Got her report card, 4.23 GPA. We’re pleased for her!
No freshmen take AP classes at our school…
Sophomore year opens up with several options:
*Math all stars can take AP calc by taking pre-calc this summer (my D just laughed)
*AP Seminar (we discussed, she’ll take)
*APush (she’ll take)
Not sure about AP Bio, but don’t think so.
As I wrote in an earlier post, we homeschool, but my girls take the majority of their classes through online accredited providers (each will start taking in-person college courses for dual credit when they reach 11th grade). Therefore they take whatever they feel they can handle (no rules for what they can take and when). Sign-ups for one of my daughter’s AP providers start next week and those classes fill up quickly, so we recently decided what she will take next year.
AP Biology, AP Spanish Language, AP US Government, AP Calc AB, AP English Language, Human Geography (half credit), Economics Honors (half credit), and PE (half credit stretched out over a year).
She is currently taking AP Comp Sci and AP Chem as a 9th grader - that AP Chem class is the hardest course she has ever taken and she was thrilled to make an A- in it last semester. She started coding in 8th grade, so she loves AP Comp Sci and got an A+ last semester. Her other courses are honors courses and she enjoys them and gets As. I think she’ll be fine next year with the above schedule except she might decide to exchange AP Calc AB for Calculus Honors. She is in PreCalc Honors right now and I am not sure going from PreCalc to AP Calc AB is the best thing…she will communicate with the teacher when she signs up next week and then either sign up or tell me she wants to do Calculus Honors instead.
Way to go all these kids jamming on the AP classes! I’m over here in Non-AP Land. :))
S21’s small Catholic school offers five AP classes which don’t start until Junior year. That said, he is following in S19’s and my footsteps. He is in honors history this year and wants to get into honors English for next year. He will stay in college prep math and science. With art as his elective.
He is “on the fence” for honors English with a current 92 average in college prep. But he is taking the initiative to speak with the teacher about it. He got into honors history this year using that approach and has done very well in the class. I’m really glad to see him motivated and advocating for himself.
Poor business/finance Mr. InfiniteWaves seems destined to have his kids follow me into the wild world of the humanities. I keep reminding him that it’s really cool over here and yes, you can make a living as an English major. I’m a professional copywriter and former journalist who has worked with art school grads and English majors for my entire, still-going career. 
Mr. InfiniteWaves keeps thinking about how I was taking classes like “Writing About Film” while he took “Scary Mathy Advanced Accounting Numbers” back when we were in college. So I guess I understand his concerns?!?!?!?!?
Our high school offers 34 AP classes but kids can’t take any freshman year and only a handful are offered soph year. D21 will take AP Euro next year and probably AP Lang, APUSH, and AP Environmental junior year. That’s as far as she’s planned.
Even the very best students will only take 9-11 APs because they don’t really kick in until junior year. And that schedule is a bear - almost all AP classes for junior and senior year is not for the faint of hear and only for kids who are strong in all subjects.
Our kids (and other homeschoolers who want to apply to selective colleges) have to go above and beyond a lot of college admissions’ requirements to prove they learned what they say they learned - which I think is fair enough. This means lots of AP tests, SAT2 exams, and dual credit courses. My kids don’t mind, thankfully.
@homerdog, I agree most kids in our high school take 5-8. S18 took 5, D21 will probably end up with 7. Beyond that the pressure can be so hard, only the super achievers take 5 per year.
DS21 did well and had high A’s in each of his 4 classes for first semester. All AP’s are a full-year at his high school. His teacher moved him from Calc AB to BC for the second semester and he is excited and doing very well so far. He is also taking Honors English II this semester and he did not miss any questions on the first test and was scored at a 10th grade level but the teacher indicated the class average was 5th grade…hopefully the kids are just rusty since many would have last taken English a bit over a year ago???
He has his first club soccer match this weekend and tennis tryouts are in two weeks. He wants to do both sports (if he can make top 6 in tennis) but that is going to be difficult to manage.
It is interesting to see many upthread are completing their schedules for next year already as I do not think his school will begin until March. DS hopes to attend a public STEM boarding school in our state for 11th/12th and he wants to be sure that when/if he starts there he doesn’t start in a hole compared to others. Many of the other kids often have siblings that have attended and know the ropes better than we do so not sure yet on his course selection.
AP Stats would fit very nicely into his schedule for next year but the STEM school has a more advanced AP Stats that includes some calculus that he would rather take if he gets in…he has been advised by some not to double-up on AP Chem/AP Bio so he is not really sure what to take…definitely AP World History one block and English/PE for another block…
Yearstogo, did your son go straight from PreCalc to AP Calc AB, or did he do a regular calculus course before taking AP Calc AB? Trying to figure out if the leap from an honors PreCalc class to AP Calc AB would be okay or too much for my daughter.
@JanieWalker Our school only offers AB Calc or BC Calc (which is AB and BC taught in the same year). No such thing here as a “regular” Calc class. I think that’s pretty typical. AB Calc moves fairly slow. It’s one semester of college calc taught over one whole year. Most kids are just fine.
Yes, we have the same thing as @homerdog at our school. Kids are allowed to take AB then BC or
just BC, However, we don’t have anything higher than BC.
Thanks, homerdog and bingewatcher! I won’t fret too much about her doing the AB class then.
@JanieWalker, my S18 went from honors PreCalc to AB calc as a senior and is fine. He’s not getting an A but solid B+ without lurking much into it. Also math isn’t as much his thing. D21 will do the same path but a year earlier because her math track is accelerated.
Thanks. My kid already has a bunch of APs on her plate for next year, but they are all courses in which she has had a solid and strong background (she hasn’t skipped any steps - no jumping into a course in which the material is brand new and completely foreign). Good to know AP Calc AB is seen as a natural progression from PreCalc.
@JanieWalker that’s interesting. At our school, most APs are taken without a prerequisite. You take AP stats with no stats background. Or AP Euro with no European history class before it. We only have two AP classes that require a prerequisite. Of the school’s 30 or so APs, only AP Bio and AP Chem require the kids to take the honors equivalent beforehand.
Our rules and procedures are of our own making - we do things our own way because we can (homeschool). Whenever possible, I want my two kids to have a good and basic understanding of a subject before taking an AP version of the course.
DD took high school honors bio and chem during middle school (she enjoys learning and has always been an academically hungry kid), so she felt ready for AP Chem this year and should be okay for AP Bio next year. She has been coding for a while before she took AP Comp Sci this year. She took a pre-AP writing class through Northwestern GLL last year and a writing intensive English class this year (hence AP English Lang next year), and after Spanish 4 (this year) comes AP Spanish (next year). Her recent civics course I think (hope) prepared her well for next year’s AP Gov. I would have strongly discouraged her in taking/enrolling in many AP courses early had she not had taken what seems like the logical prerequisites first.
AP Calc will be the first course she’s taken without the “normal” calculus class first…though she won’t have had a normal US History course when she takes APUSH in 11th (I am hoping the AP Gov class in 10th will help prepare her a bit for APUSH). God help her with AP Euro History, lol…I’ll fret about that on her behalf if/when she comes to it.
@JanieWalker good for you guys! That’s a lot of advanced work for a freshman. I know lots of brilliant kids and none of them take so many APs so early.
When you say “take” an AP class does I think usually mean that she self studies? Or are there a group of local homeschoolers who study together with a teacher? Makes me wonder if either of our kids wouldn’t be ready for some APs earlier but our school doesn’t allow it. What makes the APs so hard isn’t the actual AP test as most of the kids get 5s. It’s the actual class that is challenging and it’s hard to get an A.
That’s kind of you - I would not call my kid brilliant, though - just curious with a type-A personality. Also, homeschooling gives us the freedom to do things any way we want, without having to wait for an OK or a thumbs-up from anyone but ourselves, usually. There are a lot of online providers out there who will let a kid take whatever they want without question - they all have at least a three-week grace period, so I guess they figure a child will drop before a month goes by if they find they got in over their head. Also, my kid has yet to take an AP exam (her first will be this May), so for all I know this was all a big mistake, lol.
@JanieWalker DS did independent study for most of middle school for math and we utlized Art of Problem Solving which is pretty rigorous. Last year he worked through the AoPS Calc book so AP Calc has been pretty simple for him so far. He is good in math and likes it.
I do not think he would have struggled to go from PreCalc to AP Calc AB or BC but he had taken AoPS PreCalc which is quite tough.
@JanieWalker DS plans to take AP Chem next year at his high school and has not taken honors Chemistry, as he has been granted a waiver to the prereq. Do you think that will be particularly onerous? He has a cursory knowledge of chemistry from middle school.
@yearstogo, We love AoPS! My younger daughter (7th grade) has been with them since PreAlgebra. She is currently taking Intermediate Algebra and Intro to Geometry and doing well. She’s a very mathy kid. My oldest (9th grade) did Intro to Alg A but then switched to our state’s virtual charter so she could better balance her math courses with doing high school-level courses in middle school. So she won’t be going from AoPS PreCalc to AP Calc – she’ll be going from our state’s virtual charter’s PreCal to AP Calc AB. Our state charter is not as rigorous as AoPS, so I am hoping she’ll be okay.
Regarding AP Chem – if he has been granted a waiver then his high school thinks he doesn’t need it – I don’t know how their class arrangements work so I would take your local school’s advice. For my daughter, she says she would be absolutely lost if she had not taken Honors Chem first, but that’s her. She also feels like not having coding experience before taking AP Comp Sci A would be a big mistake, but that’s her - I have heard other kids do that class without any coding experience whatsoever and they do just fine. So I think it depends on the kid and the school system in which they take the class.