<p>Caltech physics is notorious for being more demanding than average - they also have two different levels of intro physics courses.</p>
<p>I think AP courses are college level - just the level of average colleges not the ones we talk about here. My husband (Bio major way back when) thought that son’s Bio course was the equal of what he’d had at Harvard 20 years ago except of course it also covered the last 20 years of biological discoveries - and there are a lot of them.</p>
<p>It’s easy to take a lot of APs if your schools system allows you to start some high school level courses in middle school (a large portion of kids do biology and algebra in 8th grade) and you offer some of the courses without prerequisites. (We do Global History as a NYS requirement, some do AP World for the second half, APUSH just substitutes for regular US, AP Physics B replaced honors physics, AP English Lang is offered to juniors etc.).</p>
<p>Often, the APs are substituted for the regular high school courses. For example, in our school system, students can take AP English Language as a substitute for 11th grade English, AP English Literature as a substitute for 12th grade English, and AP American Government as a substitute for the regular government course required for graduation. Some can also take AP U.S. History as a substitute for regular high school U.S. history, but this is more difficult. Our system also has a 7-period day, and some of the non-academic courses required for graduation (such as health and technical education) are offered in the summer.</p>
<p>Another route toward taking APs is middle school acceleration, by which some school systems allow students to take high school-level courses in certain subjects in middle school. This is how students get to take AP Calculus and AP foreign language courses in high school.</p>
<p>Marite,
"Quote:
At D’s school, a highly competitive prep school, they can offer a challenging curriculum to everyone yet they purposefully limit the options to just a few APs, no ability to accelerate, or go outside the school to move up. </p>
<p>Well, I would have avoided that school like the pest for my S! He absolutely needed to go outside the school starting in 9th grade (and no, we were not tempted to send him to college at 14). "</p>
<p>No, you would not, guarantee, My D. went to similar school. Kids at schools like this get prepared to colleges at much higher level than others. D is appreciating her HS more and more every day. And they learn so much more than just academics at schools like that. They are having so much individual attention from their teacher. We had couple kids who transfer to different HS’s, they were back, they said there is no comparison. Colleges know about these schools also.</p>
<p>Well, Stats & Calc = math. APUSH, Euro & Gov = History & social sciences. (Gov also fulfills the California state graduation requirement for “civics” curriculum.) Bio, Chem, Physics, Enviro = Science… Lit & Lang - English… If students start Lang in middle school, they can easily track into AP by senior year. Otherwise, high scoring Juniors (in Lang III) can take AP Lang with teacher rec if they want to skip Lang IV.</p>
<p>No religion in public schools, but we do have a health requirement. It just gets added on top of the APs, or more likely, squeezed into Frosh or Soph years.</p>
<p>Really? Does your school offer MVCalc and Linear Algebra and post AP-Physics to 9th graders? It must be an unusual school, especially if it does not permit acceleration.</p>
<p>I think most high school students add the most APs in Senior year. AP Government and AP Economics count as 2 APs but they are pretty light AP classes.
D1 had 7-8 APs out of a high school that offers 20 APs.
D2 probably will have 7-8 APs out of a high school that offers 16 APs.
So they technically take the same courseload regardless of which high school.</p>
<p>I’m not a math person, so excuse my ignorance on this…do people ever take Calculus AB one year and BC the next year? Or does that not make sense?</p>
<p>GCmom, yes, some schools have Calc AB one year and then BC the next. D1’s school does this. There is overlap between the two courses, and (in my opinion/experience) a strong math student should be able to handle BC without AB.</p>
<p>If I recall, our HS teach said that the first ~65% of BC was comprised of Calc AB. Thus, the BC is just a faster-paced course since it covers additional material. Our HS, which only offers BC, essentially covers the AB material by the semester break.</p>
<p>My younger son’s precalc teacher covered the AB material by starting in on calculus in January. They took an AB exam for their final. It’s been nice for him this fall since other classes started in on calculus much later so he’s mostly been reviewing this fall. I can’t imagine stretching AB over a whole year.</p>
<p>My school has a pretty good system. We offer all APs except a few of the more obscure ones (Human Geography, Comp. Gov, and Chinese are the few that come to mind), but there are very strict rules placed on when and how many you can take. </p>
<p>You aren’t allowed to take any in 9th or 10th grade with the only exception being a language you are already fluent or advanced in. Then for 11th and 12th grade, you are only allowed to take three each year (very occasionally, you can convince them to let you do four). </p>
<p>This means that nobody exits my school with more than ~6 APs under their belts (unless they were fluent in a language or multiple years ahead in math). Colleges know this, so they know when they see 6 APs, this is a kid who has taken the hardest curriculum available.</p>
<p>I’m going to be graduating having taken I believe 9 tests, but that’s because some classes qualify you for two tests (AP Econ -> micro and macrio, AP English -> lit and lang, AP Calc BC -> BC and AB)</p>
<p>Actually, I can see AB being taught over a whole year, as not all students who take AP-Calc are that strong.
GCmom: our school only offers BC-Calc. I don’t know if some students opt to take the AB Calc instead of the BC-Calc exam. If a student takes the BC-Calc exam, the AB subscore is also recorded.</p>
<p>DS is in an IB program–the most advanced math sequence at his school is AB junior year followed by BC senior year. They take both AP exams, but also cover the additional material required for IB HL Math.</p>
<p>“How could a kid take 3 APs or more, in a year, with all the required classes ?
Don’t you need 4 years of Math, Engl., Hist., science and PE, 3 years of Lang., 2 years of Art. In our case, one year of religion and a life skills type class are also required.”</p>
<p>That’s not the norm… My school required 2 years of Math, 4 of English (but that also included classes like acting and speech, we only needed 3 years of “traditional” English classes), 3 of Social Science, 2 of Science, no language, 1 of PE (which was waived if you played a sport), and .5 of art (which was waived for people who played an instrument). Then students could also take 7 classes. And as others said, the APs were often replacements for HS level classes. </p>
<p>And on the “are they really college level if freshmen can take them,” would the exact same class be college level if 12th graders took them? The thing with APs is there’s a standard test at the end (which is, or is supposed to be, college level).</p>