<p>Every year I hear the admissions officers from Yale, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Vassar etc. come to our high school and say that you don’t have to take every AP offered, that it’s okay to take only the APs in courses that interest you. That said, I have to admit that I think they speak a bit out of both sides of their mouths. Most of the top kids at our school will take more math and science if that’s their interest, but will probably at least take APUSH and perhaps AP Econ or AP Gov or AP English as well. Similarly a kid whose orientation is more English/History will still have at least one science AP and is likely to take Calculus (at least AB). A lot is about the norms in your school - I do feel sorry for kids where the norm is 12 or more. My older son took 7, plus Linear Equations, but he’s really, really, really good at school - and never worked that hard. My younger son took 6 and that was plenty really. Even he has plenty of time to mess around.</p>