Hi. I’m a rising junior at my local public school. To my greatest dismay, my high school does not offer any AP/honors classes whatsoever. All of my classes are far too easy and generalized and I manage easy 98’s-100’s in classes without even a single struggle. I feel unchallenged and unmotivated by my current classes, even though I’m supposedly taking a rigorous schedule, according to my guidance counselor(just physics and pre-calculus).
The question I pose to you is : What do I do when I feel like I’m light years ahead of the game?
I get bored easily in class. They’re so insipidly dull and someone with the competancy of a toenail can do well in those classes. I feel like I’m hearing stuff reiterated from the 7th grade. I absolutely hate being the only one answering questions and being constantly praised by the teacher when I’m not even listening to a word she says but clandestinely sneaking in a munch on my granola bar and reading a side novel under my desk.
In addition, I feel like without the AP classes, I don’t have an “edge” over the college admissions. I know, I know, colleges aren’t going to penalize me for the paucity of rigorous classes offered in my school, but I doubt I could possibly stand out in an applicant pool where thousands of others have fully demonstrated their academic aptitude by taking numerous AP courses and exams.
Also, the school I attend is a new school that is still in development. We only have your standard prerequisite courses and nothing beyond that. With such few classes offered, I fear that my light courseload will be looked down upon by college admissions. In fact, I’ve already fulfilled the maximum years of Spanish offered in my school(only two years). Only under much imploring and persuasion(and a 100 on the NYS Regents exam), was I able to make a Spanish independent study course with my Spanish teacher for next year and even that’s subject to change.
I’m considering taking the bulk of my classes as independent studies and pursuing them further under my own guidelines. I’m going to straight-out study and learn from cheap, dingy, reduced price textbooks bought online from Ebay. In addition, I’m thinking of starting to take several, probably like five AP exams alone, this year. I’m not sure if that is wise, but that’s the only way I feel I can prove my knowledge because God knows my easy-peasy classes at school don’t.
I’m not sure on what course of action to take, as of this moment, but I’d like to hear some of the responses I’ll get before I decide. One thing I absolutely know I’m doing, when I go back to school in September, is to demand, albeit politely, a distance learning program. We have a room set up for this purpose, but it’s never been utilized but I’m hoping with my impassioned gusto, it’ll be available as an option.