At our high school, you have to take honors Bio and Chem before you can take any AP science course. The honors classes are also crazy hard. Most honors kids take Bio H freshman year and Chem H soph year and then AP Physics junior year. They save AP Bio or Chem for senior year. Only the faint of heart would take two AP science classes senior year- either AP Bio or Chem and then AP Physics C. AP Enviro is really not for the hard core science student at our school but kids do enjoy it.
160- That's the same as our high school. Freshman at our school who take AP usually take Human Geography and World History. The prerequisite is a certain score on the PSAT 8/9.
@Dad2020 I have heard that those are some of the courses that younger students take at other schools as well. Honestly, I donât understand the point though. Why would a 14-year old take a college level AP class? Why wouldnât it just be an honors class? Is it the college credit thing?
162. Her high school district has 5 high schools. I believe 3 of them had AP World History and two had AP Human Geography. This year it changed and now all teach both. At her school there were two classes of Human Geography and almost all kids were Freshman and Sophomores. She would of preferred World History. In her case she could of had a study hall instead. She's not into study hall. Lunch is long enough. There really isn't an honors class in social studies. There is regular history and geography. I think in some cases it is a college credit thing although its not the same as Calc BC credit.. For others like my daughter it was interest in the subject. I'm not going to lie she did get a 5 on the test and it will give her credit most likely in the future. She heard about the class from kids a year older.
I donât understand how limits on AP classes will lessen stress. Yes, those who canât handle 5 AP classes but can do 2 will be fine. But wonât those who canât do 2 AP classes, still feel the pressure to take more AP classes than they can handle? And personally, I suspect that those who can do 5 AP classes will find other ways to fill up their time that will end up causing stress.
How do high schools with such policies handle students who enter highly advanced in a subject like math or foreign language?
@homerdog @Dad2020 Our HS is the same. The most advanced science track is Bio H in grade 9, Chem H in grade 10. In grade 11 if you are taking Calc (very few are, you had to be tracked back in 6th grade to do this and itâs maybe 30 kids out of 370 or soâmust score in the 98th percentile on a standardized test they administer in grade 5) you can take AP Physics, otherwise you must take Physics H. My S took Physics H as a junior; as a senior he is taking AP Physics 1 and Calc BC. He is finding AP Physics very easy after taking Physics H. I worry that because of these strict rules he only has 1 AP Science on his HS transcript, although he has 2 AP math (Stats and Calc BC). He does have 2 engineering classes on his transcript too, but they are of course not APs (one is honors, the other college prep).
AP human geography is routinely offered as an honors social studies option to 9th grade students, and is less likely to be given subject credit by colleges. That indicates that it is not a particularly difficult AP course (and looking at released AP human geography exams indicates that it is not very difficult). I.e. it is really stretching it to suggest that the material is that of a college level course. However, it is good for 9th grade students to have an honors social studies option of this nature, which probably would not be offered in many high schools if it were not for the AP label.
EC madness causes plenty of stress to those who donât have the wise perspective of intparent regarding this topic. Kids are wracking their brains trying to come up with something fresh and interesting to do to impress colleges, and unfortunately are restricted by the fact that ambitious students who came before them have already founded more than enough clubs and have already taken on every conceivable initiative to improve the school, or at least all the ones the staff are willing to give credence to. A student really has to go outside of the high school box now, and even then, how many more nonprofits and community service programs do we need? How practical an out-of-the-box method is depends on the studentâs particular talents and interests, as well as available adult support.
My kids loved athletics and participated all 4 years, all three seasons and trained in summer too. This was necessary because for their particular sport the high school scene was where it was at. So their brand of talent limited how unique their EC profile could be. They were blessed to have found some other things to do as well that were slightly less commonplace. But when there are multiple kids in the family there are often financial, time and physical (e.g. one parent can only be in one place at a time) limits to what a student can do. For my youngest, also a 3 season athlete, we were far more successful in the intparent plan since the older 2 were already out of the house. Therefore I could give her more of my time, such as transporting her here and there outside the community to participate in her more unusual activities. This strategy really paid off for her, but was only feasible for us at this life stage.
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âAlso, taking precalculus in 8th grade is prodigy-level, not just being âgood in mathâ, since it is four grade levels advanced. A math prodigy who likes math would probably be able to handle 2x college speed or 4x high school speed, but such a course is probably inappropriate for almost all other middle and high school students.â
I would respectfully disagree that taking pre-calculus at 8th grade is prodigy level. I am no math major but have friends who are math professors. For an 8th grader, learning Lebesgue Integral or taking Harvard Math 55 or U of Chicago Honors Analysis sequence and doing well in those class will be prodigy level. Of course, pre-calculus is nowhere near that level of math sophistication.
Indeed it is not uncommon for many high school STEM concentration kids to have a math sequence like that:
Pre-Calculus -> AP BC Calculus -> Multi-Variable Calculus -> Linear Algebra or AP Stat
There is an arms race these days in building up a resume for college application. I am constantly astonished by how far advanced the kids in my daughterâs class are in STEM fields. I barely finished Algebra 1 before I got to college and I got into a lower Ivy ;). I was told in my days 60% of the freshman class at MIT did not take calculus while they were at high school. Nowadays I will be shocked there will be more than 10% of MIT freshman class who do not take any calculus in high school.
Agree with 85bears46. No man is an island. To some extent you have to adjust to the way the world actually is or else accept some limitations to your educational options.
Precalculus is normally taken in 12th grade for students on the normal math sequence.
There is no real reason to push an 8th grade student to take precalculus at quadruple speed in the summer when taking it in 9th grade will still leave her *three grade levels ahead/i.
According to https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2017/Program-Summary-Report-2017.pdf , out of the 132514 students who took the AP calculus BC exam in 2017, the grade level distribution was:
86360 (65%) in 12th grade
38485 (29%) in 11th grade
05026 (3.8%) in 10th grade
00513 (0.39%) in 9th grade
Of course, that needs to be put in context with the fact that about 3.56 million high school students graduate each year in the US. Students taking the AP calculus BC exam make up only about 3.7% of the total, or about 11% of the immediately college-bound, if we assume about a third are college-bound to bachelorâs degree programs. So the students on the sequence you give (taking AP calculus BC in 10th grade or earlier) are extreme outliers, at 0.15% of the total high school population, or about 0.46% of those immediately going to college for bachelorâs degrees.
Our public HS has kids take AP Human Geo in 9th grade (D18 didnât) and then one or two APs sophomore year (D18 took AP Bio). I believe you have to get approval from your Honors teacher to get into AP Bio, Chem, and AB/BC. There are exceptions. One kid on D18âs biotech team is a sophomore. He took AB/BC in 9th grade and is taking GaTech MV Calc in 10th grade. Youâd expect someone like that to be a weird âgeniusâ type but heâs a fun, smiley kid. Everyone loves him.
I would say that different kids are stressed out by different things. Ideally, schools would adapt the availability of AP courses to fit the needs of students, and students wouldnât be stressed about not taking courses that arenât appropriate for them at that time. (But, we donât live in the best of all possible worldsâŠ)
My other general comment is that many schools make AP courses much more difficult in terms of workload than they need to be in order to get a reasonable distribution of scores. They appear to do this in order to get all their students to score 4s and 5s. The AP course workload at our HS is lower than I see reported here on CCâprobably because the school is happy with a score distribution a bit better than the national average.
In my sonâs case, he found 7th and 8th grades his most stressful years because of the lack of challenge, despite being in Algebra I and Geometry and âhonorsâ classes in other subjects. Those were the âWhy do I even bother going to school?â years. I didnât want to let him get too far ahead in math, so I instead let him take programming classes through Art of Problem Solving (AoPS), which led to him taking the AP CS test in 8th grade.
It would have driven him to homeschooling if he hadnât been able to take AP or dual-enrollment classes in 9th and 10th. I was thankful that his high school lets kids take the AP sciences without a prior regular class. For example, he talked to the AP Chem teacher about taking the class in 10th, and the only prep the teacher suggested he do was reading Chapters 1-5 of an old textbook without doing any problems.
He took AP Physics B (discontinued now) in 9th. Then in 10th he took AP Calc BC and AP Chemistry. Taking Calc in 10th was not my plan, but he knew people who skipped Precalc by testing out. I at least insisted that he do most of the AoPS precalc textbook and show me he was ready by getting a good score on the SAT II Math II test.
He ended up taking 14 AP tests plus 11 classes at local colleges. (None of these were âAP Liteâ unless you want to include the Econ classes and US Govât in that category.) A few of his classes were stressful as far as workload or getting the grades he wanted, but not too stressful. In my experience, itâs important to learn how to study in HS, so that you donât âhit the wallâ when you encounter the first challenging college course.
The courses he took were about him wanting to learn new things and be in an appropriate learning environment. In the end, he didnât get any college credit for the APs and DE, since he is attending a college that doesnât accept AP or other college credit. (Though Iâm sure his APs and college courses helped with admissions, and his college courses have given him insight into some advanced topics.)
I also attended Stanford. Among the students I knew in my dorm, nearly everyoneâs highest HS math was calculus. I was the only person I knew in my dorm who went beyond. However, the SLE dorm was a different story. There was one kid who was taking graduate level math as a freshman in college. My impression was taking calculus in HS was the norm, and there was a small minority who had taken less or more. The current Harvard freshman survey is largely consistent with this view. The vast majority say their highest level math course was calculus (a good portion say AB and a good portion say BC), a small minority say in they took multi-variable calculus or linear algebra, and very few say anything else.
Stanford, like most elites, has a wide variety of math sequences and starting points to support students who want to start at whatever math level theyâd like. Quite a few students do choose to start at calc 1, particularly pre-med students. And quite a few students choose to place out and start at multi-variable calc. It is straightforward to finish any major in 4 years without placing out. Instead itâs more than placing out gives you more flexibility and extra time for other alternatives. For example, I started with the max of 45 credits (one year), so I was able to finish a masterâs and bachelorâs in slightly under 4 years on campus.
SoâŠthis thread was started with a link to an article about the ridiculous amount of stress and resulting mental health issues for teens. What I have just read on the last few pages is a few whack job parents who ARE the problem.
Iâd highly suggest that some of you actually read the article.
Holy lord. Iâm almost 50 and havenât done that much in my years combined.
"soâŠthis thread was started with a link to an article about the ridiculous amount of stress and resulting mental health issues for teens. What I have just read on the last few pages is a few whack job parents who ARE the problem.
Iâd highly suggest that some of you actually read the article."
lol, I was going to post the same thing, this is become a brag thread and whether or not differential equations or linear algebra is an advantage for college admissions. Exactly the opposite messages we should be trying to convey.
How do we reduce the stress on these kids, put on them by parents, peers, society etc? We have to get across the idea that where you go undergrad has little correlation with how do you in the US. Then if highly selective schools is not the main goal but fit is, the need to have 10 APs dwindles. Less APs, a lot less stress. Take them as jrs and srs, enjoy frosh and soph years. Take only a handful that youâre interested in. In California public schools you really canât get into heavy APs till jr year, so thatâs actually a good start. Ninth grade in our district, no honors at all unless you take Pre-calc honors. Tenth grade, you can take science honors, AP CS, but no literature or social studies honors.
My mom is a long time AP teacher and told me no more than 2 junior and, if they handle it well, then up to 3 senior. She has felt devastated for the many kids who are emotional wrecks because of the stress trying to take ridiculous loads of AP classes.
Havenât read through the whole thread but part of the issue is the rabid obsession of many kids (and tons of parents) that they are advanced, gifted, etc. The reality is many that are incapable of succeeding while taking 2 or 3 AP classes simultaneously just to gain admission into top schools will not have the skills or ability to succeed at those same schools. So far, and thank goodness, AP classes havenât watered down to accommodate the lesser student. Hopefully they never do as they stand for ADVANCED placement, not average.
This obsession is causing the stress. much of it is self imposed. Itâs a shame because kids should be aloud to have fun. They have their whole life to worry about the rest of it.