<p>(Regarding AP lite classes) my D with 10 AP’s has taken stats, psych, and econ, but our school does not offer non-AP versions of those, and they were classes that interested her, even though not much of a challenge. Our HS does not have any English electives, just various levels of English 9, 10, 11, and 12, and few social studies electives. My D opted to do an independent study this year instead of adding another AP science to her schedule.</p>
<p>I agree kids should study what interests them if available. My S took art, computer programming, CAD and robotics with his 5 AP classes. Older D took a second language, anatomy, theater, and home ec classes in addition to her 8 AP’s. Both of them skipped a quarter/semester of college calculus and S got out of a lot of humanities electives so he can study what he really wants in college.</p>
<p>I guess it varies by school, but here jrs/srs taking 5 AP classes a year have room for 2 more classes. I have been surprised over the years to read that some schools count sports as a class period, also things like forensics and Model UN, which are after school ECs here.</p>
<p>I like this. If UNC-CH has discovered that students with 5 APs are as prepared as students with 10, why would one give a bump to students with 10? It would seem like this decision would make the student from the smaller public more competitive. </p>
<p>Those of us living outside the East Coast prep-school corridor don’t have a lot of school choice, whether our kids are the best or the worst students. You can go public (and through open enrollment, you could choose rural or urban) or Catholic. The urban public offers 8 APs, but I’m going to guess even the little rural schools might offer 5 (although the state department of ed really pushes DE, and schools can’t offer both DE and AP for the same subject).</p>
<p>I disagree that students with a lot of APs just take “AP lite courses”. By the end of high school I will have taken 15 APs, some of which include AP Calc BC, AP Chemistry, AP Biology, AP Physics B, and AP Spanish. Those are not in any way “lite” courses.</p>
<p>Calc AB, Stat, Microecon/Macroecon, U.S. Gov, Psych, World History, Human Geography, U.S. history, AP English lang, Ap English lit…I think that’s it…I know some are easier but the majority are legitimately rigorous APs.</p>
<p>I mean, UNC is the school that has a professor locked up in prison in Argentina that claimed he could still advise students and do research, and should therefore receive his pay while in prison… </p>
<p>I don’t expect they make the best decisions. 5 APs is not that many. I’m sure many of their students took significantly more than 5.</p>
<p>Your “AP lites” are calculus AB, calculus BC (since your school is apparently on the two year calculus plan), statistics, US government, psychology, world history, human geography, because they appear to be full year courses credited (at best) for a semester long college course (unless these are semester long courses at your high school). Physics B is sometimes considered an “AP lite” due to it not being useful for credit in most cases, while economics is sometimes considered an “AP lite” because some schools credit both tests against a semester long introductory economics course. Chemistry is also often only worth a semester of college chemistry at best.</p>
<p>In our district, you get only 6 classes a year, with sports / band / speech / etc. counting as a class period. Six or seven APs is doable (Eng Lang, Eng Lit, one of the Calcs, one science (2 only possible if you double up or take no physics at all in order to get AP Chem and Bio), USH, Euro or one of the US Govs, maybe a foreign language). But that gives you only one truly elective class in addition to foreign language each year, and if you play a sport, it takes that elective spot.</p>
<p>The most recent parent survey asked about interest in an optional extended school day, which would let kids take more elective classes, and I hope that option gets implemented.</p>
<p>^D’s school day has 9 periods. For the past 2 years she has overscheduled and does not have lunch. They are, however, required to have Phys Ed all 4 years.</p>
<p>Perhaps they found that greater numbers of AP courses merely indicated increased availability of such at the high school, rather than stronger students.</p>
<p>When I went to high school, there were only 6 AP courses. My guess is that the honor students typically took 2 to 4 of them. That is a far cry from today when students try to squeeze in the 11th or 16th or whatever AP course, even if most of them are “AP lites”.</p>
<p>I think it just depends on school size. My small, rural public school has ONE AP class (U.S. History). I’m taking two this year (junior). The other (Eng. Lang) is online and is mostly self-taught. I’m literally the only one on my entire high school taking AP exams - the others in U.S. History are actually doing dual-enrollment (same class as AP).
What I’m trying to say is that some schools simply don’t have the resources. If you have taken the most rigorous offered, that should be adequate and should be equal to anyone with 15 APs. But if you’re school offers 10+ APs, then I would think that more than 7 or so would be too much. Although, this varies by student/school.</p>
<p>And some high schools don’t feel the need to offer tons of APs even if they have resources They feel they can offer a challenging and engaging curriculum without jumping on the AP train, perhaps an even more engaging one with greater depth. My son took “only” 4 AP courses at such a school along with a lot of honors classes. I don’t think it hurt college admissions.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus–how is Calc AB a “lite” when you insist that most high school kids don’t take calculus in high school and have to take “remedial math” in college???</p>
<p>Our school offers all of the AP classes except photography. Most of the college bound kids take a full load of AP classes or AP/DE classes. They prefer to be challenged and with like minded students. There are 12 sections of BC calc at our high school (2000 students), so most of the kids that are looking at STEM majors in college take BC calc, for example. We have about 90% “pass” rate on the AP tests so it seems to be working. BC Calc has close to 100%. Usually there is one or two students that don’t get at least a 3, about 90% get a 4 or 5 though.</p>
<p>LBowie–I’m going to step out on a limb here and take a wild guess that at TheMizu’s school, that isn’t the case :D. Having quite a bit of experience with small, rural schools, my guess is most of the kids aren’t looking toward going to college or only going to community college/vo-tech so interest in AP’s just isn’t there. My son’s girlfriend’s school is a prime example. She is the ONLY one from her school that left the area to go to college. About half of her class went right into the workforce (factory work) the rest went to vo-tech. They don’t “get” why she needed to go to college and think it’s a waste of money :D.</p>
<p>If UNC believes this, then they need to change their admissions criteria. Right now, the consider class rank as “very important”… A lot of schools base class rank on weighted GPA. They’re sending two different messages. </p>
<p>S took all 8 AP courses offered at the school…all courses he wanted to take…most didn’t offer non-AP options.</p>
<p>Our high school weights rank, not GPA’s, based on the classes you take. Most kids feel this is fair but don’t really worry too much about it. There are always a few kids that try to game the system and not take any band or choir, but they usually lose out in the end. The girl that is #1 in the kids’ class still hasn’t been accepted anywhere, has several rejections, for a number of reasons but mainly because she has NO EC’s. She dropped out of everything so she could focus on studying so she could graduate #1. Her family just doesn’t get why she isn’t getting into schools–and they really aren’t all that reachy either, several kids from our high school have acceptances to the same schools. We’ve been telling them all along that they are going about this wrong, but they chose not to listen…</p>
<p>SteveMA, I think what he is saying is that Calc AB (and Calc BC if taken as a sequel to AB and still a full year class), is an AP lite in the same sense as some of the other AP classes, because while it is more rigorous than many HS classes, it is not as rigorous as Calc BC when taken as a standalone class, or intro level college classes. Our HS offers Calc BC as a dual enrollment class with UConn Early College Experience. The kids cross-enroll and end up with credit for 2 semesters of Calculus. There is an honors Calculus class, and it is probably equivalent to AB, but it is not listed as such, and does not carry AP weight.</p>
<p>For students applying to the most selective schools, there will be little credit available for many AP classes. For those attending community colleges and lower-tier publics, and even some privates, there is not only AP credit, but other credit by exam as well. The list of credit available through the CLEP and DANTES programs is extensive. Enough so that a student who plans to spend 2 years at a community college could use them satisfy a significant chunk of their required courses, if they don’t need the specific classes to transfer later to their 4-year (unless the 4-year also accepts CLEP credits). That could free them up over those first 2 years to take classes that interest them or will help later in their major at the 4-year school. If they attend a 4-year that accepts CLEP and DANTES exams, they can easily cut a year or two off the time required to get their degree.</p>
<p>Perhaps what would be interesting further research for this article would be not only whether there is a difference between those who took only 5 AP classes, but took the most rigorous ones vs. what some call AP Lite, but also whether there is a difference between those who took 5 over 2 years, vs 5 over one year. Students taking 10 AP classes, are most likely taking them over 2 or 3 years, so they really wouldn’t be any more prepared for college than a student taking on 5, but all in their Senior year. They’re both still taking a load of 5 AP classes senior year.</p>
<p>Another factor may be that the students taking 10-15 AP classes are not taking EC-type electives, and are less interesting candidate - AND they are less prepared for college because they are not as well-rounded.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges already unweight the GPAs. This is not really that big of a deal, I just think this college is being more open about their process. Ad Comms look st class rank, strength of schedule, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t think its fair to categorize student achievement with a pergorative tag like “lite”. At our school students who take AP Human Geography have the following choices:</p>
<p>College prep Human Geography
Honors Human Geography
AP Human Geogaphy</p>
<p>There is no lite there. The student is taking the hardest HIGH SCHOOL class available to him. The same goes for AP Calc. At our school the only kids who are eligible to take Calculus BC are those who were accelerated two years. Only a handful of kids are even eligible to take BC Calc. The kids who take AB Calculus usually have the following choices for math their senior year.</p>
<p>College prep Calculus
Honors Calculus
AP Calculus AB
AP Statistics</p>
<p>Taking the AB class is not “lite” for that student. It is the hardest math class available to that student.</p>
<p>BTW-my son got 2 semesters of Chemistry/Lab credit at Case Western for his AP Chem class.</p>