Some universities recommend 5 years of math and foreign language ( university of virginia) thus in practical terms requiring suburban kids to take APs in those subjects despite a lack of interest. Colleges are less than truthful. Rigor and risk-taking are lauded as long as they are successful; otherwise don’t apply.
Tracking for high school starts in elementary school in some schools, and in middle schools for many more. When a student is placed BY THE SCHOOL in algebra in 6th grade because he excelled in 5th grade math, often neither the student nor his parents is saying “Yay! Now I/he can take more AP’s in high school!” or “No thanks, because he doesn’t want to take AP Stats in high school!” Nevertheless, that placement decision has future implications. Since 3 years of high school math is a graduation requirement, many kids in our district HAVE to take AP Calc and AP Stats whether they want to or not simply because in 5th grade they were strong in arithmetic. It really is a systemic problem.
That said, in my opinion the troubling issue is not that a particularly bright student is tracked in that manner, but rather that hoards of parents spend thousands of dollars on math tutoring beginning at age 4 to ensure it happens for their kids, and also that college classes are being taught to ever younger children. This muddies the waters for all concerned. First, it could ensure stress down the road for ordinary intellects who are pushed into advanced subjects, and second, it sets up the class rank situation discussed above. 11 years ago, before it was even as crazy as it is now, DS graduated with all A’s in 13 AP’s and with many honors classes and was not even in the top 3% of his class. Sure he took AP Physics BC and every other tough AP in high school, but some kids started some of those classes in middle school instead and then took even more university classes in high school and supplemented with independent study. The val and sal had been bused to the high school for classes while in middle school.
I will say that the real problem of tracking kids that early in math is that bright students like DS & several of his friends are placed on the track not based on actual mathematical ability, but rather their ability memorize/recall steps. Then what happens when they get into that upper level math is that they can no longer memorize the steps and their foundation is not solid. They don’t understand the concepts because their brain was not at the right developmental stage at the time the material was presented. So fast forward two of DS’s friends have quit the high path math after accelerated trig and are not even taking pre-calc - they of course are taking APs in the place of math! We insisted DS take Math Analysis (pre-calc) and that is the B he and we are most proud of! My DS will tell you that DD who is on the mid-path is way above him in her computation skills and comprehension of math.
I believe the schools when they say they would prefer a student take 6 APs AND something that interests them like advanced orchestra rather than another AP, especially one that is not considered as rigorous. I am more skeptical that the school would look favorably on a kid that instead substituted a free period or something very light. I also doubt they look favorably on a kid that says I took fewer challenging courses so I could hang out more with my family.
The key is that the guidance counselor can credibly state that this kid took the most rigorous curriculum offered or perhaps say the most rigorous possible while supporting their intense interest in music/theater/their sport.
We heard directly from the mouths of several elite college coaches that AP’s not only matter a great deal to admissions, even for athletes, but which APs were taken was also important. An example given to us was that they wanted to AP Biology, say, not AP Environmental Science. The reason this board exists is precisely because admissions considerations aren’t perfectly transparent. Elite university statements are partially designed to avoid charges of elitism and socio-economic bias, and also the charge that colleges are contributing to the stressful race to nowhere. But I don’t believe that what these schools say can always be generalized to a white, middle-class unhooked applicant. As they will even say, context matters…a lot.
@TheGFG That would be a good thread to start - which APs are most important to colleges? That way, we could limit APs and know the kids have taken the ones that seem more important. I’m guessing the science and math APs are most important for engineering students. I wonder how much the other ones are “worth” or if that’s really even a thing. Many kids in our school take APUSH but it is a bear. Do colleges really care if you took APUSH versus regular US History? If we were limited to five or six APs, I bet APUSH wouldn’t make the cut for us yet here S19 is…taking APUSH because it makes the most sense for him placement-wise and he would deem US History way too easy.
A quick way to determine which APs are most important to colleges, for a student who is aiming for a “top” college: Look at the college web sites for information on the credit granted for the various AP courses. I suspect that you can find this information for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton online. I am not too sure about Stanford, MIT, or other schools, but it might be available there, too. Caltech does not recognize any AP classes.
This also lets you see about the score-to-credit relationship, which is different at different schools.
Where does UVA say this? https://admission.virginia.edu/highschool does not say this.
One college that does explicitly prefer more than 4 years of math and English is Cal Poly:
https://admissions.calpoly.edu/applicants/freshman/criteria.html
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=statsp
@sahmkc – that exactly describes my D18. She has an exceptional memory (got that from her mom) and that makes any class that’s based on memory incredibly easy for her. The downside, as you perfectly described, is that she was able to cut corners in early math yet was pushed into the +2 track for MS and HS. That made math a struggle. I was routinely shocked at the holes in her algebra fundamentals in 9th-11th grade. It wasn’t until 11th grade, when she was taking AB, that she finally got algebra straight in her head.
IMHO, the top/elite kids in HS should be doing independent project classes rather than AP classes. Their grades would be on the quality of their project’s idea and the execution. We want to encourage creativity. We want them to learn how to use their gifts, not grind through three levels of integration-by-parts over and over again.
https://oue.fas.harvard.edu/apexams
http://catalog.yale.edu/first-year-student-handbook/academic-information/acceleration/table-of-acceleration-credit/
https://www.princeton.edu/pub/ap/table/
https://registrar.stanford.edu/students/transfer-credit-and-advanced-placement/advanced-placement/ap-credit-chart
http://uaap.mit.edu/first-year-mit/first-year-academics/incomingcredit/previous-study/ap-and-transfer-credit-advanced-placement
Note that Harvard only lists credit units to graduation for those who want to take advanced standing in its table; subject credit and placement presumably require checking with the departments. The others list subject credit and placement. Note that Stanford is on the quarter system (three 10-week quarters per academic year, rather than two 15-week semesters per academic year).
The Harvard table suggests that Harvard considers only the following as covering the equivalent of a full year of college course material:
Art history
English literature*
European history
US history
Calculus BC**
Biology
Chemistry
Physics B (discontinued)
foreign languages* except Latin
Note, however, that these build on prior course work. For example, AP foreign language courses are usually taken after 3-4 years of previous high school foreign language or similar knowledge, so the AP foreign language course by itself may be more comparable to a one semester college course that is higher than the beginner course.
*The above note applies to calculus BC if it assumes that calculus AB has been taken already.
Quantmech makes a good point. At youngest D’s college, no credit is given for AP Comparative Govt. and Politics, for example. D was interested in the subject and enjoyed the homework, but a different student might have wanted to ditch it knowing that.
@droppedit Yes, especially for the ultra-bright. Our friend had a genius kid and he completely rebelled against HS & AP classes because the work was meaningless to him. He’s in college now and doing great, but he would have greatly benefited from freedom to study as you described. Oddly enough our district just started a new HS that is based on kids working independently. It’s a shame it wasn’t there for my friend’s son. It would have made his life and theirs so much better.
My DS is lucky because a lot of the AP’s offered are in social sciences/history and he loves those topics. They also apply to his chosen career field. He is not bored by them. A little light reading on our last trip was a 900 page book on WW1.
I don’t think anyone has suggested that taking the more “lightweight” APs helps in admissions. By all means, the ones taken should be mostly core academic.
But someone used Advanced Orchestra above as what to do instead. You really are missing the point. School based activities make you just like thousands of other applicants. Catnip to colleges is a kid who isn’t like everyone else (including everyone else from other high schools).
My DD’s all are on the AP wagon. We are in Texas so class rank is critical to get into UT, TAMU etc as well as for Scholarships. Top 10 students are not only taking 10+ AP’s but also taking non weighted classes as DC or summer to avoid having them bring down the GPA (100 pt scale 103+ to be top 10’s 104+ to be top5). WE do Alternating block schedule so 8 class periods total. 1st and 5th every day are primarily for Sports/Band/Career&technical. The other 3 periods are 90 minutes and every other day. DD18 has currently 6 classes all AP. Double block AP Calc AB/BC, AP Lit, AP Psych, AP Econ, AP Physics C. Same Second semester except Econ becomes AP Govt, and Psych changes as well. She had volleyball but dropped it once eliminated from playoffs (required to be in class by State to pay) as best grade is 100 and would drag down her GPA. Does not have to be in class for Track in the spring. Does she stay up late to study? absolutely, however this is usually due to binge watching Netflix or procrastinating on weekends. Honestly with Vball gone for 2-3 hours a day she has lots of time. On nights when she has no homework she stays up well past midnight most of the time.
Typical list of AP’s for top students includes: WHAP, APUSH, AP lang, AP LIt, Calc AB, Calc BC, Phys 1, Phys C x2 or AP Chem, Or AP Biology, then some combo of AP Govt, AP ART, AP Econ, APES, AP Stats. all help to fulfill core curriculum at any state University.
DD16 is now at UTD. She finds college to be significantly less volume of work than HS ever was. Only 5-6 classes at a time in stead of 7-8 and no EC sports to eat up 2-3 hours a day. Again work piles up but more due to procrastination than anything else. She does note that the level the teaching and information is much higher and she finds that makes it easier to stay interested not harder
UVA has a common data set answer that shows 5 years are recommended, @ucbalumnus
But I believe the number of kids taking AP classes in the last few years have gone up significantly.
The earlier quotes from elite colleges I listed were along the lines of wanting students to take rigorous and challenging classes, but making it explicitly clear than this doesn’t mean taking every possible AP/honors course. If your high school offers advanced classes, such as AP/IB, then of course it’s advantageous to take some of them. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s desirable to load up your schedule up with the maximum possible AP classes or the most AP classes wins. And of course the specific classes matter in high school, but not just for AP. While some AP classes are more rigorous than others, that is not the only relevant factor. It also depends on things like how the class fits with the rest of the application in a holistic sense, and whether it is a foundation/core class or elective. For example, if your kid is passionate about environmental science and hopes to pursue a related career, then taking AP Environmental Science becomes a lot more helpful. However, if your kid is passionate about writing and hopes to be an English major and novelist, then AP ES is not as relevant.
A good start to ending the rat race would be for the CB to eliminate the State AP Scholar award which is granted to one male and one female student in each U.S. state and the District of Columbia with scores of 3 or higher on the greatest number of AP Exams, and then the highest average score (at least 3.5) on all AP Exams taken.
Disclaimer: Anecdotal evidence and so not meant to be a blanket judgment for all high school AP classes.
In my humble opinion, AP class has sometimes become just a box to check on the kid’s educational resume. Case in point: my kid experience in math.
I had her take a summer Pre-calculus class in local CC while she was in 8th grade. She is good in math but expresses no interest in the subject. I asked her to take the class because it might help her to place in better math class in high school,
In this class there were mostly high school freshman. The teacher blasted through the subjects in light speed. She would sometimes cover one chapter in one day. Later on I checked the pre-calculus course schedule at our local public high school. For that chapter, an instructor will usually take 2 to 3 weeks to cover everything. Our summer school instructor finished that in 3 hours.
My daughter, which is very good in quickly grasping math concept, sometime went home dazed with all the new stuff thrown at her. And she was the best in class according to the instructor. Many kids in her class simply played games on their phones throughout the class.
Now here comes the kicker. Most of my daughter classmates said that they would take Calculus BC in their sophomore year since they fulfilled the pre-calculus requirement. My immediate question was of course how could they take a calculus class when they barely understand the pre-calculus stuff? What kind of math foundation are these kids building?
My research then leads me into investigating the scoring of AP Calculus:
https://magoosh.com/hs/ap-calculus/2017/good-ap-calculus-exam-score/
So to get a 5 out of Calculus BC, all you need is between 70 or above for a total of 108 raw score. A 4 is between 60 to 69. So getting a 64% or above will get you a 5. Getting 55% will get you a 4. At my daughter current high school, that means getting a D+ on an AP exam will get a 5 that will place one out of a college math class.
No wonder some elite schools don’t take some AP exams seriously.