S took several AP classes including APUSH and there were no creative projects or busy work at all. But I think a lot of that was his high school.
I’d never heard of the outlining business until CC. I asked my D, who took APUSH and is now taking world, if they ever had to write chapter outlines. She looked at me like I was nuts.
The only AP that either of my kids took that required a ‘project’ (which I considered busy work, not too much more advanced than the stuff she did in middle school), was AP Enviro. But then, I chalked it up to the fact that the Enviro curriculum is not very rigorous, since it really is just a subset of AP Bio, Thus, I just assumed the teachers added hands-on stuff in lieu of HW and outlining. (The text was like 1/4 the size of the AP Bio text, so it was easy reading.)
Um, my university-teaching self has done stuff like this. Of course, you have to be very careful when designing such assignments to make sure that they’ll support appropriate student learning outcomes. The superhero assignment seemed a bit fluffy, I’ll agree (though we don’t know all the details, and I’m not a historian so maybe it totally works within that field), but something that gets students to interact with course material in a creative manner that requires them to, say, grapple with competing theories underlying what they’re learning about? More worthwhile than Yet Another Term Paper, often.
6 AP courses very likely includes many which take a year to cover what a college course covers in a semester. So the total work including in class and out of class should be similar to 3 or perhaps 4 (if a heavy one or two like calculus BC is included) college courses. If the workload is significantly higher, then perhaps the high school is just adding work for work sake.
I am currently taking 6 dual enrollment courses while in my senior year and I find them even more beneficial than AP classes.
My kid went to a high school that did away with APs a long time ago, so I can’t comment on how they’re taught these days, but I do think a lot of busy-work could be a serious obstacle for smart students who don’t necessarily require a lot of hand-holding (mandatory note-taking, special projects, etc.) to master the material. Those may be very good things for the student who’s still learning to develop strong study habits or has some learning differences, but a kid like that might be better off only taking a few APs at a time anyhow. For someone capable of handling the rigor of college level coursework while in HS, I can see where those kinds of things could be problematic–causing a lot of unnecessary stress with no real added benefit in helping learn the material.
One new HS history teacher I had for regular European History did assign a “creative” type assignment where we had to draw up and color in a geographic map for which those of us who weren’t artistically inclined were temporarily dinged.
That is…until the vociferous protests from students to the social sciences department, denouncing the “fluffy assignment” from some old-school teachers, and a few calls from parents…especially alum parents forced the new teacher to back down and assign work more appropriate to the type and academic level of the course: exams with essay sections and a series of more serious research papers.
The type of “superhero” or “creative” type assignments would never have flown in most regular classes at my public magnet. No way would they have been approved for AP classes by most departmental chairs/senior teachers or moreso…the students who’d likely have felt their intelligence was being insulted by being given assignments they’d felt were more appropriate for kindergarten/elementary school students or Art class.
ucbalumnus: remember that in a rat race the winner will always be a rat.
I don’t know…I think college SHOULD be harder…maybe I am just adjusted to hectic schedule since we Koreans go to school at 8:30 am and come back at 3pm, then take private tutor, then go to extra lessons and come back 11pm…
I think we must differ in our understanding of the word “required”, @8bagels .
I think you must be aware that many of the most rigorous/selective high schools in the country, notably private ones, don’t offer AP courses at all and many of the poorest high schools also don’t. Some may offer IB, some believe their regular courses are more rigorous than APs. My own selective private HS didn’t offer them at all and my kids’ pretty competitive HS offers a handful but also offers (and weights) their own advanced non-AP courses which they feel are superior to the AP curriculum.
So AP courses are in no way a “requirement” at any college, including the most selective ones.
Now if you meant to say rigor is important, or that selective colleges want kids who challenge themselves academically, I’ll agree with that.
And note further that many (some? It seems like more and more) selective colleges won’t take AP courses/tests for credit anyway.
Even at high schools that DO offer lots of AP courses, I feel like kids probably are stressing over something they shouldn’t be, if stressing is taking more than 6 or so.
I think the major problem is that people think college admissions are like gravity - you let go of something and it drops. They think that if they check all of “the boxes” - lots of APs or IBs, high test scores, high grades, great ECs, they will get in to every college they apply to.
That is not true.
And it is also not true that everyone gets grades in HS that match their ability and performance.
What needs to happen is common sense. No, HYP cannot admit every person who gets above a 2300 SAT score. No, HYP can’t admit every student who has a 4.0 UW GPA. And yes, if you are targeting a very popular major at a very competitive college, you probably won’t get in.
Why is magical thinking so pervasive? Why do some people think that it is all about them, when it is really about them vs. the competition?
I teach college, and I have students say “what is an A in your class?” I tell them the university’s guidelines, and that my grading will not be worse than that. But they want numbers, and they want exact numbers. I had someone miss an A by 0.01%, and he complained and complained. I demonstrated to him that his grade was below the expected cutoff by several percent, and since I relaxed it, I had to use exact numbers. But he deserved an A. Even though there were others who got many more points than he did. It was MY fault that I didn’t give him an A. Just like applicants think it is the university’s fault that they didn’t get offered a spot, that there must have been some kind of mistake. As opposed to “we’ve got a bunch of overachievers already, let’s get some diversity”. There is not one top college that doesn’t realize that most outstanding ECs that include national and international work require money to train for and succeed in. That there are some people who won’t get in top schools even if people with lower records on paper do get in.
I do agree 100% that kids taking 6 to 8 AP classes per year are setting themselves up for failure. Tons of work, and dubious benefit. There are not enough hours in the day unless your parents are paying for the aforementioned tutoring and homework help, and you aren’t participating in ECs.
…and the “most rigorous” thing is a question for the GC and worth asking early on. I did, and ours responded that as long as a student went as far as they could in any one area, she’d check that box. She wasn’t waiting for all the possible APs to do it.
Not necessarily for all kids.
For a few kids such as several genuine genius type HS classmates, taking 6-8 APs was not only doable, but they were also able manage that with ECs, part-time weekend/afterschool work, hanging out with friends carefreely, and be done with all homework/assigned readings before 10-11 pm.
Granted, taking over 5 APs in a given year was considered such a heavy load for most students that my public magnet required the student and family to acknowledge in a signed formed contract that they acknowledged and understood the potentially heavy work implications of taking 6+ APs.
There was also no “changing one’s mind” by dropping the excess AP courses if the student concerned later finds he/she bit off more than he/she could chew. In short, the student unless the student declines to go through with taking the 6+ APs by not signing that contract…he/she’s expected to stick to the 6+ APs to the end once it is signed by him/her and his/her parents.
No need to be a “genius” for 6-8, particularly the six.
Many of our HS seniors routinely take 4 AP’s senior year, which is just the natural progression of the honors curriculum.
Calc (or Stats), Eng Lit, Gov (a civics-syle course is required for graduation), and then a science and/or Language.
And then Jr year: History and a science, and perhaps Stats (good double with PreCalc trig) or Art History (satisfies UC requirement for Fine Arts)
My D chose not to take the usual college bound path in high school. Due to the “Pre-AP” class requirements in her high school it made it very difficult to take AP courses until senior year. So she/we chose to go with a more exploratory route. She took Accounting, Forensic Science, Digital Photography, CAD, Ethics and Philosophy, Oceanography and a few Art classes. She did fit in 2 AP’s English and Calc BC and 4 college classes(with 12 credits) in 12th grade, is in the top 5% of her class 16/630 with a 4.0 uw GPA.
Overall the college application process makes us question her decisions on courses. The lack of APs makes her feel overlooked. Her Guidance Counselor flat out told her that she would not be able to “keep up” in a competitive college because her GPA was high only because of her not taking the AP courses. This is a student who never got below a 95 in any class she has taken from grade school through high school.
But I love her attitude, she says that she does not regret a thing. She learned so much about different fields of study. She discovered her likes and dislikes. To quote her “Mom, the college that accepts me is the college that wants me, and where I should be”.
What, @nynance49, you’ve actually allowed your daughter to explore interests organically? What a horrible disservice you’ve done to your child!
, because sometimes it isn’t as obvious as I think it is.
@mom2and, no your son was in school, not in class, for 7.5 hours. (Really? Our day is 7 hours and we have extra time so that we don’t have to make up most of the snow days). And during part of the time you are counting he was walking from class to class, which is time you aren’t counting for college students who walk a lot farther. And he was in lunch, which takes longer in college because you walk across campus to a dining hall and then you wait in a crowded serving line. High school kids can easily pack a sandwich and eat in 5 minutes or in class but college students are often on a meal plan which takes longer. My college classes were at least 4 hours because there were 3 hours lecture plus one hour discussion section. That’s 16-20 hours of class time. Hs classes are 30 hours class time. But if you play in a band, in hs that is a class, In college it’s not. And there are many other hs “classes” which are not classes in college. Most kids at our school will take some kind of arts class, in addition to the 2 years of PE–exercising also not a class in college usually, but another thing you do in that extra spare time. So I don’t think the difference is nearly as great as you make it out to be. Spend 5 hours per week exercising and another 5 with a music ensemble, gee, where did the time go?
@TheGFG, so far my kid has had one silly project this year and even that was not as bad as what you described, and it wasn’t an AP class, though it was an honors class.
Many of our honors students are taking 4-5 AP classes as upperclassmen and some take more. Yes, it should be do-able and they are not all sleep-deprived emotionally wrecked zombies and yes they do ECs, many at a very high level.
We need to be looking at the schools and the teachers and the families, not the colleges to solve these problems.
Here’s what my kid did. Write a 15 to 20 page paper on a topic of your choice using at least one original source material. He wrote about Gustavus Adolphus and found a memoir written by a Scottish soldier at the NY Public Library. Which one sounds more like college work?