<p>I guess my school district forces smart kids to take all the APs in school because of the following reasons:
1. NCLB and state attendance requiremnt. If kids take college classes out of school and only attend HS part time, the school cannot receive the allocated money from the state.</p>
<ol>
<li>District wants to make parents think that kids are stellar because they are taught by district teachers.</li>
</ol>
<p>Marian:</p>
<p>I believe that "the most rigorous curriculum" does not mean that classes have to be all APs. But if there are several versions of the same course, then the most rigorous curriculum would include the AP level class. For example, in science, the most rigorous curriculum would incle APs rather than honors.</p>
<p>I did not look at my kids' transcripts, so I don't know how they their curricula were described. S1, who was admitted 8 years ago to several top 10 LACs, did not have any AP in math and science. He did take APs in the humanities and social sciences.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>S was actually homeschooled, and no school in our area offerred more than a few APs, but we mixed and matched, and did some of them online. For us, schedule was not a problem.</p>
<p>S simply skipped some college classes, and in other cases he actually took the class a second time, finding 60-80% of the material was the same, but that the pace of the courses was quicker. He decided based primarily on whether the material covered was so simple for him (Calculus, introduction to Java programming for example were both skipped). When he skipped, he had no problems at all stepping into the next highest class. Also, he has credit for some electives being taken, so he is thinking of double-majoring, which is a good way to use the credits.</p>
<p>The college classes are different than APs, but they are also differenet than community college classes or online classes. The APs are definitely the best preparation he could have had.</p>