this question saying both.</p>
<p>Mom2collegekids post has many of the same points I would bring up.</p>
<p>If your S is a strong student it might be a good idea for him to take that one AP class next year even if history isn’t his thing. I was in the same situation with D and she opted to take the AP World as a sophomore. She did well, no regrets.</p>
<p>For the most selective schools–except special interest schools–one is expected to take the most challenging program in HS, pretty much across the board in core academic subjects (not in special interest subjects like art or music). </p>
<p>So “generalist” highly selective schools like the Ivies and Stanford want to see a student taking their courses at the most challenging level available at the school, whether the course be history, math, English, or science. I don’t know for sure, but I would venture to guess that a highly specialized school like Cal Tech may not particularly care whether the student took honors history or AP history, as long as he took AP math and science and has good SAT/ACT scores. (MIT, on the other hand, has a history at our HS of rejecting the math/science only kids and accepting the APs in everything kids, even if the math/science kids had an 800 in Math vs a 720 or so for the “everything” kid. But this is of course based on a very limited sample!) </p>
<p>The kids at our HS who were accepted to the Iveis and Stanford/MIT in recent years took all honors courses and began taking APs as sophomores with AP Modern European History (which was a great course, btw). I would say that those I know best did so because they enjoyed taking more interesting and challenging courses with the most intellectually inclined and motivated fellow students. The kids who chose to take APs only in narrower areas of interest–say, only English and foreign language, or science and math but not English and history–did not go to those schools, but did go to great places just a cut below in selectivity (JHU, Bowdoin, et al).</p>
<p>The bottom line may be that if taking AP humanities courses doesn’t appeal to your son, but taking accelerated science does, that he may not be interested in the Ivy-type school anyway, and may be more turned on by the likes of Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>In our high school World History is a two year course required by NYS. A small number of kids prepare for the AP second year as well as the state Regents test. Most do pretty well (despite the teacher who is charismatic but disorganized). We also offer AP Physics B sophomore year. Kids who are more humanities oriented tend to take the AP World and the science/math kids take AP Physics. A handful take both. I don’t think it’s important to take an AP sophomore year unless it’s very common in the culture of the school and you are aiming at the top colleges in the country. Then the rigor of your curriculum* in the context of your school* is very important. But it’s also important to do well in your courses. Every admissions counselor I’ve heard answer the question “Is it better to get an A in the regular course or a B in AP?” has answered it’s better to get an A in the AP course. (The admissions officers were from Vassar, Brown, Dartmouth, U Penn, Yale and Vanderbilt the last time I heard the question posed.) They’ve also said you don’t need to take every AP the school offers, but they do expect the students to challenge themselves, especially in their areas of interest.</p>
<p>In sum, if you think you’ve got a math/science guy you can probably skip AP World unless every other smart kid in the school takes the course.</p>
<p>If your son is a strong student, and he has to take a social studies class any way, it can just as well be an AP class, as long as he is mature enough to take the responsibility for the work required. But if he has no interest in the subject, or is not committed to make the effort, he is better off taking something else.</p>
<p>Taking “most rigorous curriculum” does not equal taking every single AP class that your HS offers. The HS my kids attended offered endless number of APs, and some kids self-studied for additional tests on top of that. Every year several kids got into HYPSM and other top schools, but there was no difference in admissions results between kids who had 8 AP credits and those who had 15.</p>
<p>BTW, upon reflection I realized that the JHU/Bowdoin kids took APs across the board, too. I think the “school culture” context is important.</p>
<p>Um, did anyone say that AP World and AP MEH were the same class? I, for one, was simply referring to the AP history class that our HS offered sophomore year. (They don’t, to my knowledge, offer AP World at all.)</p>
<p>At my son’s high school, AP World is offered as an alternative to the state-mandated course in Modern European History, which is offered at both the regular and honors levels. He decided to take the state-mandated course at the honors level but regretted it later when he found out that AP World was actually easier.</p>
<p>I would suggest taking AP World. We offer it to sophs at my HS and the kids who take it tend to do much better in APUSH and AP Gov in 11th and 12th grade respectively.</p>
<p>AP world teaches you how to do DBQ’s and how to take an AP-style test. So, even if the class itself is not particularly useful(and it’s not…very few colleges give credit for less than 5’s), it will help your kid suceed in very usefull classes like APUSH</p>
<p>OP question is: “What is more important - challenging curriculum that includes AP classes or good grades?” </p>
<p>I’d say, good grades. But if your son is interested in highly selective colleges, it’s important for you and your son to understand early in the process how his high school weights AP classes, and calculates weighted GPAs and class rank, in order to decide which/how many AP classes he should take. If he’s aiming for a highly selective college, then he’s going to want to have a high class rank, say, top 10%. For example, at my kids’ high school, (very competitive and offers tons of AP classes), it is very hard to make it into that top 10% weighted GPA bracket if you have few or no AP classes, because so many of the top students are taking a lot of AP classes.</p>
<p>I concur with R6L in post # 13 regarding the learning style.</p>
<p>My S went into his sophomore year telling me he was NOT going to take AP Euro History. Since he appeared to research the options, this was fine with me. As it was, he was going to launch into the AP world taking AP Spanish Language and AP Calc BC anyway, since these were the next step classes.</p>
<p>Well, next thing I hear, he’s changed his mind and added AP Euro to the mix. Now, S is a math/science guy and not a social studies guy. He said he wanted to be in this class because the level of students was better. </p>
<p>He discovered that (for him) the AP Spanish and the AP Calc BC were relative breezes compared to the AP Euro and learning how to deal with DBQs and all the rest. He spent most of his time on AP Euro. In the end, he got grades of B+/A- and a 4 on the AP exam for AP Euro (A’s and 5’s on the other APs.) In some ways, we learned much more in AP Euro.</p>
<p>Subsequently, he moved on the AP US History and, this year, AP Macroeconomics. </p>
<p>I’m not sure he’s ever going to really embrace history to just pick up a book and read about it outside of class. But he rose to the challenge and acknowledged that the writing required for the AP social studies classes has helped him.</p>
<p>Emily- do you mean important: referring to the child’s benefit of advanced/additional learning?
Or do you mean important as in: are they a useful tool to get into college?</p>
<p>in our HS, it is standard for the gifted/IB/honors type kids to take their 1st AP class in their sophomore year and they take AP Euro. Do they have to? No, but if they plan on taking AP classes during their HS career, it’s good to have a year where they only take one. My freshman will take that next year. There will probably be 2-3 classes of AP Euro next year. There’s one kid in her grade who took AP Stats this year as a freshmen but he’s an uber math genius and I’m pretty sure he’s the only freshman in an AP class. </p>
<p>Is not taking that specific AP class a problem later on? No, and even MIT says their average student takes 4-5 AP classes during their HS career, so there’s no reason to go AP crazy.</p>
<p>Emily, does your son’s gifted program have a dedicated counselor? Ours does and they work with the kids on scheduling classes. Maybe an email to the gifted department would give you an idea of what they see as the best options for classes.</p>
<p>YoungHoss, I meant specifically for college. I am very new to this whole ball game and am still trying to navigate through tons of information. Getting my education in a different country presents a set of challenges in and of itself and I am so grateful for all your responses.</p>
<p>RobD, we just have a regular counselor and you are right, I was just thinking of e-mailing her. My son doesn’t like me doing it though, he wants to handle it on his own but I may just send her a “secret” e-mail anyway just to see what he thinks.</p>
<p>I really don’t want to overwhelm him too much, after all he needs and wants to have free time and just enjoy life too you know and not just be constantly thinking about college.</p>
<p>One unintended result of my son taking 5 AP courses is that he is now technically a sophmore after his first semester due to the 25 hours of credit he got because of his AP scores (along with an exemption from language due to a placement exam). He now is being pressed by his advisor to declare a major and really does not know what direction he wants to go towards right now.</p>