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<p>If one attends a high school that offers a lot of “AP lite” courses (e.g. human geography, environmental science, psychology), especially to freshmen and sophomores, then it should not be too hard to run up the AP count. And if they “un-lite” some of them by making them into semester-long courses, then a student can run up the AP count even more.</p>
<p>^ The schools I mentioned did not have those AP lite courses.</p>
<p>My D took AP Psychology from CTY online for her interest because the school did not offer. The school did not count any classes taken outside for GPA.</p>
<p>You don’t have to take an AP class in order to take the exam, so students could self study or take a summer course in the subject matter as prep for an exam - one way to drive up the AP count beyond what the school offers</p>
<p>Yes I know that you can self study- thanks. I was under the impression that they took all those actual classes during 4 years of HS and I was wondering about the scheduling. Self studying makes sense.</p>
<p>My S took 12 APs, and self studied two not offered by his HS. It was not a big deal for him, and he much preferred AP classes to regular classes - liked the set curriculum and liked being able to go ahead in the coursework. He spent almost no time studying for the actual AP exams other than a quick review the night before for a couple of them because he felt that he had mastered the material by that point. He also took math at a nearby college (extremely lucky that this is one of the top schools in the US), which was great because he found his HS math not challenging at all. </p>
<p>He ended up as his school’s val - we called him the “accidental val” because he never set it as a goal and never cared. His school weighted honors and APs, and no one in his class was close in rigor, even though he probably didn’t have the highest grades. His class also voted him “most likely to succeed.” He knew by early senior year, and his first reaction was that he didn’t want to give a speech - seemed to be kind of dreading it. His dad and I were excited, which started to rub off, and by the time graduation rolled around, S seemed to be enjoying all of the hoopla. He did a wonderful job with his speech, and it seemed to me that really nailing it was a little “gift” he gave us for supporting him all those years.</p>
<p>Is it common to take so many AP classes? My daughter attends a top HS that sends kids every year to top colleges. Just this year two got into Harvard ( no hooks). I know many of these kids and none of them take so many APs. Some do full IB while others take maybe 10 AP classes. These are VERY smart kids.</p>
<p>It depends on each school in each neighborhood.</p>
<p>In order to have more AP classes, the school must have a large student population. Each HS in my area has more than 2000 students.</p>
<p>Above average public schools with large number of students in high income neighborhoods have more AP classes.
Public schools in low income areas don’t have many AP classes.</p>
<p>It also depends on the curriculum of each school. Many schools, especially top private boarding schools have strong curriculum but don’t have any AP class.</p>
<p>If a school has full IB program then it probably has less AP classes.</p>
<p>We live in a wealthy area with two high schools. Each high school has 1600 students. Each school offers the full IB diploma program plus a full AP program. The majority of kids take AP. There is also a university in the high school program from schools such as SUNY Albany and Syracuse, and the option of attending a community college while in high school. While some kids self study for an extra class or two, the vast majority do not.</p>
<p>That explains why kids in your area take at most 10 APs. Half of class is in IB, half is in AP. So there is no strong demand in AP. The school cannot has a class with few students. Furthermore, students have schedule conflict. They cannot take all the classes they want if they don’t have open schedule. Many AP classes in my kids’ school are offered in 2 or 3 periods during the day and are taught by more than one teacher. This gives the kids lots of choices.</p>
<p>Most students in our school take AP. Last June there were 25 IB candidates graduating- that was the biggest number ever. This year there are 15 and next year there will be about 15.</p>
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<p>In our area, HS offers 30 AP classes. Psych, Microecon, Macroecon and Gov are semester courses while Bio and Chem are 2-period classes. It is attainable for students to graduate with 8-12 APs. Class ranks are based on weighted gpa with AP classes given the highest weight. To be competitive and RACE to the top 1 or 2 percent of graduating class, the AP schedule can be as such for an example:</p>
<p>9th: Human Geo
10th: WHAP, Euro, Stat
11th: Eng3, APUSH, Calc, Comp Sci or Bio or Chem, Psych, Foreign Lan
12th: 5 class periods (minimum requirement for seniors who take at least 3 APs): Eng4, Econ, Gov, Phy, Bio or Chem
6-7 class periods: Add 1 or 2 APs of student’s choice</p>
<p>This will give a total of 16-17 APs without any self-study courses.</p>
<p>It is very interesting to see how different schools operate. In our school AP and IB are weighted the same.</p>
<p>Some are talking rank. To the colleges, taking a string of classes just because they are AP does not always make sense.</p>
<p>Somehow I feel taking more than 4 APs in a year (even for juniors and seniors who are older) is too much. I wonder those of you who took 5 - 7 APs in a year, did you do well in the national exam? Were you able to have some social life and good ECs and leadership experiences?</p>
<p>I agree with Maxwell. I just do not see the point.</p>
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<p>then you would want nothing to do with the IB program… 4 APs is not THAT many.</p>
<p>My daughter will be in IB in Sept. and the kids are not permitted to take more than 4 HL classes because the the workload is way too much.</p>
<p>My kid’s school district does their class ranking based on core classes and not electives … which is a great thing because it allows my kids to take some exploratory (i.e. engineering or business) or fun (i.e. music or PE) classes.</p>
<p>You have to balance being strategic in the classes you choose with trying to let kids explore their interests. If the kid really chooses to focus on being as highly ranked as possible then you need to keep that in mind from the very beginning. In fact, my youngest has high school grades from taking HS Honors Math in 7th and 8th grade … those grades are on her transcript and count toward her Ranking GPA. If she didn’t take those classes seriously then it could have hurt her if she decided to be a top-ranked kid in HS. </p>
<p>It’s tough being a parent and guiding them through this process but it’s tough on the kid too.</p>
<p>In most California upper-middle class public HS w/ big student population, you don’t have a choice but to maximize your GPA. UCs rank the graduates w/in the context of the school. In my daughter’s school 10-12 APs is the norm for the top students. A grade of B in a weighted class or an A in a non-weighted class would make a lot of difference in terms of ranking. It would mean being top 10 or top 50. If you’re applying to UCLA or Berkeley, being a top 10 probably makes you a stronger candidate than a top 50 kid. Cal and UCLA would not likely admit more than 30 kids in one single school. So your goal is to be maybe at least top 20 to be competitive.</p>
<p>In our area if you want your kid to be Val, you need to plan it in 6th grade. Make sure to place the kid to an Algebra on 7th grade (they have a placement test at the end of 6th grade). Then they take Geometry as an 8th grader, Algebra II as 9th grader, Honors Pre-Calc/Trigo as Sophomore, then AP Calc AB/BC as a junior then maybe AP Stat or Multi-Variable as Senior. Some kids that don’t make the cut to take Algebra as a 7th grader, they go to a community college or online and take Geometry or Algebra II so that they can catch up.</p>
<p>Most of the top kids also take their Foreign Language in Middle School and/or they take it online so that they can take more AP or other Honor/weighted classes to bump their GPA. Some even take their Visual Performing Arts requirements online or community college during summer.</p>
<p>Just to give you an idea, my daughter is a junior right now, and her school currently has only one #1, but there are 20 #2’s and 30 #3’s. So the kid with an straight A but taken probably only 4 AP classes so far would be out of the top 50.</p>
<p>My son was tied for number one throughout his high school career until he got an A minus first semester senior year. He thought it was no big deal and that he would just bring the grade up and graduate as co-Valedictorian. He did, in fact, bring up the grade and now has a higher GPA than the boy he was tied with. A couple of days ago my son found out that he is actually going to be Salutatorian because his high school stops calculating rank as of first semester. This was news to us. It is nowhere in writing. It this a common way of capping rank at other high schools? His gc told him that it has historically been done this way.</p>