She’s used to AP World being a ton of work. The good news is they’re the same teachers for AP as when her bro took them and they’re good teachers. AP Bio will be much easier than AP Chem. I think it’s probably 20% more work than taking reg classes so she’d rather take classes with her friends. S21 was the same way. Driven by classes with friends. He had terrible exec functioning skills and he got straight A’s that year so I’m not worried about D24 being able to get mostly A’s. She will be happy to have classes with her friends.
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Wow. I am also impressed she can do APUSH, APLang and 2 AP Math classes. Good for her if she is confident she can take and do well on them.
In our school they actually make us fill a time management work sheet and and for each course they include the homework load per week. and based on that if we had done APUSH and AP LANG and 2 AP Math and one 1 AP science would be 5+ hours or more of work per day. Each AP class homework ranges from 3.5 hours to 6 hours per week.
the stats class was not very challenging for my S21. But the combination of ap bio and apush is considered a time suck in our school. It isnt necc hard but a huge amount of reading and homework. I continue to be amazed by how different each school is in what is expected of high achieving kids and what is the norm. I dont think the guidance counselors in our school would allow a kid to take 5 ap classes.
The expectations are so different across schools. The top 20% or so at our school usually take APphys1, APUSH, APLang, APCalcAB, Honors Foreign Language and a 6th AP or honors: could be APBio, APStat, APEcon…the 7th period is a study hall unless you are an arts kid then you don’t get one if you want to be top rigor and do arts. It is just expected as a Junior. APs are estimated to be 1hour of homework per day, but the efficient kids can make it work in less, and of course using 10-15 hours of weekend time on homework can help the weeknights be better(sports/athletic requirement means the vast majority have 2+ hrs sports after school most days). It is insane at times, for sure. Wiser parents warned us years ahead that it would be a challenge and they were right.
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it is really crazy, our 11th graders take 2 ap classes or maybe 3, others are typically honors level. maybe 4 as a senior. The homework load for honors and AP is about the same. Our kids do very very well on most of the AP classes with averages around a 4. I wonder if it is the same for schools were there are more AP classes earlier on.
yes I have Heard Stats is an easier class then AP Calc. S24 is taking AP CalBC directly with out the AP calc AB before so he will take Stats in 12th grade.
In our school also the honors classes are hard but considered slightly lesser time than AP. Example AP takes 4-5 hours per week Honors will take 3-4 hours.
My son also usually takes lesser time and if pretty efficient but he needs his free time and enough sleep. I have seen multiple kids and parents complain about lack of sleep .
But some kids do manage 4 AP’s and 1 or 2 Honors classes and kudos to them.
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You are correct the top 20% in our school take AP CAlBC, APUSH, APLang, and Physics honors/AP chem and then Honors Foreign Lang/AP lang and an elective. Have heard this is pretty HW intensive and the kids need to be really motivated. School doe snot allow 2 math or 2 lab sciences in same year. only one math and one science per year. We have asked about taking 2 lab science but have been told no.
@RadM I don’t think the counselor promotes this at all. I went to her to ask if there was a way for her to prevent S21 from taking 5 AP classes but she said it’s up to the kids. He had 4 and then added AP Physics with AP Bio (he doubled on science and sister doubling up on math instead) since his friends were taking it.
D24 has solid exec functioning skills but she also spends 30-40% of the weekend doing homework to make the week easier whereas S21 did good enough to get 89.5-90% to get the A-. She does comp soccer but the practices are 2-3x/week so it’s not everyday. S21 had swim Mon-Sat. They both said that their homework load for honors is only 20% more than the reg class so I wonder if the reg class just assigns busy work. The AP/Honors classes move much faster, of course. She’s in the Biomed academy so things are more thematic. For instance, I think the books assigned in AP Lang will be more relevant to the academy she’s in so same track. S21 was in the Engr academy and his AP Lang books were more techie? I know their bio lab projects were more Engr driven whereas the kids in AP Bio for D24’s track will have more of a health science slant to it in labs. Still same fundamentals but slightly different lens so they all link together.
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It makes sense that counselor does not promote high AP classes as this is very kid specific.
Its great that they school is customizing AP Lang books to the track they are on. That is a great idea. I wish our school did allow something like this and also allowed 2 science courses per year. The way school is doing if you want to do 2 AP Science courses you have to do Physics or chem outside of the school. Our school is very STEM heavy so I think many kids would take 2 science if allowed. So now we are thinking if we should think about taking AP chem outside of school if he is interested.
yes, in our school you take AB or BC, not in a sequence, I had actually never heard of that before CC.
and if those kids can do those schedules and extracurriculars and eat and sleep and be normal humans, well extra kudos to them!
My daughter never could work out the scheduling to fit in the “regular” music theory class that was supposed to be the prereq for the AP class. However, she had been learning an instrument since 4th grade, and participated in the chorus’ “Select” group. When she asked the AP Music Theory teacher, she told her she would be just fine and even offered, if my daughter was truly worried, she could teach her everything she needed to know in an hour or two.
So she took the class, indeed never had any trouble (she does have good studying skills, though), and ended up acing the class and the AP Exam.
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I somehow got on the parent committee for our big accreditation. I get an audience so I am hoping I can talk about tapering back AP class offerings so that kids don’t feel like they have to be in a rat race. I am hoping they will consider limiting them to 3 AP classes max a year. I think it’s do-able. You really only get credit for AP World or APUSH for GE but not both at our major UCs. We don’t even get any Physics credit unless it’s the 3rd class in the series. Most kids have to retake these classes at UCs anyway if they major in STEM. Calc series help, one of the AP English classes help, one of the AP history classes help. But they don’t need both so maybe limiting won’t impact the kids financially from college credit standpoint and colleges will see that the schools put a limit so would t expect kids to have anymore than 6-7 AP classes. I’m hoping.
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I think the your idea is great and makes a lot of sense and would help with stress levels for the kids and colleges wont blame you if your school limits . Hope they take some of your suggestions.
My D’s junior year schedule is:
AP English (I don’t know which one)
AP Calc BC
AP Physics
Spanish
2 electives
Senior year (she can still change these)
AP English (the other one)
AP Physics
AP Spanish
AP World
Math - either Calc 2/3 or AP Stats
AP Chem
One semester of hands on art if she decides she wants to apply to the UC’s
Kids at our HS take a lot of AP or IB classes, so this schedule won’t get her “most rigorous”. Crazy!
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ha, love it, that is the way i do it too, the first english one and then the other
Sounds like a totally reasonable schedule
She doesnt have to take a history class as a junior?
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Just an FYI: UC’s require 2 semesters of a Visual performing Arts course and they need to be within the same discipline.
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At our school 4 is the max - no exceptions. Also, apart from 1 APCS course that can be taken as a sophomore, no APs until junior year.
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At the very most, kids at our school can take 8 AP classes and very, very few do. Still, we send about 40 kids to top 20 schools every year so it isn’t a deterrent. I think the AP race is somewhat ridiculous, myself. Many of the courses aren’t accepted at colleges and others end up being repeated so what is the point? Often the teaching is to the test which impedes the amount of learning , IMO. I’m all for rigorous content, but you don’t need AP for that.
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Well, D24 wore me down and we agreed to let her take AP Music Theory next year. She’ll be turning in the elective form at lunch time today.
Therefore, her schedule for next year will be:
AP English Lit
AP US History
AP Calculus AB
AP French
AP Music Theory
Honors Physics
1 study hall period in middle of the day
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our school is pretty similar. I am sure there are a few very high achieving kids who take 4 but most take 2-3, and the only ap in 10th grade is APES, the very rare kid who is three years advanced in math who takes AP calcBC and a small number of very high achieving kids take the AP world test after two years of honors world history. Our school sends many kids to top 50 schools and at least a dozen to top 10.