<p>The post on taking a study hall/non-academic course vs. 6 APs really has me thinking. Where do these kids find the time to do everything they need to do? My D is an above average student, but far from HPY material. She hopes to get into our state flagship, which is very competitive itself, though. She's an underclassman now, and only takes 5 academic courses plus a study hall. Only one is an honors course (most of the APs aren't available until junior year). This semester she ran cross-country (JV) and played club soccer. She leaves for school before 7 am, doesn't get home from x-c practice until 6 pm, eats on the run and doesn't get home from club soccer until nearly 8 pm. Then she does homework and goes to bed. If she didn't have the study hall, I doubt she'd get her homework done and still get adequate sleep. And she's not even taking the strenuous course load of all honors/AP that a lot of CC kids take. She's at a competitive public school (92% of the kids go on to 4 year college and only 2% don't go to college) and the work load even for standard college prep courses is pretty heavy. So when do these kids find the time to do all the ECs they do, take 6 or more honors/AP courses, and still have time to spend with friends or just relax? I don't know if I should push my D to do more - back when I was in school you didn't need to, but it sure looks like times have changed.</p>
<p>I’ve asked myself that as well. My daughter’s a good student, but balance has always been a priority in our family. She does plenty of EC and works part-time (her idea). She has one free period as a senior (most of her classmates do as well – some have two). She makes good grades, gets her work done, does the outside activities and still has time to spend with friends. Maybe some people would think I’m rationalizing, but I think being about to balance all this is a pretty important life skill and will serve her better than having a joyless experience in high school in order to get into a bigger name college. She’ll get into a good school, do well, do whatever is appropriate regarding grad school whatever that may be, and then find her place in the world with the life she chooses. I’m not so worried that it needs to have an Ivy league pedigree at this next juncture.</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s a choice.</p>
<p>Taking more demanding courses might mean choose between cross country OR soccer. </p>
<p>And as far as I’m concerned, if you choose to do two sports at the same time (as many kids do - my son did fall soccer and marching band and that was PLENTY!), that IS your extra-curricular, relaxing time - in other words, hopefully at least one of the sports is for recreational purposes, not more stressors…</p>
<p>As you suspect, mdoc, going without sleep is what many of the high achiever kids do, at least on school nights.</p>
<p>Most are highly self-motivated. They dislike being in easier classes that bore them and are willing to do the extra work involved in honors and AP classes because the course material is more interesting, the students more motivated and the teacher more engaged. Because they work so hard in school they are not as intimidated by the juggling of school work with EC and employment commitments. They are also often quite competitive, motivated by the high performance of others to reach higher themselves. Finally, they are often pretty good at delayed gratification and aiming for long term goals, like the thought of going to a college full of kids more like themselves than their high schools have had.</p>
<p>They are also young and generally healthy and with few real responsibilities (like mortgages), so they have a lot more energy than their parents.</p>
<p>I would say sports ECs are sometimes very demanding in terms of both time and energy. One sport can be equivalent to 2-3 other decent ECs. So by choosing between cross-country or soccer your daughter will gain a lot of EC time. Plus, sport puts more serious requirements on sleeping time - sportsmen cannot perform on 4-5 hours of sleep. Again, by choosing between cross-country or soccer your daughter your daughter can probably go to bed an hour later.
As for courses - APs are more difficult, but it does not directly convert into more hours of homework. Kids get comparable number of pages to read, questions to answer and problems to solve in regular and AP classes, at least in math and sciences classes. Yes, homework is more difficult. But whether it will take more time depends upon how well the kid is prepared, how good his study skills are, even how smart he is.</p>
<p>Happykid (11th grade) is totally, but totally focused on technical theater/stage lighting. When a friend’s parent asked her “How do you do this?”, she looked that parent in the eye and said, “I take easy classes.” By this she means she has carefully avoided all academic AP courses and has taken on-level or Honors level classes instead. Her schedule this year includes an “internship” during 7th period where she gets some of the stage work done.</p>
<p>Over the years, Happykid and I have had plenty of opportunity to see how her friends in AP-heavy schedules have managed to balance or not balance their lives. I’m glad that she’s figured out on her own what will work for her. Some friends with heavy AP/IB loads successfully manage one sport/drama production per season, others manage with no big ECs, others manage unsuccessfully with no ECs, no sleep, and many tears. It all depends on the individual kid (or as Happykid puts it, “My friends are all prodigies.”). I found it really interesting this year when Happykid elected to take Forensic Science (a non-Honors, non-AP course) and was immediately joined by two of her AP-heavy pals who ditched Honors-Chemistry for the chance to try their hands at CSI.</p>
<p>One of the AP-heavy students told me this fall that she will discourage her younger sister from signing up for the special program that she is in. It wasn’t the workload so much (she’s one of the “prodigies”), as spending the vast majority of her day in classes with the same students. Other than orchestra, she hadn’t had a chance to meet many people outside her program until 11th grade. When she got into more electives this year, she was amazed to find out that she didn’t know anyone in some of her classes, unlike Happykid who has been in a mix of on-level and Honors from the get-go. The friend feels that she has missed out on some important aspects of the HS experience. If her sister doesn’t apply for the special program, she still can take as many AP courses as she wants (she will be locked out of only one evening class that is limited to students in that program), and won’t have to be locked into a particular set of coursework or any particular sequence.</p>
<p>I have to say I wondered this in HS, and now again, I find myself struggling with it in college. I seem to perennially have too many fires blazing. Does it ever slow down? Will I ever get to take some time to just chill out and <em>enjoy</em>? Every time I get a spare minute nowadays (rarely) I sleep.</p>
<p>I will add that a lot of it depends not only on the kids ability but on their personality. </p>
<p>As a Freshman in HS DD took three honors courses with theatre as her EC. The homework from the honors courses just killed her. An average night was anywhere from 2 to 5 hours in the books just prepping for the next day (she is a bit OCD and unconfident and felt that she needed to recheck everything to make sure it was correct). After that year we would not allow her to take more than 2 honors or AP courses a year through graduation. Which worked OK for her. (she graduated with a 94.5 average)</p>
<p>Now DS is in the same high school taking 4 honors courses as a Freshman with band as an EC. He is averaging about 45 minutes a night homework and had a 99 average after first term. He has a lot of confidence in his ability and doesn’t “over do” the HW, just knocks it out and learns from his mistakes if he misses anything on the HW. I am considering suggesting that he sign up for some additional college internet courses just to add a level of challenge that he has never experienced.</p>
<p>So with that said, there as sooo maaany factors that make up what someone can handle that you just need to look at each individual situation. I know that does not give you an answer to the original question, but, my belief is that there isn’t an answer. Judge what can be handled by the students abilities, habits and personality.</p>
<p>What also does help some kids with their schedule is their school’s schedule. My son’s school is on the block, meaning he has just four classes per day per semester. right now, he has two online AP classes that he takes during two of his four blocks. He also has another AP class that he takes during another block. Next semester, he has three APs again. He would be the first to admit that he can juggle better because of his schedule. He has friends at other schools who are not as lucky. One of his friends is on the A/B schedule and juggles 6 APs all year. So schedule does play a role in many things.</p>
<p>My D, a Junior, is one of these people taking a heavy AP load and being a three sport athlete. We realized this past year that something had to go, so she dropped club soccer after 9 years, which conflicted with all three varsity sports. She realized the level of commitment required to be on a competitive U-17 team was beyond what she wanted to do, both in terms of practices (3 times a week) and regional tournaments.</p>
<p>She is one of the most organized person I have ever met, especially for her age. She works ahead on homework, for example, will do all the AP History work for a week on the weekend it is assigned so she doesn’t need to deal with it during the week. She has limited ECs, chess, math club, etc., but primarily because at least in the Fall with soccer, it is difficult to go to the EC meetings which are right after school and before sports, and still get to the fields on time. Sports really are her main EC.</p>
<p>She has a social life, but not the one I had at her age when we actually had dates a couple nights a week. It is more group things. She does not seem unhappy with the choices she has made. And she is definitely focused on what college will bring, with the benefit of a brother 3 years older.</p>
<p>My S always took the maximum number of credits–more, some semesters when he was doing an independent study–graduated with 8 APs, including 3 lab sciences, and was a 3-season athlete, and studied an instrument outside of school and participated in the regional youth symphony and sometimes a string quartet as well.</p>
<p>He had at most 1 study hall period per week most of the time–because of the odd segment of time not consumed by labs–and that was often taken up with meeting with his teachers for the IS.</p>
<p>He never seemed to find this to be too much. I think the answer in his case was frankly that the academics just weren’t that hard for him. And he was content to have an A average rather than gunning for Val.</p>
<p>For a kid who needed to really study hard to maintain good grades, or who was absolutely determined to have straight As, it would be another matter altogether.</p>
<p>What I find amazing is that the child can schedule so many things without time conflict. My freshman was going to have to make a choice this fall between two EC’s. One which is her passion the other which is something she enjoys. They both required participation 5 afternoons a week at the same time period. There was no way she could do both. Unfortunately an injury has made the choice for her this fall but she will then have to make the decision again next fall.</p>
<p>Balanced choices and priorities. For our S, he knows his health and academics come before the ECs. Lately, he’s had to work hard to balance the ECs, since he’s winding out the water polo season at the same time that the mock trial season is ramping up. He knows he cannot balance time for an EC against needed academic and sleep time.</p>
<p>How kids balance just the academics, especially a full on schedule of AP/honors classes, is going to vary from student to student. In the case of my S, a lot of it had to do with choices and time put in before he hit HS. He was able to balance three AP classes as a sophomore because two of these (AP Spanish and AP Calculus BC) corresponded to his preliminary work. For Spanish, he was lucky to have attended a language immersion elementary school. For math, he has talent and has added focus and effort for a long time. Frankly, the students who “get it” more quickly in calculus spend significantly less time with homework. However, my S spent oodles of time with AP Euro History to scratch out a B+/A- for semester grades.</p>
<p>The same pattern is occuring his junior year. Lots of time with AP US History, relatively little with AP Physics C.</p>
<p>My D took 6 APs junior year (the only one at her large HS to do so) and still was a starter on the tennis team as well as the academic league. In the meantime she achieved her GS Gold award. In her senior year she also took all AP classes and was still a starter on the tennis and academic league teams. She managed fine and did well. I guess it’s all about time management and self-motivation regarding the courses and HW/studying. I do remember that when she also did track she had to end up deciding whether to continue doing track or do some other thing (can’t remember what) and she decided to drop the track at that point because time-wise she couldn’t have done both.</p>
<p>Are we assuming that an AP class takes more time than a regular class?</p>
<p>A 45 minutes class is a 45 minutes class. Those students who take AP because they are at that level of learning. For a student who is advanced enough to take AP but pick a regular class, I would like to think he/she will be super bored.</p>
<p>My principal once said he calculated how much time we spent in school, to show that we all complained too much. He flashed a patronizing little plaque that hung over his desk with a bold 14% emblazoned on it. I was so angry. First he didn’t account for the fact that everyone at the school who is a human sleeps, as well as extracurriculurs, and not to mention the 2-3 hours of homework we get each night. But he is kind of a jerk.</p>
<p>Also about AP classes, at least in my school, the gap is absurd. Yes, they all take the same in class time but as far as how deeply something challenges you intellectually and how much time you spend studying and doing homework the difference is in hours per days. (at least how my school is)</p>
<p>Dad II, I’m sure this varies by school, but at our children’s HS the AP classes meet more often. Over the course of the year an AP class takes more school day time than even an honors class. AP also means more homework than standard while eating into the free time in the daily schedule.</p>
<p>There is generally more homework in an AP class because more material is covered than in a standard high school class. The students are expected to learn more of the material outside the classroom, just like in a college class. For language classes this can include listening to recordings of native speakers and making recordings for the teacher to evaluate. For social studies, this extra work will include more reading and analysis of primary source material. In math and science AP classes this can mean studying advanced material, doing more challenging problem sets and tackling more complex lab work. Back in the dark ages, when I took AP Art History, it also meant spending a lot of time stopping in at the classroom outside of class to run the projector and review slides of furniture and decorative objects.</p>
<p>From my own experience and that of our children, AP classes will take more time per class for the high achieving student than the standard high school class takes for the average student. As I mentioned in my earlier post, some students are looking for this challenge, just like Michael Phelps submitted to grueling swim practices so he could become the fastest swimmer in the world.</p>
<p>Some kids have good time management skills, plus mine have been blessed with excellent memory, which shortens study time, and the ability to quickly grasp math and science concepts. My D had plenty of time for friends along with her heavy course load and practice or games every day for one sport season. Then she started up her other major EC after the sport was finished.</p>