<p>I second the idea of shadowing the Parents of HS 2014 and the Parents of HS 2015 threads. It’s a bit scary, but so helpful! And, it serves to remind that “this, too, shall pass.” </p>
<p>I’ve been making the occasional cruise through CO15, and yes, it is helpful.
S15’s two best school friends have already graduated and it’s been instrumental for him to watch the two of them. Not because they’ve been through the endless-standardised-tests-and-worry-over-admissions thing, but because they really haven’t. He’s been, on some level, a little envious of his friends’ low stress level as they just drifted through their senior years and prepared to go off to the local JC. Now he sees the first of the two having a hard time with staying motivated and both struggling to scrape together the money for classes and books at their oh-so-inexpensive school (no financial aid, no merit money, no state lottery funds). Fortunately, he’s willing to learn from others’ mistakes. They’re great boys, I love them more than my luggage, and both are quite bright. But they’ve kind of shot themselves in both (all four?) feet. Though at least there are no babies in the picture, which is the case with another young man he’s friends with. </p>
<p>Tangential; to my previous post: I’m curious: have others of you with band kids come across the “musicians aren’t high achievers” trope? It wasn’t that way when I was in school, but it seems to be a thing, locally. With a handful of exceptions in each grade, there don’t seem to be many even in honors classes, let alone dual enrollment or AP. </p>
<p>@petrichor11 both of my kids, D16 and S19 are band kids. Almost all of their friends are in the honors programs with them. </p>
<p>Yeah, I’ve never seen this before. It’s…bizarre.</p>
<p>D just got her schedule: 6 APs and a regular language class. All the classes she wanted. Now the interesting part of keeping 4.0 GPA will begin.</p>
<p>6 AP Wow!!! Our HS does not allow more than 3 a year. Our top HYP kids take maybe 4-5 between their junior and senior year and we send between 10-20% of each graduating class to those schools.
Our HS though only teaches at the honors and college level. Dear S will take AP English and all other classes will be honors. He will sit the AP exams: for US History, Government? and English. Subject test for US History and Math 2 this year…a course this could change if he doesn’t wake up from his summer nap before school begins. 
</p>
<p>There seems to be a perception here that orchestra kids are high achievers but band kids are more laid back. Not sure why as I know kids in both that fit the opposite description. </p>
<p>On a completely different topic - my D13 leaves for her first year of college in 16 days (she took a gap year) and panic is starting to set in as we really have done no shopping. She has been working two jobs; I work 4 days a week and our schedules just do not mesh. And she has not been all that anxious to get started with the organizing until recently (long story but there is some ambivalence and anxiety about ending the gap year and moving on to college). Sigh. I am sure it will all work out and they really don’t need as much stuff as we think. Or we can send later.</p>
<p>Meanwhile D16 is annoyed with my nagging but has left all of his summer work pretty much till these last 3 weeks. He has to do an online health class (has done 2 of 8 units so far), watch 2 documentaries and take notes (progress: he at least ordered the movies from the library); read two English books and he was supposed to self study for PSAT. Fall sport starts today and band camp is in two weeks. It will all get sone. Urgh.</p>
<p>I may get myself into trouble, but here goes (to some extent echoing @Hoosier96):</p>
<p>My perspective regarding AP’s is biased by my sons’ high school. They offer very few AP’s. It’s a private high school where, just like @Hoosier96’s S’s school, all courses are taught at an Honors level, but most kids don’t take an AP course until their senior year. Kids typically graduate with, at most, two or three AP courses. In his senior year my S14 took AP Chem and AP Statistics. They were really difficult and demanding courses. Even though he got B’s in those courses he got a 4 and a 5 respectively in those two AP tests.</p>
<p>In light of how demanding it was for him to take two AP courses, I can’t imagine any kid taking four, five, or six (!) equivalent AP courses simultaneously. Simply could not be done. So, I guess that the nature of AP courses varies greatly from high school to high school. </p>
<p>I think the whole AP thing is a bit of a scam run by the College Board. I find it hard to believe that there are so many high school courses being taught at the same level as the college equivalent. But the College Board is promoting the idea that if you get a 4 or a 5 on their test you’ve mastered that college course. Somehow I’m just not buying it.</p>
<p>Majority of top performing students at my D school take 1-2 APs in 9th grade, 2-4 in 10th and 4-6 in 11th. It is not easy. Now when my D is finally done with her summer cc classes she spends all day doing summer work for AP classes. School starts in less then two weeks and they just got the schedule out so not too much time left. </p>
<p>Our school offers about 20 APs. On average kids take 11-14 during HS.</p>
<p>Over on the Class of 2014 parents thread someone just mentioned their child already has 49 credits as an incoming freshman. That’s three semesters! My S14 has 29. It made high school so stressful. I’m not sure that it will really pay off, except that these kids already know how to work super hard and will adapt to college life more easily. I will report back. I know that back in the dark ages I got enough credit to be able to graduate a semester early. It turned out not to save any money as my parents’ expected contribution was simply applied to one term instead of two; I essentially saved the school the financial aid they would have given me. I often wish I’d stayed and taken more classes.</p>
<p>S will have eleven APs by the end of his senior year. D will have eight. (Freshmen are only permitted one, and they make it bloody difficult for sophomores to manage more than two, but after that it’s a free-for-all.)
I had three, and I went to a private school head and shoulders above anything available in my current part of the world. I didn’t need to take APs to get rigorous content. D and S do-- the honors classes at their school are filled with kids that the district hopes will step up their game if they’re challenged (generally they do not). AP and dual enrollment fill the spot honors really should. It’s “honors inflation”, I think, rather than grade inflation. Presumably the colleges and unis know that kind of thing happens, which is why they look at how many a student takes out of how many are offered.</p>
<p>I don’t know how many credits my kids will have as incoming freshpeople. I’m not going to even guess. It depends on whether their eventual college/uni gives credit for a particular AP or DE class, and there’s just not enough information in yet to even hazard a guess. If I assume they start out at zero, I will only be pleasantly surprised. </p>
<p>Our school sounds like what @seal16 school offers. D took comp sci ap as a freshman and got a five. Last year she took advanced comp sci that was an articulated class (cc credit but class taught at the high school) and world history ap (got a four). Next year she is taking Eng lit AP, Chem AP, physics 1/2 AP, Cal BC AP, US history AP. It will be a very tough year but I know she can do it. Senior year she will take six AP classes and two dual enrollment classes and self study for one AP. If things go as planned she will only be missing two of her gen ed requirements. This will allow her to take all the diverse classes (language, instrument, honors seminars…) that really don’t have anything to do with her major but that she finds interesting and still allow her to graduate in four years.</p>
<p>Colleges are awarding credit based on test scores not on the rigor of the actual AP class. Plenty of students self study for the AP and get the same credit as kids who take the actual class. Yes some classes are more rigous than others but at the end of the day credit is awarded for <em>demonstrated knowledge</em> not course work load. If your school doesn’t offer many AP classes you can self study or take on-line classes. You can also look into CLEP exams. </p>
<p>Also one needs to research to rules at each college. At D’s first choice school all her AP credits will count for class standing but only one fourth of the credits required for her major can come from AP/CLEP.</p>
<p>No trip report from MIT:-/ I dropped d off in Boston to see the sights and have lunch with one of her friends that is currently in college in Boston. By the time we meet back up for dinner she was so ready to get out of the city! We were to tour MIT the next day and she said not to bother because there was no way she was living in Boston/Cambridge ever!</p>
<p>I’m not disopinted as I didn’t think MIT would have been a good fit anyway even if she did manage to get in but it had to be a decision she came to on her own. Now the list is down to two safeties and I’m good with that. So yes we do have the shortest list by next number of schools and letters (TAMU & OU) ;-)</p>
<p>Your D’s schedule sounds like my S’s: AP Eng lit, AP physics, APUSH, AP calc BC. He’s doing AP stats instead of chem and two periods of band, and I have no idea what the other period is. Whatever fits, I guess. He’s just enough outside the window for val/sal now that it gives him a little bit of freedom to take a non-AP class if he wants to. (Trying to see the bright side…)</p>
<p>At our high school top performing kids typically take 8-12 APs (out of I think 22 or 23 offered).
I don’t believe that freshmen can take any. A typical sequence would be:</p>
<p>Sophomore - AP US and/or AP Bio
Junior - AP Chem and usually one of the following AP World, AP Euro, or AP Econ as a social studies (English and Math are advanced and weighted same as AP but are not AP , i.e. no test, until senior year)
Senior - AP Lit or AP Lang (kids take one or the other), an AP language - Latin, French, Spanish, AP Calc AB or BC and/or AP Stats, AP Physics, and AP Gov and then a one semester AP like Psychology opposite government. </p>
<p>AP Chem and AP bio are both double periods so they limit how many other classes can be taken that year.</p>
<p>But we also introduced the IB program a few years ago and many top students go the IB diploma track and/or take some of their courses as the IB version (which is weighted the same as APs).</p>
<p>At my DS’s HS there are only 2 APs open to Sophomores - Euro and CS. None to freshmen. Most sophomores only take 1. 5-7 additional APs become available for Juniors plus any not taken as a sophomore. Senior year adds 5-6 more (15 total). All APs require the previous teacher’s recommendation (from that area: Math for math, etc). GCs recommend only taking AP in subjects you LOVE. Honors and AP are weighted 5 on a 4.0 scale. No double periods are offered. I do not know for sure but would guess that only the top 10% of seniors commonly take “all AP” because ECs are highly encouraged. Multi-sport and sport + music kids are common. Theater and many clubs are also available and well attended. </p>
<p>My DS took both APs last year. Has asked for 3: Lang & comp, Calc AB, and APUSH. He has also asked for the next CS class which used to be for AP CS BC (no longer offered by CB), an art course, and physics honors ( pre-req for AP physics). He opted not to take the 4th year of Latin which would have been AP. He will not have his schedule until the week before school starts. Changes are discouraged but are available until the 10th day of each semester. Parents must sign off DS did have to offer alternatives in case of a scheduling conflict so we will have to wait to see if it all fits. In past some kids have had to take courses online or independent study to resolve conflicts. </p>
<p>When do your kids get their schedules and how are conflicts resolved? </p>
<p>I have read parents of 2015 thread to August of 2013 (same point in the process as we are now) and plan to keep reading as we all progress thru this process. It has been interesting. BTW stat on that thread was shared that if your child had a 170 or better on a previous PSAT it is worth prepping for the one this fall as your child is within range for achieving NMF. This may help some decide how much to encourage, push, nag, etc considering your child’s openness to prep and what that achievement might mean to your family financially. </p>