<p>Xiggi, you're so right. But if the number of APs is limited, see the number of college courses soar (MIT is hinting broadly that way already).</p>
<p>Our son took one study hall every year in high school and was accepted at highly competitive schools. Obviously, he took APs, but not 5 or six at one time.</p>
<p>xiggi makes a great point (as always). </p>
<p>IFF MIT (and the other highly selective schools) really wants us to believe that it only requires A's in college prep courses (not honors, no AP/IB) for admittance, then they could easily post those stats, in the adcom's letter, something like: </p>
<p>Indeed, of the xx students accepted last year to our world-class institution, exactly yy students had zero AP's and zero college courses (yeah, right), zz students had less than 5 AP's, and, more importantly, we accepted aa and bb number of kids without an AP test in Chem nor Physics; also, don't co-mingle stats with apps to Sloan. But, they don't so publish such stats, because, I believe, the stats don't support their public position.</p>
<p>fwiw: I self-studied Italian years ago. LOL</p>
<p>I'm really not sure what is best route. Hypothetically, student could have taken a lame AP vs. another year of Latin or band/music. The AP course would keep GPA high, and the other classes wouldn't. Is it better to graduate #1 or 2, or take the classes that most interest one?</p>
<p>Bookworm:</p>
<p>It's actually not a matter of getting a higher GPA or higher rank. For example, our school does not weight grades, so taking more APs would not boost one's GPA or rank--and could even result in lower GPA since presumably APs are harder than non-AP courses. But more APs on a transcript look more impressive to adcoms.
Would taking AP-Biology trump another year of Latin or music? It's hard to know. If the students is passionate about music, a case can indeed be made for the student to take music instead of AP-Bio. Another year of Latin by senior year will likely take the student to AP level, so this is not a good case to make.
As I've said before, my older S did not take any AP in math and science but got admitted into some top ten LACs. It was clear from his application that he was a prospective humanities major, so his lack of APs in those fields must have been considered accordingly. Additionally, the LACs he was applying to limited the number of credits they gave for APs, so perhaps they could not be seen to expect students to have umpteen APs without looking hypocritical.</p>
<p>Marite
I guess my example wasn't so clear. I was thinking AP psych, not a science, and a 2nd language that isn't given AP credit (for GPA standards) and an interest in sticking with jazz or marching band, not a passion. I've seen kids postpone gym until 12th grade so that the regular class grade doesn't hinder GPA.
I am talkng theoretically, but in our very large HS, each grade weighted. As a parent, one can support a child to be himself & pursue his interests at cost to class rank. Other children pursue the highest GPA possible. I would like to think that colleges think all these factors through, but I don't know. I'd expect more time given to an application in a LAC or smaller college.</p>
<p>Xiggi
My S is one of those who is now taking the first offering of the Italian AP.Why is this an unacceptable reward to you as opposed to a student being able to take Spanish AP or FrenchAP? He has diligently taken Italian every year(not a native speaker nor a home spoken language),Honors where available.He's a member of his schools Italian Honor Society and participates in a countywide Italian language poetry contest and district wide Foreign language festival..He chose Italian as his language back when GC's and other parents were saying his senior weighted GPA would be "hurt" b/c no AP would be available.So why not the reward now of a new AP in Italian?
I would imagine any parent or child who has devoted time to Japanese would feel the same.
Perhaps I am not understanding your point properly?</p>
<p>Bookworm:</p>
<p>At LACs, I would say that pursuing an interest is given due weight by adcoms. It does not have to be a "passion" or show achievement at state or national level. But the course selected in lieu of the "more challenging" AP class should be connected with the student's interest. Eg, a student wanting to major in international relations could take a senior class in "Conflict in the Modern World" if such a class were given, instead of AP-Physics, for example. Also, bear in mind that some APs are considered lite, so they are easily replaceable. AP-Psych is one such course. But please remember that I'm arguing from the experience of my Ss' school which does not weight grades.</p>
<p>Some thoughts:</p>
<p>(1) The straightforward possibility:
Some high-achieving schools in high-rent areas like Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Saratoga -- areas quite familiar to Stanford, but that would include other areas of the State & country as well -- have AP offerings in almost every h.s. subject. (Xiggi is not far off, although, like cathymee, I would welcome a solid Italian sequence leading to AP, & 2 private schools I know of offer a great Japanese language program.)</p>
<p>The result of this is that it is not uncommon for students at such h.schools to be taking "all AP's." (If P.E. does not appear on a student's transcript, they could be substituting a varsity sport or some other alternate, or could have fulfilled a PE requirement.) Some of these students make the workaholics in Silicon Valley look like slackers. Our private h.s. would not be able to offer "all AP's," since the student body is so much smaller, thus there is sometimes not enough of a quota for an actual AP class in every subject. But large, well-funded schools can sometimes do this. Stanford Admissions may be trying to inject some sanity into this mania -- with a simultaneous eye to the view that quantity does not equal quality. "Most rigorous" could be a program comprised of 2 very tough AP courses + 2 Honors courses in continued subjects + 1 independent study h.s. subject closely mentored by a teacher + 2 comm. college courses -- versus 7 h.s. AP subjects, depending on the difficulty of the subjects & the classroom performance demanded of the student (not just the exam results).</p>
<p>Example: a local private h.s. offers cutting-edge trimester specialized courses in literature, history, language (including linguistics) & science that are the kinds of in-depth and seminar formats normally offered only in college. They are not AP by title but are wonderful & unusual opportunities for any h.s. student. And since there is no exam format to "teach to," you bet they may very well be the "most rigorous" courses in that school. Were I on an admissions committee, a student who took advantage of such offerings would catch my attention.</p>
<p>(2) More cynical possibility:
Stanford admissions, like other U's and colleges, may be overwhelmed by the difficulty of comparing one over-the-top achiever to another, & may be begging the public to make their jobs simpler.</p>
<p>I do not believe in quotas on the positive or negative scale. It depends on the student; it depends on the subject(s) offered. Like mootmom's S, my D would have been bored with a courseload of very few AP's, but she was selective, & I monitored her happiness quotient relative to her program. In Jr. Yr. she took 5 AP's; she was happy with that, quite fulfilled & stimulated, & soared intellectually as a result. In Sr. Yr. she wanted to take 5 AP's again. Two of the courses were so demanding on her time -- given simultaneous need to produce excellent college apps/essays -- that she was melting down with a load of 5. Within the first 2 weeks of classes, she ceased to be a human being within the family, so I drew the line & told her I wanted my daughter back. She agreed & dropped one class, & life returned to normal. She graduated with 10 AP's (one was soph. yr.); for <em>her</em> that was appropriate.</p>
<p>"Xiggi<br>
My S is one of those who is now taking the first offering of the Italian AP.Why is this an unacceptable reward to you as opposed to a student being able to take Spanish AP or FrenchAP? ../...Perhaps I am not understanding your point properly?"</p>
<p>It is easy to understand why parents of students who will take the new AP could disagree. However, my comment has to viewed in the context of the title of the thread that discusses having the most AP. At this time, there are 34 AP. The issues is that ETS/TCB do not seem to REDUCE the number of APs, and not limit the number of possible courses. </p>
<p>The discussion about "rewarding" pertains to colleges advocating less taxing schedules, yet rewarding students who visibly pile up the AP. It does not pit one AP against another. </p>
<p>You mentioned that your son selected Italian despite the absence of an AP Italian. Would his life have been different if the AP Italian remained another 5 years in development? I believe that the absence of the AP does NOT preclude ANY college that offers Italian to properly evaluate his mastery and offer credit or placement. And this is exactly what I believe is a better alternative. The College KNOWS the level of its instruction much better than ETS, and accordingly can correctly reward your son for his efforts through HS. </p>
<p>There is also an easy parallel: about 500 students present the SAT Subject Test for Italian, compared to more than 200,000 who present the Math SAT Subject Test. This brings us to the issue of cost. It is fair to assume that the cost of developing, offering, and grading a test has to be averaged for the number of test takers. However, the costs of each test is similar. This means that newer tests are being subsidized by the more popular ones ... or more than probably cause an increase of ALL tests.</p>
<p>Again, if the AP objective is to provide correct placement in college, the absence of this new AP should not have a negative impact on your son's college carrer, if he selected Italian. As far as the GPA boost, many schools do not weigh grades. </p>
<p>Among all the programs offered by TCB/ETS, it is a given that there are numerous that are prone to exploitation, mostly in the SAT Subjects Tests. While some foreign languages tests are really hard, others are testing a elementary school levels. Since these tests are mostly taken by native speakers, we end up with an incredibly distorted result, which is a far cry from the objective of testing what is TAUGHT at a high school. The fact that a large multinational corporation offered 500,000 to TCB in exchange for a SAT Korean test must have had a direct impact on the admissions at the UC system in California. </p>
<p>I am afraid that the addition of new tests does not exactly benefit the majority of students in the United States, but contributes to a larger distortion of the pool of college applicants.</p>
<p>Ziggi
And yet, not having the abilty to take an AP in Italian this year would have prevented my S from continuing on, by choice, with his chosen language.There was no alternative italian 5 level offered.If he had chosen to continue with language he would have needed to started again with say,Spanish1. His school district does not allow the alternative of college courses off the premises, they enforce a 9 period day with 6 "majors", plus Phys Ed (NY State requirement)every year.If he chose no language he would have had to substitute "filler" of some kind,which he has no interest in doing.
Are you defending the continuation of the existing tests or are they subject to your same scrutiny?
And to answer the question of a college testing language ability on their own,there are some colleges where Italian is not offered.Presenting the AP score will allow him to test out of a language requirement there.They would not offer him an equivalent in house test.So yes, taking the AP may impact his life (in your words),or at least impact his need for Gen Ed requirments..
Lets put it another way, Im assuming you took loads of AP's in subjects you were interested in or good at.Would you have been upset say, if there wasn't a Physics B test available (Im sure thats a small cohort of test takers) or one of the computer Science tests,or Latin?
By the way,just curious, if you are truly a full time college freshman, how do you have so much time, at all times of day and night, to spend here on CC?Just curious about how you fit it all in....</p>
<p>The head of Stanford Admissions (same guy who wrote the letter in the link above) was quoted in the college admissions issue of the Atlantic Monthly as saying that the average number of APs taken by those admitted to Stanford was FOUR. Not 20, not 10, FOUR.</p>
<p>Carolyn:</p>
<p>I'd be curious how many college courses both those who took 4 APs and those who took either fewer or more also took. For instance, my S took only 5 APs (counting the two he took in middle school), but he also took 9 college classes. That has to have an effect on adcoms (and it surely did on the Stanford adcom).</p>
<p>It depends on the high school. No one takes college classes at our high school - it is not possible due to location and scheduling (unless they do it on their own in the summer or at night, but I have never heard of it.) The students taking the "most rigorous curriculum" within the standard scheduling of our school end up with 9 APs, 1 in 10th (AP European History), 3 in 11th (AP US History, AP English Composition, AP Bio or Computer Science), and 5 in 12th (AP English Literature, AP US Politics, AP Psychology, AP Calc AB (highest math offered in our school), and AP Physics. Every year, several students do this with no problem. Our high school does not offer AP foreign language, chemistry, or Calc BC. Other high schools, especially private ones, may offer rigorous courses not labelled AP, and their top students may end up with less APs. That may be why Stanford's average number seems relatively low.</p>
<p>MotherofTwo:</p>
<p>If I understand correctly, students in your hs school can take 9 APs, which is way more than the Stanford average. I do know of some schools that do not offer AP courses but whose students take AP exams. They tend to be known to adcoms who have a good feel for the rigor of their curriculum and their students' success in the AP exams. They should not be instanced to suggest that students don't need APs in order to get into Stanford (or HYPM); nor should schools that offer IB instead of APs.<br>
What I am trying to suggest is that by going by APs alone, it is easy to distort what adcoms look for in an applicant's transcript.
I am just trying to suggest that the 4 or fewer APs on some students' transcript may not tell the whole story about the curriculum they followed or the academic achievements they garnered. I am not trying to scare off anybody, just reminding us that adcoms talk from both sides of their mouths (read again the excerpt from the MIT website).</p>
<p>Gee, maybe I'm stupid, but I don't think the Adcom's are talking out of both sides of their mouths. My kids HS offered a limited number of AP's (none of the "lite" ones like psych or environmental); the kids bound for the top schools typically end up with 4 (5 would be extreme) and only seniors are allowed to take AP's. Most kids get 4's and 5's on the tests.</p>
<p>Kids end up making tough choices; you just can't take both AP Physics and AP Chem, for example. A few hardy souls take both AP exams in May after self-studying for one or the other; they do fine since the regular college prep chem is reasonably rigorous (conceptually.... obviously the kids need to do some self-study in order to take the test.)</p>
<p>No evidence from the admissions results of the last 5 years that this hurts the kids. Therefore, I believe admissions officers when they say that 9 AP's could be excessive, and isn't neccessarily something to strive for, or something that boosts your chances of admissions. If your kids attend a school where the curriculum is so watered-down, (and the Adcoms know it,) that you need the AP designation to signify "this was a real course", how about blaming your school system and not the Adcom's? </p>
<p>I think the culprit in the "arms race" is the rotten state of our educational system. The adcoms just react to what they see.... they can't be charged with K-12 curricular reform at the same time that they're trying to manage a university.</p>
<p>carolyn, I'm not sure the point you were making, or trying to make regarding the AP count, shall we say. Who on this thread claimed a particular average # of AP classes for Stanford admits? (Your statement read as some kind of a challenge or refutation.)</p>
<p>However, while we're on the subject, I find it convenient that Stanford doesn't seem to list any number, or even a range, in their Common Data Set, unless I missed that. (Scanned it quickly.) They make vague references to the sacred Most Rigorous Courses, & they encourage "many" AP classes, but stop there.</p>
<p>1.5 yrs ago, UCLA's typical freshman admit had about 10 AP's on the transcript. I did not make that up. That was on the UCLA website at the time. Admissions several months ago were the most selective in UCLA's recorded history -- implying a similar tally. One would have to assume a similar profile for Berkeley admits, at least for those students with those kinds of opportunities.</p>
<p>So let me get this straight: The two flagship campuses in the UC system are considerably more demanding of their applicants than Stanford?</p>
<p>O.K. And my name is Queen Elizabeth.</p>
<p>Sorry, I don't buy it unless the stats are posted. Mr. Admissions is free to campaign against AP's all he wants. As I said in a post above, non-AP but unusual courses can be as, & more, challenging than certain AP's -- particularly if the AP's are only taught to the test and/or no separate in-class challenges are presented. Other people here have commented similarly. My D took a class in sr. year that was as demanding as an upper-division college seminar, but had no AP in front of the title. She probably put more work into that, & got more out of it, than even her favorite AP course! It was all original sourcework & required scholarly presentations by the students.</p>
<p>Or, as marite has said, maybe the average is 4, unmodified by the # of college credit classes. I mean, 6 college classes + 4 AP h.s. classes is pretty impressive. There are some outstanding community colleges in the Stanford area. At least, I definitely agree with marite that adcoms talk out of both sides of their mouths. Perhaps all this person is really saying is that Stanford is beginning to look at "rigor" in a diff. light or by a diff. standard. There's nothing wrong with that: it would just be more believable to publish actual #'s, that's all. Plenty of other colleges do so. (ie., publish AP's taken & college credits earned, etc., of their freshman admits.)</p>
<p>Blossom:</p>
<p>You are not contradicting me. IF a class is known (by the adcom) to be as or more rigorous than an AP class, then that counts. Expecting APs is a handy way of saying "take the most rigorous class available to high schoolers." In some schools, it will be IB rather than APs. Quite often, the rigor of these non-AP classes is validated by the performance of the kids on the AP-exam (as you noted yourself). There's no point taking an AP class and bombing the AP-exam: it would just suggest that the class was mislabelled.
The fact is that adcoms know about Scarsdale High School (which dropped APs), about Boston University Academy (which never adopted APs); they don't know how to evaluate a kid from Podunk high. So the kid from Podunk High is better off taking as many APs as s/he can; or taking a mix of APs and college courses. in CA, dual enrollment is widespread and practically expected by Cal and UCLA. Our high school also offers a limited range of APs, but there is a well-worn path to the Harvard Extension School.</p>
<p>Maybe the Stanford Adcom was talking about APs at the time of application - which would conceivably exclude senior year.
No one at my kid's HS would get into a university as selective as
Stanford without taking "the most rigorous courses", which would mean 4 APs (at least) by the end of junior year, but it also means 8 or 9 by the end of senior year. The (few) kids that get in have this schedule - no doubt about it.</p>
<p>carolyn:</p>
<p>think back to your stats class in B-school. Averages (aka the mean), can be deceiving. Take out all the hooked candidates (Div 1 athletes, like Tiger Woods, legacy, development, etc., and then calc the "average." It is bound to me more than four.</p>
<p>As marite rightly notes, the # of AP's ignores college classes. And, since 40-50% of the Stanford class is Californians, taking classes at the jc is relatively easy (particularly academically, as well as logistically, and free. Moreoever, several high schools that I know of do not offer AP Calc -- instead, they offer a dual enrollment class for Calc under the direction of the neighboring Cal State school (it's great economics for the HS since Cal State pays the teacher's salary). Thus, seniors don't take AP Calc -- instead, they receive a Cal State transcript but never leave their HS campus. The Stanford matriculant from our HS last year had both jc classes and dual enrollment Calc on his transcript -- "fewer" APs than other graduating seniors -- it was four.</p>
<p>btw: did the article make clear whether those were AP 'classes' or AP 'tests' of the Stanford matriculants (many seniors get "itis" and skip the test)?</p>