How much harder are AP Classes compared to Honors Classes? I know it all depends on the school, but how about an upper middle class public high school?
Thanks.
It really depends upon the teacher, and the subject.
Some high end (wealthy-high achieving) schools (Scarsdale, for example) feel that the AP courses restrain the curriculum too much and have moved away from them. So as skieurope said, it depends. The AP classes are probably more uniform than the honors classes which can vary in rigor from school to school.
It also depends on the student. For example, so many high school students posting here seem to be afraid of non-AP courses like precalculus, physics, foreign language level 3 or 4, etc. and ask if it is ok to avoid them so that they can take another AP course (usually an easier one like statistics, environmental science, psychology, etc.).
It really depends on your teacher, the students, and maybe the state curriculum.
Like how other people said. it varies. Use rate my teachers and see the teacher’s rating in the student/learner’s experience
Alternatively, ask current students. Personal interaction is a good thing. The internet is not the Holy Grail. Users who post on ratemyteachers tend to be very self -selecting, so the results are not without polling bias.
Depends on the class and the teacher. At my kids’ school, 9th grade honors history is harder than 10th grade AP World and honors pre-calc is harder than AP Calc AB. In both cases, it is due to the people teaching the classes. Ask students (or their parents) who have taken the classes.
I agree with everyone else. It depends. At my son’s school he felt AP was actually easier and more interesting then the honors classes. He went to an all honors school.