Sometimes there are very good reasons for opting for the “honors” rather than AP course – my daughter was very glad she opted for an honors English class (American literature) rather AP English composition, for example. She has assumed she would want the AP class, but then she went to talk to the respective teachers about what their classes covered and she realized that the AP class would give her a lot of writing practice she didn’t feel she needed, so she thought she would get more out of the literature class. She still took took the AP exam and got an A.
For scheduling reasons my daughter also took honors US history rather than APUSH – same teacher for both, same basic concept, with the honors class being a little less demanding. Same story – d. took the AP exam anyway, also passed. (I don’t remember scores any more, except that daughter got 4’s and 5’s in all AP exams).
So ask your kid why the choice. Sometimes because of differences in teachers or course content the honors course may be a better option. Sometimes the AP courses end up being very high intensity test prep classes taught at such a breakneck pace that students don’t really have the opportunity for exploring and learning that they might get in the course with the honors designation.
The one you take first. There’s a learning curve involved with adapting to an AP course; the AP exams are all similar, so understanding the format of the FRQ’s and DBQ’s and how to effectively answer is half the battle.
@skieurope - totally agree, as you can see in my answer As I said, in my opinion - APUSH is the most concrete and AP World is the most conceptual - so I guess there could also be variation there in terms of a student skills.
One of the nice things the college board has done over the last 4 years is that all 3 of the history tests now use the same format/requirements in extended response - (as opposed to the old system where you needed outside info in apush, POV in Euro, and Imaginary Doc in World) so now once a kid has learned the system, you will use it again for the other classes.
Sounds like OP’s son does have AP(chem, comp sci, presumably something else next year.) But honors WH. So he’s headed for a college STEM major?
It seems like CC has gotten a lot of these “can I skip X?” questions, in the past few months. The answer really depends on what college tier you’re aiming for, how they’ll look at mixed rigor. If he’s on a relaxed college search, not a race to the tippy tops, fine to go with honors.
(I know some get into TTs with honors, but the nature of the beast is to stretch, when the schedule allows.)
My rising sophomore will be taking honors, not AP history, next year. For my competitive self, I gulped a little, but said ok. Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t expect the highest level of effort somewhere else in the schedule, but this student has a mind of their own… I have decided that I will not be betting against my student…who predicted the final score of the superbowl last week, knowing nothing about either team and not a football fan. Sometimes the kids actually know best! OP, good luck contacting the GC though…they should answer at some point.
My sophomore is opting not to take APUSH next year because his school’s APUSH teachers assign 3 to 4 hours of busy work per night. He can do math for hours, but ask him to read a history textbook while taking notes on the reading, filling out more notes on a worksheet, and then writing some more notes on a chart, and he will likely just shut down. Just the reading would be enough for him to learn the material.
I’ve posted about this before, but both of my kids attribute their 800 CR scores on the SAT to their APUSH classes. APUSH is fantastic prep for college-level reading, writing, and critical thinking. I wouldn’t skip this one.
People transfer within the district to our high school for the AP courses. Anything that lessens the number of sections of AP/IB classes is not likely to be popular!
It all depends on the kid. Some gifted kids can whiz through it (and others, like my son in AP stats, ignore it- accepting a B for homework zeroes and 100’s on all testing). Some kids agonize over perfect essays and spend more time than they should, others need a lot of time…
Choosing a schedule should depend on the kid, not the resume for college. Your kid is who s/he is, let them enjoy their teen years- challenging themselves can be part of this or “being lazy” in their eyes and not doing every possible challenge.
Can’t increase the number and variety of courses if you don’t have the resources. Or at high schools that can’t fill classes with enough students to justify adding more sections.
Our high school has 2800 students. Honors/IB students take:
APHUG
APEURO
APUSH
APGov/Econ
Regular students take
Health/Career planning (IB/AP kids usually take online over the summer)
World History
US History
Gov/Econ
I honestly don’t know what the demand would be for an intermediary honors level social studies track. How they would weight it would be tricky as well, as schools in California can only designate a certain number of classes as UC Weighted. I suspect they would be unweighted.
My D didn’t want to overload on AP classes to the detriment of her GPA. Her’s were math, science and English based - never took a single AP history class. Her school did not offer honors level history classes, so she wound up in regular level classes that were very easy for her. If your kid isn’t interested in history, DO NOT take AP level classes just for the rigor. They are super time-consuming, between the reading and the writing. The APUSH teacher actually talked her out of taking it as she already had AP Lit, Calc B/C and APES on her schedule. Graduated with a 4.0, so it that was a good decision for her.
@Massmomm Not all APUSH classes are alike. An APUSH class such as the one that @eh1234 describes that makes you outline all the chapters and requires several hours of work every night is poorly taught. I’d opt out of it too. Luckily our high school’s APUSH class was not a lot of busy work. A good class will have a variety of reading, a couple of research papers and a reasonable amount of preparation for the type of exam questions that appear on the AP.
Most of Our APUSH juniors are also in AP Lang, an AP science and one other AP or IB class. The other teachers would riot if APUSH was that much homework.
@mathmom, I know what you’re saying is correct. I think my kids really lucked out. My daughter went to a super competitive public high school her first two years, and the APs there were all about endurance. She transferred to a small private school and found that the AP classes across the board had a lighter workload than the previous school had had, even in the honors classes. But her new school covered the material just as well because she never scored below a 5 on any AP exam. AP should challenge a student with quality, not quantity.
The kids in my apush/ap euro classes read an average of 10-12 pages a night. Notes are optional, but kids can use them on daily reading quiz, so lots of kids take them. We have a vocabulary quiz and a focus question (graphic organizer of an LEQ, or DBQ prompt from previous years) every week. That is the only HW- all other grades (which come from essays, collaborative projects etc) happen in class. I always tell kids if they spend more than an hour on their HW for my class, they are doing it wrong.
As I said, in my opinion - APUSH is the most concrete and AP World is the most conceptual - so I guess there could also be variation there in terms of a student skills.