Science AP's at your HS

<p>Our has AP Bio and AP Chem, offered in alternating years. Students take these as second classes in the subject only. They run the full length of the year, effectively credit for two classes since we have semester block scheduling.</p>

<p>Calc: One period.</p>

<p>All sciences every other day one period, every other day two periods (alternates with phys. ed.)</p>

<p>at our HS, all courses, including APs are one period/block. For those APs with a lab (physics, bio, chem), a student can sign up for an extra sessions scheduled after school. While highly recommended for those taking the AP tests, labs are not mandatory. It's a public school, but requires families to pay extra for the teacher OT.</p>

<p>All of our classes are 90 minutes every other day. I had no idea it was common to schedule additional time for some of the APs, but I can see how that could potentially boost the scores. For those who have a two-period block every day (or some other format with more time than regular classes), do students get two credits or one?</p>

<p>Our H.S. has six periods with each subject only taking one period. However, in order to accommodate all the kids who score poorly on FCAT and must take remedial math and english, the school system is thinking of going to a 7 period a day schedule. This will allow these students to take the remedial classes but not be penalized by not being allowed to schedule electives, such as band, within their schedule. However, in order to do this they're talking of shortening each of the periods a bit to make the 7th period. For the honors kids this will be a problem. AP classes, especially science which already has a difficult time getting the labs in with the lecture time, will now be shorter in duration. My D's not happy with that, but she's also not happy that she might have to come up with another class. She's taking 4 AP classes this year with two honors because there are very few electives that interest her, unless you want to take tech classes, P.E. or other vocational ed classes. She'd like to just leave school a period early her senior year as opposed to finding another class. BTW, she took AP bio as a freshman with no honors bio first. (Scored a 5 with a lot of tutoring from Mom, a bio major) School was highly encouraging her taking her chem and physics the same way. We bucked the trend and told her to take the honors classes first and then the AP's. She's one of the few in her AP chem class who's not struggling.</p>

<p>Now you know why the job of admission officers is hard, when you consider that they have to compare high school programs from all over the world.</p>

<p>Our school offers AP Bio, Chem, Physics, and Calc. All classes are one period, 50 minutes, 5 days a week.
The sciences seem to be the most difficult APs at our school, probably because they cover a year's worth of college classes (some of the other APs only cover one semester), plus labs. It's doable, though. My kids scored 5's on all their science and math APs, so the time factor did not hurt them. They just have to move fast, and the homework/study time per night is ratcheted up. There's not a lot of time for kids who "don't get it" or fall behind. The teacher just keeps moving along. There have been kids who withdrew or failed out of some of those classes.
Our school also has seven periods a day. Kids have enormous opportunities to take APs, and our state U's are fairly generous with their credits. Son had 30 hours college credit before starting, had he chosen to take advantage of it. And his wasn't considered an especially AP-heavy schedule.</p>

<p>6 classes plus zero hour available. All classes, including AP's meet one period, 4 times per week. Many seniors take 6 or even 7 APs in their senior year. We've pointed out that this is more college classes, taken at once, than any college student ever takes...</p>

<p>All of our AP science classes are offered as one 50 minute period per day. Most kids do not take two years of a given science - they tackle the AP without having had the previous honors level class. Even our fastest paced science AP "Superphysics" which covers AP Physics C Mechanics fall semester and AP Physics C EM spring semester only utilizes one 50 minute period for one year. Our school has 7 periods a day - but one is reserved for "lunch". Many students take 6 AP's and schedule their performing art class during their lunch period.</p>

<p>I hate my school's AP policy.</p>

<p>We have AP Bio, Chem, and Physics. All classes, including Calc AB and BC, are one 50 minute period each, although the AP Chem teacher last year said that she would occasionally ask the kids to stay late or on weekends (never happened). We don't have honors sections, but most people take the AP science after having taken the regular class. There were a lot of 5's in many of these classes.</p>

<p>Our periods are 45 or 50 minutes they do a weird thing with lunch and the afternoon periods where lunch is a half period so there are actually 7.5 periods in a day, plus a 0 period for the arts program and a few other things like gym and health can be scheduled then if you like. Seven periods gives room for having labs and the required (by NYS) half courses like health and gym.</p>

<p>BTW it isn't just AP courses which have lab time - so do all the Regents level science courses. They are required to turn in a certain (fairly large) number of labs for the big three science courses.</p>

<p>All AP classes 1 class period (even those with labs), some, such as Psych and Econ, only 1 sem. No problem with getting high scores on AP exams (some offered outside of class review sessions).</p>

<p>School is run on a rotating block schedule. Every four days class is 80 minutes long, rest of the time it is 55 minutes long. For all of the AP sciences at my school, 95% get a 4 or a 5 on the AP exam. Science is without a doubt the strongest department at my school</p>

<p>A/B block schedule (each class 90-something minutes every other day). No extra time for AP classes.</p>

<p>And we start school after Labor Day, so our AP'rs are really at a disadvantage over schools that start earlier or have double periods for AP classes.</p>