I’ve never heard of pre AP classes . Does anyone feel comfortable disclosing what part of the country they’re in? We have college prep, honors and AP offered at our school. We are in the southeast
My first one is in the HS and we were in school in stone age, @carolinamom2boys. So I believed in what I was told by the teacher. I guess, though many schools tell the same rule, it is not the case after all. I am relieved.
We are in CA and our school doesn’t have Pre-AP. After Chem- regular, students take up AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Phy. After Eng -H, students take AP Eng, Algebra II Trig -H or regular follows Math analysis -H or Pre calc -reg. I do know that there are few schools in CA which offer honors courses before letting students take up AP courses.
Up here in the pacific northwest, our honors and AP homework levels vary a ton by class and they do tend to give you a heads up for the more involved ones. AP world is definitely the worst we have had so far but that was also pre ADHD diagnoses for S17 and the reading was killing him so that may not be a fair assessment. Still, it may well have been 2 hours most days. Honors Bio though was right up there at times.
Some on the other hand have zero homework, it’s all done in class other than self studying (AP Physics).
We do not have Pre-AP although we definitely treat honors as if it is. Many of the AP classes require honors first, although not all. Both Honors and AP are self selecting but there are guidelines. College prep is defined more by certain tracks in math, science, social studies, language and english and number of years taken then specific classes per-se. They will show a 4 year college suggested track (or tracks), and then other options as well geared more towards CC or trade school or similar.
We have a few “college in the classroom” classes that have the option of flagship college credit if certain criteria are met in addition to the HS credit given but the class is at the HS.
I have a friend whose children are in a school in Texas and they seem to have PreAP for almost every subject!
I am in NY. The only PreAP at my kids’ school is for world history. I think they do it that way because in NY, the typical path is two years (grades 9&10) of global history and then the regents exam at the end of 10th covers 2 years worth of material. For 9th and 10th grades we have the choice of regular 9/10 Global History, honors 9/10 global history or PreAP/AP world history.
Global History is aligned to state standards/curriculum while PreAP/AP is aligned with the national curriculum. PreAP/AP is much easier, from what I’ve heard. The kids who take it still have to take the state global history regents at the end of 10th grade and find it to be very easy in comparison to the AP.
It’s so hard to avoid the reach for super selective schools at our school, which makes me quit nervous as I feel that it may just set up S19 for the feeling of failure should he not get into one. The list of college choices came out last week and of the 130 graduates this year, 29 will be attending an Ivy League, and about the same amount to similar type schools (Stanford, MIT, Duke, Williams…) It’s just crazy crazy that there is not one, I kid you not, not one graduating senior attending one of our state schools. Thankfully he’s a laid back kind of kid, but I’m sure the stress of all this will catch up with him…how can it not? I think the school does a great job of teaching these kids, head and shoulders above what his sister was taught at her school, but the work is definitely piled on. With finals behind us, happy that he’ll have an opportunity to sleep in a relax a bit.
Texas here: our school district calls the H version of classes “pre AP” in middle school. I don’t think it means much here.
Also D21 does have summer reading, 1 book to read for English, “The Peal” and some worksheets to compete for that assignment. 1 book to read, movies to watch over WWII for pentathlon class.
Also geometry packet to complete.
None of it looks daunting.
Just looked at the AP summer homework. It does advise that the class will require 6-12 hours per week of homework outside of class. Which seems about right based on S17’s experience, though he erred on the high side. For HW he will need to read one book (choose from a list of 9), write a paper on it, complete a rather massive mapping exercise. They are tested on the first day of class on the map as well as the themes related to the book and paper.
As it is his only HW it is definitely manageable.
I may have misunderstood earlier. I assumed that the 2 hrs of HW stated up thread was during the regular school year with a full schedule of classes.
Ugh I just saw that I said the PreAP/AP track for 9th and 10th is easier that the honors regents global history for 9th and 10th. (Post #824)
That is backwards, PreAP/AP is HARDER and much more writing intensive.
Staying away from the Stanford thread for awhile @mom2twogirls ?
I just posted! We were out running errands all afternoon. I think it’s just going around in circles at this point anyway. Most everything has already been said in that one, I think.
I did discuss it with my d19. I hadn’t thought about it at first but decided that she needs to know these kinds of stories since she leads a pretty safe and sheltered life. I want her to be somewhat prepared by the time she gets to college and don’t think it’s a good idea to wait until just before she goes to college. Plus, you never know what she could run into in high school.
Exactly @mom2twogirls . Some scary opinions on that thread . A good book to read is " Protecting the Gift" by Gavin DeBecker . He’s a cultural anthropologist who writes about how humans are the only mammals who are taught to disregard our instincts regarding threats and nature. Especially females because they don’t want to appear rude. He gives some great examples and strategies in that book. My PE class in college was self defense. Best class I ever took. You might want to consider one for your daughter.
@carolinamom2boys I am not sure upthread what it was regarding hours of homework. For S19 I’d expect the rest of his load to be 1 hour min per day combined so yes, 2 hours a day is very possible.
Do any of your kids have interesting summer reading assignments? What novel/s are assigned to your child, @eandesmom? My S19 must read Grapes of Wrath this summer and finish a comprehensive writing assignment before the first day of class. I really like Steinbeck and told DS19 that I plan to read it with him. He answered, “If you must.” 
As part of the pre-IB track, sophomores take Honors English 11 (American Lit), AP Lit in 11th grade, and Higher Level IB English in 12th.
Regarding my comment about the AP HW, the teachers said 2 hours/day/AP course DURING school days. Actually, after testing, when D was assigned higher level courses in the middle school, we were concerned as we didn’t want to stretch her a lot. She was very excited to handle the higher level courses and was a straight A student without stressing in the middle school and freshman year.
The thought process at that time was - let’s see how she develops and then we will start thinking about colleges once she becomes a junior in the HS. H travels a lot and were seriously considering moving to Texas to help increase family time. We thought we would get a chance to change the course flow while moving (I started the thread and got very useful and thought provoking inputs, many thanks to the wonderful CC community) After checking with the Texas school, we came to know that her GPA will suffer a lot because of the various multiplying factors of the school. I our school students have to take AP courses right after the regular courses many times. We have serious second thoughts about Texas currently.
When we started course selection process for her sophomore year, she ran out of courses and there wasn’t much to select from. When I asked her AP teachers in the school about the time commitment, both of them told us 2 hours/day/course including the HW and the test prep. Not many students achieve 4/5 in those AP exams in our school and rarely take more than 3 APs in one year. I NEVER thought it could be different and always assumed it WAS the case at least in our school until that post.
My concern originated from the fact we are not really targeting tippy top colleges. Our focus is mainly on UCs. I associated all those courses with the ambitious plans.The course selection and our plans were not really consistent. If it turns out the way the teachers say, she will have to leave some of her ECs. She cares about everything she does a LOT; not just because it “looks good on applications”. It would be hard for her to leave anything. As every other parrent, I just want my D to be happy, do what she likes and not be stressed.
Sorry for the long post and any misunderstanding 
My d has to read Orwell’s 1984 for English.
Attended orientation for S19’s summer geometry class which begins next week. They cover a week’s worth of material everyday in 5 hours of class time. S19 says that’s good because he hates the lolligagging that goes on at school in his regular classes.
No reading other than his AP World History book. Decided to pass on H English because of the required summer reading/assignment. S19 does not take much pleasure in reading, unfortunately. Since he already has a summer geometry class, AP world history and Algebra II summer assignments to complete, and rehearsals for a summer musical, enough is enough.
@EastGrad S17 doesn’t have any English summer homework this year. He will next for AP language but the school is no longer allowed to give summer homework for anything except AP World. For that class he chose Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. The library system only has TWO copies so we reserved it this weekend and hopefully it will get returned soon, both copies were already overdue.
S19 is sure to have summer reading but he’s not recieved anything for his classes yet, likely next week as this week is still finals. As is next but with the seniors gone, it really isn’t.
@collegeandi as far as course selection goes, it’s about balance I think. Having the right classes/tracks for the kinds of colleges you are likely to target but also managing workload. Each kid is very different in that area and there is no one right path. If she is going to be stressed, I would re-evaluate. We may re-evaluate S19’s load, although changing registration is not always possible at our school. In his case it is less about the load being academically too difficult but far more out of his deliberate inability to organize his time effectively.
My d19’s last day of classes is today! She has an exam Friday but isn’t too concerned about it (which says a lot because she tends towards anxiety). Last week was rough but she made it through. I have such mixed feelings about her finishing up her first year of high school.
All of our English classes at the high school assign summer reading, not just the honors classes.