<p>I've read some of the "IVY League / top 20 school chance me" threads and some of the people took upwards of 5-7 APS in one year, and so how do they do it? 4 APs in 1 year is also tough enough with other honors/regular classes involved (sleeping past midnight is a regular occurence), and some take 7 APs AND get straight A's in them?? </p>
<p>How???</p>
<p>They study. Try it sometime.</p>
<p>My kid’s school doesn’t offer AP coursework, because it is a fully integrated DE school, but I know that my kids have to manage their time very carefully (especially junior year) to balance the Honors HS courses with the college ones. Within the group of students I know, some have to study a lot harder, longer hours, etc., than others. Often they give up extra-curriculars to do it. I believe that one thing that has helped my girls get through it a bit easier is a love of reading. Those that have better reading skills can absorb the text material faster and with better comprehension/retention. We also limit the chores they have to do – they still have a few, but mostly things that keep them included in daily responsibility but that don’t take up a lot of time. </p>
<p>@jwen566, your reply seems needlessly harsh.
@Jarjarbinks23 It seems like a lot to me too! I take two APs plus two honors and I swim and play golf and work.</p>
<p>@Jwen556 – what a needlessly rude comment</p>
<p>Well, how do you plan to take eight college classes in one year? The kids who take a gazillion AP classes are basically just starting that a year or two early. </p>
<p>They self-study some of them. It is much easier to self study for an AP test since you do not have as much homework and you can focus exclusively on the test. Many AP classes go beyond the scope of the class to be more comprehensive and actually teach you something. Since one only needs about 60~75% of the points to get a 5 for most AP tests, one can get away with a cursory understanding.</p>
<p>“Well, how do you plan to take eight college classes in one year? The kids who take a gazillion AP classes are basically just starting that a year or two early.”</p>
<p>But do you take eight college classes in one semester? It’s not the same thing, is it??</p>
<p>You don’t take eight full AP classes in one semester…you take the first half of each course in the first semester and the second half in the second semester, so on average four courses each semester. In my experience, though, AP classes have more busywork…they’re not taught in the style of college classes, but I think the difficulty is about the same. Some people take five or six classes per semester in college.</p>
<p>You take eight full AP classes in one year. As far as I know, college classes go by semester (Calc 1 first semester, Calc 2 second semester), correct? Could you really take eight classes in one semester? In high school you don’t take “four courses each semester”–they’re eight different classes, each with a high workload. I guess I just agree with the OP where I don’t see how taking seven or eight APs in one year is possible. At my school, we can only take eight classes, total. Maybe at other schools… But I don’t think it’s comparable to taking four college classes.</p>
<p>The key word there is “ivy.” Many students who are applying to the IVys do take that many or close to it. If you are looking at public ivy’s, it’s average to take 4-5 and maybe even 6 each year. This is only for schools that offer that many though. Every high school is different!</p>
<p>
In a semester, probably not. Assuming they’re standard three- or four-credit-hour classes, this would be an overload and you’d have to get special permission to be able to do it (usually the limit is around 19 credit hours per semester). I’m sure it’s been allowed a few times somewhere, but as far as I know people don’t usually take more than five or six courses per semester (so twelve courses per year). </p>
<p>
So at the end of the first semester, you will have gotten halfway through eight courses and therefore earned four credits. You learn more subjects at once, but you don’t get as far in each one.
(Some high schools have block scheduling, so they might complete four courses each semester and completely switch classes at the beginning of the second semester.)</p>
<p>Workload is a false construct used by students to excuse themselves from being responsible.
Realistically, most AP classes require less than 30 minutes of homework per night, and only an hour every once in a while. Most of those kids to which the OP refers also have tons of ECs/Academic Achievements are more important and can be tenably concluded to take more time than AP classes. </p>
<p>AP classes are taught at approximately half the pace of a college class, and are significantly less difficult
(English: Research using academic journals instead of easily BSed opinionated/sensationalized articles,
Math: Proofs instead of straightforward computations
Science: Make significantly fewer assumptions and assume that math is already learnt)</p>
<p>However, this is nothing in comparison to the activities that college students do, such as internships/jobs, UROPS, volunteering, TAing, networking, etc.</p>
<p>So if you think that 7 AP classes is not doable, then college students across the United States are doing the impossible.</p>
<p>@PetraElise @kansaskid1
It’s a realistic comment. There is no need to coddle OP.</p>
<p>@Jwen556 I’m afraid you’re wrong on the “not being responsible” part. I don’t know how other schools (and their students) do it, but each of my AP course meet only 4 times a week for 50 minutes each, so my teachers constantly rush. This means an average of 1 hr+ of homework + studying the material on a daily basis, and also self studying with it because we don’t have enough time to cover all the material.</p>
<p>You’re probably right though that I don’t have near as much rigor college students do and I might be whining needlessly without much perspective on what other HS juniors do, do but based on what my school does, you’re incorrect about the ignorantly assumed lack of work ethic,</p>
<p>@Jwen556 – What it was was snarky, and in no way reflects any understanding that everyone is not blessed with the same levels of academic ability. Some can accomplish with a modicum of effort what others work their tails off for-- to assume that anyone who struggles to do well with a heavy course load just isn’t studying is not accurate, and betrays an arrogant thought process not based in reality. But based on the opening sentence of your most recent post in this thread, it is obvious that you have a very high opinion of your own opinion – and a very narrow-minded, and pessimistic one at that. </p>
<p>@Jwen - otherrs, such as the poster above, have been eloquent in denouncing your statement. I’ll take the easy way out and say you come across as arrogant and annoying and I’ll bet all the kids in your school that you look down upon are eager to invite you to all the fun parties. </p>
<p>It’s impossible at my school… we can only have 7 classes total, and one of them has to be a theology class (ugh). If you started a foreign language in high school, you basically can’t take the AP class for that language (since they want you to have taken the language for 4 years before doing AP). That automatically only makes 5 more class slots available. I’ve taken 9 AP classes total and that’s typically the hardest path in my school, so I guess I’m good.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how <em>anyone</em> could finish AP homework in maybe 30 minutes.</p>
<p>I took 3 APs last year- APUSH which, when done well, took 3 hours between reading and homework (this was a consensus among every student who took it last year), Chemistry took about an hour to two hours, and English took about 30 minutes, but the teacher also didn’t know what she was doing and 1/3 of my class received 2s at the end of the year.</p>
<p>This year, I am taking AP Music Theory, which requires about an hour, and calculus which requires about 1-3 hours per assignment (disclaimer: I’m not so great at math).</p>
<p>Classes meet for ~80 minutes every 2 days- 4 classes on A days, 4 different classes on B days (although I had chemistry every day).</p>
<p>Needless to say, in my school, taking 7 different APs in one year would be impossible if you had a social life, a job, extracurriculars, et cetera, unless you weren’t sleeping more than 5 hours a night.</p>
<p>At my school there were a handful who took 7 and more who took 6, I took 5. I probably could have taken 6-7 if I filled it with fluff APs like Psych. 5 was pretty reasonable as most of the content came naturally to me, but if it hadn’t… dear god I think I would have died. Ironically, most of my work and studying went into a random Spanish class that wasn’t even AP. </p>
<p>I would have to say it’s plenty possible as long as you plan ahead and know what you’re doing. The people who took 7 were naturally smart but they also knew which subjects were easier at my school compared to others as well as the work load each one came with. </p>
<p>@Jwen556 If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. It takes restraint–trust me, I’m feeling it now in writing about you–but it provides a more open environment. </p>
<p>Now, OP (@Jarjarbinks123), I’m one of those kids who takes a crazy amount of AP classes and gets straight A’s; I took 2 in grade 10, 5 in grade 11, and 8 in grade 12. </p>
<p>I sleep two to four hours a night, have a fair amount of EC’s (some rigorous ones as well, @Jwen556; I founded, managed, and led online corporations involving video production, content distribution, and advertiser outreach programs–not to mention the inter-team problems I solved and managed–but all of that’s a story for another day; the point in mentioning it is to state that I had roughly 40 hours of EC per week–I had almost a full time job), have worked full time and part time to pay for my car (during the school year I worked 20 hours/week; in the summer, 40–on top of my online businesses), and still have time to study. </p>
<p>It varies by school, but my AP teachers give 2 hours of homework per night per class. As I have 4 classes a day, my workload is roughly 8 hours of homework per night. If any homework involves studying, I download lectures on the topic to listen to as I drive or work (I actually quit my job around Christmas time–finally had enough money to pay for the car!). Additionally, as tests are 85% of a quarter grade at my school, I have to pick and choose what busywork I (quite literally) don’t have time to do. So, I have to do well on the tests if I want the A while only doing 1/2 of the assigned busywork. </p>
<p>The teachers are understanding of my workload, and occasionally grant extensions for papers.</p>
<p>To rebuff what Jwen said regarding workload: my AP classes go past the basics needed for the exams in May. I do have a rigorous workload. It is not some “false construct” to excuse myself from responsibility. If you don’t believe me, it’s fine. The 50+ credits (provided 4’s and 5’s this year) I’ll bring first year at my state’s flagship speak for themselves. </p>