My D19 was able to take AP Environmental Science as a freshman. She’s taking AP Chemistry as a sophomore (the only option for 10th graders).
My daughters’ school offers precisely zero AP classes to sophomores. I find this a Good Thing, myself.
At my school sophomores are allowed to take AP Environmental Science, AP World History, AP Human Geography, AP Government and Politics (opened up to sophomores for the first time), and AP Calculus if you’re that ahead. We have about 20/21 APs but we’re a big school with about 2,500 students.
It’s funny, I had to look as we have AP’s that none of my kids are interested in so I wasn’t sure. All of our AP’s are self selecting and most have a pre-req, but not all. Those that do, would be difficult for most kids to take in 10th even if allowed as there is only one elective spot. If you have a music kid though, you will not have any room in your schedule for any AP’s outside of the core subjects and many kids use that elective spot in 10th to get PE out of the way. The max possible unless you transferred in at a significantly higher math level, or tested in at a high language level really would be 2 I think and pretty unlikely even though it seems robust on paper.
I don’t know a single 10th grader that has taken more than AP World! I am sure there are a few though. The only child I know that advanced, headed to our flagship after 8th grade lol.
“Technically” available AP’s for 10th graders are:
AP Studio Art 2D (photography
AP World
AP Econ Micro/Macro
AP Computer Science Principles (open to freshmen, I didn’t realize that!)
AP Computer Science A (9th+ also didn’t realize)
AP Stats (also available to 9th+ graders if completed Alg 2)
*AP Calc AB (avail to 9th+ if completed Pre-Calc )
*AP Calc BC (avail to 9th+ if completed AB)
AP Music Theory
AP French, Spanish, Japanese. Practically speaking could only happen if you completed the 4th year as a freshman or were bumped up/tested in. Most kids won’t hit AP language until 11th grade if at all.
*these annoy me. DE credit is P/F unless it is through the running start CC program, which doesn’t start until 11th grade. I don’t see how a kid could finish those classes and be able to take either Calc as a freshman or sophomore. S19 is on the top math track, there is no summer school beyond remedial and he will be in precalc, but not allowed to get college credit for it (only 11/12 can take it for credit). Grr.
Technically AP Bio is not an option for 10th but I believe S19 would have been able to take it as Honors Bio is is one of the pre-reqs. Technically Honors bio isn’t an option for freshmen unless you test out of 8th grade science and then test into honors. Most who test out take regular bio and that’s still a very small group. He isn’t taking it though, opted for Honors Chem instead.
Our S19 taking AP Comp Sci A in 10th grade. The most popular AP class for 10th graders is AP Euro. It’s considered the “honors” level history class. Other APs available to 10th graders would be AP Comp Sci Principles and BC Calc if you’re ahead in math. By 11th grade, students can take any AP offered by the school. I believe they offer 24 total so, if you’re in the top of the class, you’d better be taking advantage of them!
S19 is taking AP World and has not started the summer homework for it. Nor has he cracked the book he need to read to do a double entry symbolism journal for English honors, despite the fact that the book is due back at the library in a week. He hasn’t been doing any camps or work this summer but he is spending all his time working on writing his own programming language. I really struggle with the balance between encouraging/forcing him to do the necessary for school success work versus letting him pursue his own interests since he is such an autodidact.
D19 is taking the only AP class that is really offered to sophomores: AP US History. Our school does US History sophomore year as it aligns with their English class which focuses on American Literature.
I don’t think you can take AP classes at out HS unless the kid is a math genius and can take something like ap stats.
Starting in Junior year kids can sign up for a lot. School offers 23 APs, pre-reqs for a lot though.
Son19 is happy right now. He has been putting in a lot of training and practice for soccer for the last few years and attended a few elite college summer camps. He got a letter back from a head coach with a performance review and the coach thinks he has D1 ability and should be able to play in college. He stressed the importance of keeping his grades up and preparation for his standardized tests.He wants to stay in touch. So that is pretty cool. Soccer might open some doors to a few colleges he is interested in. That would be good.
Met with the school counselor today. Learned that, despite the fact that D19 took Algebra 1 in the 8th grade and Geometry in 9th grade, her new school will not accept it. Apparently, in TX, if you take Algebra 1 in the 8th grade you actually receive high school credit for it. But since D19 took Algebra 1 out of state, she’ll have to prove her knowledge of Algebra 1 by taking what amounts to a final exam in Algebra 1 before they will sign her up for Algebra 2.
The HS DD21 will be applying to here in CA requires you test for EVERY class that isn’t the standard 9th grade class even if she gets all A’s. Her MS is also in CA. She’s taking Spanish 1 & Math 1 as an 8th grader. Also here in my district 9th grade Science is not Biology. It’s some sort of Intro Science. The only way you can take Bio as a 9th grader is to take Honors Science 8 which also has a req that you are in Math 1 or higher.
@mom23travelers S19 hasn’t really started his AP World HW either, nor has he memorized the periodic tables for Honors Chem. He is aware my expectation is that he knocks out AP World next week. It is by far the best week for it as his cousin gets here on Weds from Germamy for a chunk of the summer, he leaves on Sunday for his 50 miler and then is back for a week (with cousin) and then off to NYLT for another week. It needs to be done before all that.
@RightCoaster your S will need to keep the grades up and if I were you (having been through soccer recruiting now) I’d start saving good video of play, now. He will need a tape compiled at some point, could be sooner rather than later. At some point, you may want to consider paying someont to tape play.
@gusmahler that is incredibly frustrating. Hopefully she will pass the test with flying colors, will she have some time to prep for it first?
@EGHopeful our school would do the same if it was an exception, I don’t know that Alg 1 would count as that’s higher track but not exception based. Not sure though. We have integrated physical science in 9th (or honors IPS). The kids do all take a IPS test at the end of 8th grade though, although I think like you it may be limited to the 8th grade Honors Science class. It used to be an optional test, now the whole class takes it. A certain % pass the test and are offered the choice to take IPS or Bio in 9th, about 28 kids for the whole district if memory serves when S19 did it. A smaller % is offered the chance to take Honors Bio in 9th based on their test score
S19 actually didn’t make the cutoff for Honors Bio, but it was only by 1% point. They offered an appeal to kids that had come out of his GT program, he elected to appeal and took Honors Bio.
I don’t think our school restricts AP classes so long as the student has the prereqs (if there are any). Many of the IB kids take APs as electives. My non IB son (c/o 16) took AP Gov in 9th, AP Comp Science A & APHG in 10th and many more in 11th and 12th.
My D’19 took none in 9th and is requesting 2 for 10th (AP Psych & AP Art Drawing). Her counselor is new to high school and is fighting me on her taking a social studies elective (Psych) in 10th and not a core grad requirement but she already has 2 SS credits (from 8th & 9th) and has 11th and 12th to take US History and Gov.
Most AP classes are restricted by grade level at S19s school - there is a progression so that everyone takes World History (2 years) followed by US Hist and US Gov. AP World (and AP European) are offered to sophomores. AP Lang and AP Lit are only available to juniors and seniors.
AP Calc is available to anyone who has completed pre-Calc, and AP Stats to anyone who completed Algebra 2. AP CS is available to sophomores who are proficient in Java. AP Chem requires completion of regular chemistry, so you would have to take Chem during summer to take the AP as a sophomore. Almost all freshman take Bio.
A sophomore who is in band or orchestra doesn’t really have any electives because they are usually still working on a language and have to take PE. The only AP class that was really available to my S19 was AP World and there is no way he would take it. It was one of the worst classes D16 had in HS.
Junior year he’ll be done with French and PE and can finally add some electives. For APs, he’ll probably take AP Physics I and maybe AP CS if he can somehow learn Java on his own (or if the school adds the new AP CS class). The school has an honors STEM Engineering class that he’s interested in. He probably won’t take any of the busywork intensive APs like APUSH or Gov because he can’t concentrate on that type of homework for four hours at a time.
@eandesmom The HS is actually very helpful wrt helping D19. While she is tentatively assigned to Algebra 1 and can’t sign up for Algebra 2 until she passes the test, the test isn’t for 3 weeks, so she has plenty of time to prepare. She started preparing last night. While she remembers the concepts, she doesn’t remember the exact name of certain topics. But she should be ready by the time her test rolls around.
@MichiganGeorgia my d19 is also taking APWH and APStats.
I don’t know if there are other AP classes available because of pre-reqs and our district doesn’t allow kids to take classes in the summer except for health or making up for failing classes.
The most commonly taken AP by sophomores in my kids’ school is APWH. For my d it was either going to be that or honors Global Studies, but the word on the street from kids of similar abilities is that class is too easy and is boring for them. She loves math and had elective space open so she decided to try out stats. It happens to be AP but she would have still taken it if there was no AP available because she is truly interested. Aside from a slight worry that she won’t know anyone in the class (no friends taking it) that is the class she is most excited about.
Oh, and d19 just submitted the last of her summer APWH work online today. It’s discussion board based so she can see that very few kids have started it yet.
We never have summer work for AP classes. I’m wondering if that’s why our AP classes are all so homework heavy during the school year!
I usually wonder if ours that do are using it for weeding out kids who aren’t going to put much effort into the class.
@RightCoaster What sort of ID camps did your son go to and did he contact the coaches ahead of time? We’d had it on the plan for S to go to a soccer ID camp this summer for ‘practice’ before doing ID camps more seriously next summer. He did do an ID camp over winter in freshman year. It was a good experience but I don’t think coaches were contacting freshman.
But those plans got away from us and summer was too busy. S does a 2nd sport besides soccer and decided to have a go at getting selected for a Junior Olympics elite event. Training for the selection races has consumed the summer. It’s a long shot; they take the top 4 and he’s probably ranked 8th is my guess. I doubt this has any value for helping him get into colleges except as maybe an EC. So I feel kind of conflicted. It a sport that has zero recruitment value and it takes a lot of time. But it is character building.
Funny reading about all the AP classes. Our kids’ school doesn’t offer any nor do the other private schools in our area. I don’t think its a huge thing at our public schools either–though they have a few.