A father’s pressing question: How many AP courses are enough
By Jay Mathews March 15, 2015
Last year, I wrote a piece entitled “Why we wrongly freak out over AP.” Three to five Advanced Placement courses in high school would satisfy most selective colleges, I said: “Taking six, seven, eight or 20 AP courses will almost never make you more attractive to those colleges that reject more students than they accept.”
One Fairfax County father, though, told me his sophomore daughter wanted to go to the University of Virginia, but to do that, someone in authority at her high school said that she had to take about nine or 10 APs.
According to the father, the adviser said “selective colleges want to see applicants take the most challenging courses at their high school, which means AP.” That is true, but it does not mean you have to take that many, unless you groove on stress.
Many parents and students, and some educators, share the father’s concern.
Introductory college courses such as AP, International Baccalaureate and the Advanced International Certificate of Education have done much to improve U.S. high schools in the past 30 years. They allow teachers to raise instruction, even for average students, to a level that prepares them for the rigors of college, as few high school courses do. Since the final exams in these programs are written and graded by independent experts, any attempt to dumb down an AP, IB or AICE course produces an embarrassing and revealing result: high grades from the teacher but failing marks on the exam, the results of which arrive after school is over.
For most students applying to selective colleges from most high schools, taking three to five AP, IB or AICE courses are fine. If they come from a school with no or few such courses, admissions officers find other ways to gauge readiness. Students applying to the vast majority of schools will find those colleges delighted to see any APs.
Selective colleges get far more applicants with strong APs and other signs of academic readiness than they have room to accept. From that group, they pick the ones with the deepest extracurriculars, warmest recommendations, best essays and most unusual family backgrounds.
But in some very high-performing high schools in the Washington region, many students still will take more AP, IB and AICE courses than they need, often because it makes them feel more secure. Because selective colleges look closely at how applicants from the same school compare with each other, the Fairfax County father’s child needs to keep up with other U-Va. aspirants in her class.
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That does not mean she has to take nine or 10 APs.
“Most admitted students from Fairfax County have not taken nine to 10 AP courses over their high school careers,” U-Va. dean of admission Gregory Roberts told me. “That would be a very, very demanding course schedule for a high school student.”
Shirley Bloomquist, a Great Falls-based educational consultant, has an encyclopedic grasp of U-Va. admissions. She used to be the guidance director at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Alexandria, which sends more students to U-Va. than any other single selective college in the country receives from any high school. She said students accepted at U-Va. these days “will have generally taken seven or more AP courses in no particular order.”
The daughter of the Fairfax County father trying to figure this out will be in that category easily. It turns out her real problem is that, against the school advice she is hearing, she would prefer to take honors U.S. history next year rather than AP U.S. history. She likes science and already will be taking APs in biology, physics, psychology and English language next year.
“Would that be bad?” her father asked. No, it would not. If you too are confused about the admission system, e-mail me. His daughter’s preferred schedule is still demanding and, compared with what happens at most schools, astonishing. If U-Va. doesn’t take her, other great colleges will.
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PLMichaelsArtist-at-Large
3/19/2015 7:16 AM PDT [Edited]
It’s been awhile, but my daughter went to a High School that was already very competative, and she was doing well, as she was bright and a natural academic.
However, when she got to an AP course that focused on History and had to read something like 7 history books that we could only find in MDU’s GRADUATE library – outside of class – the stress was enormous; there were extra papers and she still had the rest of her classes to take care of, keep up with piano and have a LITTLE time to herself. I found myself wondering, WHAT is college for?!? And swore that she would take another AP class over my dead body.
She continued to take very solid classes in her senior year, graduated with honors and was accepted into several excellent schools, including Dartmouth, and possiblely Duke (I’m blanking on all the craziness of the college application time.) We wound up opting for a smaller but very excellent college, and have never regretted going outside the “major competition”.
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gfoote3064
You certainly are correct about several things in your article. What is wrong with Honors US history instead of AP? Nothing? The Honors class might even be better because there is no time when information has to be crammed in so that students are ready for a spring exam. Stop by sometime and observe what is happening in most AP classes now, after a winter in which school was closed or delayed for a good part of January and February? Lots of cramming? Yes. Lots of learning? Maybe not. By the way, this is also what you get when you evaluate teachers based on test scores. AP or otherwise, if there is an evaluation of some kind associated with a test, teachers will figure out how to teach to the test without really teaching content…
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gfoote3064
Jay, you must realize that it is your High School Challenge Index that has created most of the silliness described in this article and by the letter writers. At my public high school here in Carroll County, we have students who simply won’t take an AP course. If we want to score even a 1 on your index, we have to get several students to take at least two tests. And, of course if we want a 2 or better, we have to get several students taking 3 or more…Say what you will about your intentions when you started this, the fact is that as soon as you started publishing these rankings, there were schools who wanted to figure out how to “beat the system” so they looked good. Sorry, but being at the top of the list is certainly perceived as better (in many cases of course it really means nothing…) and we have school boards and administrators doing everything they can to get better numbers. Is learning taking place? In many cases, it isn’t… Would you be willing to retract this ranking? Stop publishing it? If not, then don’t rail against students taking 10 or more AP courses. No, it isn’t good, and it doesn’t make sense, but that is the logical outcome of publishing such an index every year in the newspaper and getting people to think it is truly significant.
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crsmc
3/20/2015 6:04 AM PDT
Nailed it gfoote!
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EMB87
I took one AP in Biology. Out of interest. I don’t remember it being any harder than any of my other classes. Granted, I went to a very prestigious boarding school. But I think with education, you get out what you put in. You can put in the bare minimum and “coast,” or you can work really hard and go super deep with the courses you’re taking.
Couldnt’ agree more that you’re not going to impress schools with the number of APs you take. However many your kid took, other peoples’ kids took more. Your kid won’t get into their first choice school by playing the AP game.
In a similar post to this one (I’ll link to it at the end of this comment), I read that the top schools are usually the ones with the most resources. So what they want is kids who have demonstrated that they will take advantage of any and all resources around them. Not just the library and required coursework. MAAAAYBE you can do this by taking lots of APs, if that’s your thing. But maybe you do this by taking cool classes online, or by pursuing something you’re really interested. Just do what it takes to avoid coming across as a “hoop jumped” or a “zombie.”
If you’re at a school with few electives or challenging classes, or if you happen to love APs, or if you want to save money in college, take APs. If not, there might be a better way to make yourself stand out in your college application.
http://www.thehappytalent.com/blog/aps-make-you-lo…
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cjskama
Don’t forget the cost of college tuition and general requirements. Our son took eight AP courses, and scored 4/5 on each. That translated to nearly two full semesters credit at UMD. Compare $90 for each AP exam to $2,000 per course (tuition, room & board). He was able to check off nearly all the general requirements, so now he can focus on his major and the courses that interest him. Plus he’ll have the option of graduating a semester early, saving $10k in tuition & housing.
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rgm
3/17/2015 6:03 AM PDT [Edited]
Another thing to consider, depending on the university your student attends AP courses may or may not add up to a dent in gen ed’s. Different colleges accept different APs, and a different range of scores for either exemption or credit. Some schools are moving away from offering credit at all, or giving credit but applying it to electives. My student who entered college this year applied to schools where he would have received no credits to ones where he would have entered as an academic sophomore. William & Mary is moving to a system of gen ed’s that span all four academic years and can not be fulfilled with APs. AP credit will be given I believe as electives. Even when a student gets an A/5 in an AP it doesn’t always serve them to take the AP credit. Each has to be evaluated individually depending on the student, their program, and the specific school. Any course that will be built upon it’s important to talk to current students and whenever possible look at an old final from the equivalent course to make sure you would clearly pass with a high grade.
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jaymathews
3/17/2015 6:10 PM PDT
very good points rgm.
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EducationGuru
What I find interesting here is that you give an example of a father whose daughter wants to go to UVA, then you talk about most selective schools looking for 3-5 AP courses, and then you quote an educational expert saying most students admitted to UVA have “7 or more” AP classes. That’s not a very clear message. I’ve got two kids in college, and I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the line “take the most challenging courses available.” You could visit 10 colleges of various levels of competitiveness, and you’ll likely hear that line at all. In Fairfax County, a student who always chooses “the most challenging courses available” would have 10 APs in the core courses alone.
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jaymathews
3/17/2015 6:14 PM PDT
I can’t be precise Guru. There are too many variables. But I can be clear. Ten APs is too many. You will get no advantage out of 10 APs. Even at UVA, 7 should do it. The number of APs is not the tiebreaker when admission committees pick their final admits. The tiebreakers are extracurriculars, recommendations, essays and family background.
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EducationGuru
3/18/2015 4:37 AM PDT
I agree with your assessment about the tiebreakers, but when an “expert” says 7 or more, it certainly sounds like you need “at least 7″ to even get into the consideration pool. I also don’t think 3-5 and “7 or more” is a difference of precision – “7 or more” is essentially double 3-5 (which averages to 4).
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EMB87
3/17/2015 8:29 PM PDT
I think this is an example or correlation, not causation. Kids who are the smartest and most driven will want to do what it takes to get into a good school. They all think they need to take lots of APs to do that. So they do.
You don’t know that the same kids wouldn’t have gotten in if they took 5 APs instead of 7.
I went to Stanford, and I only took one AP. And I didn’t even take the exam or whatever. I just thought I might end up doing something bio-related, so I took AP bio.
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Jerry Cargill
This is getting ridiculous. I teach AP art history and most of my students are “AP kids”, taking several AP classes at once. My first year teaching there was this one very bright girl who started nodding off about every day towards the end of third quarter (just before AP testing started). I took her out in the hall to ask what was up. She told me that she was taking all kinds of medications for anxiety, depression, sleeplessness. She said she was taking seven AP courses and hoped to get into Penn State. I told her that AP classes are supposed to be college-level equivalents and that if she were a freshman at any university, she’d need administrative approval to take more than five courses. We let our kids drive themselves into the ground in competition with APs, and other things. End of story: she got into Penn State. So I must be the fool.
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UIUCBlockI
3/17/2015 3:42 AM PDT
7 APs in the one year…how many did she have total? Bet she would still have gotten in with a few less.
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EducationGuru
3/17/2015 4:12 AM PDT
Sit in at “college night” at your high school and listen to the couselors feed the kids and parents the “most challenging courses available” line. The parents and students believe this line, and they hear it again on college visits. You are teaching an AP in a non-core course. I’m curious Jerry – what percentage of your students take your class because they are genuinely interested in art and/or history, and how many take it just to pad their college resumes?
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jaymathews
3/17/2015 6:15 PM PDT
You were right Jerry. Keep giving good advice.
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EMB87
3/17/2015 8:31 PM PDT
Yeah… but was she happy? And how do you know she wouldn’t have gotten into the same school if she hadn’t taken so many APs?
I spend a lot of time worrying about gifted youth. The girl in your example is far from the only one who’s being medicated.
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A_Mother
Something else to be aware of is that you can take an AP exam without having taken the class. My son’s school does not offer more than 1 or 2 AP classes because they are an early middle college and the students can take college courses. He still went ahead and took the AP exams that he thought he could pass. No he didn’t get the extra point on his GPA but he will get the college credit.
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Exurbs
3/16/2015 1:46 PM PDT
If the goal is to get college credit, CLEP tests are an option. They’re similar (probably easier and cheaper) than AP tests, but the catch is you have to already be a college student to take the CLEP tests. You can prepare for a CLEP test however you want. I reviewed my high school notes and not-AP history textbook and passed the CLEP tests for western civ, but that was about a million years ago.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 4:19 PM PDT
That is true Exurbs. I once took an AP (US history at age 52) without taking the class. But that is very rare. Much less than 1 percent of AP tests are taken by kids who did not take the class. That does not count schools like Scarsdale that do not label some courses as AP, but design them to be suitable preparation for AP exams.
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EMB87
3/17/2015 8:39 PM PDT
Well, that’s another part of the problem with APs. Here in Palo Alto, where we’ve already had 3 (possibly 4 — there was another suicide on the CalTrain tracks today, but we don’t know if it was a teenager or adult yet) teen suicides this year.
These kids take 7, 8, 9, 10 APs. Most of them get 5s on the exam — but very few get As in the classes. The “high achieving” culture is toxic.
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shadowmaster
As parent to two boys, one who is currently a junior at Stanford and the other who will be a freshman at Yale this fall, all took 5 AP classes each. 2 in there junior years and 3 in there senior years. It was important for us to make sure that they had balance in their young lives.
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EMB87
3/17/2015 8:40 PM PDT
“Balance.” Meaning friends. Fun. Happiness. Sleep. A chance to begin forming their own identity. Good for you. Lots of parents these days are crazy.
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tony5969
3/16/2015 12:26 PM PDT [Edited]
I guess I’m out of the loop as a childless Gen-X’er…but what happened to the days when people took AP courses to get actual college credit? From this article and others, it seems like the only purpose of the AP exams anymore is to keep up with the Joneses’ kids trying to get into the (near-)Ivies.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 4:26 PM PDT
Hi Tony. Most college students these days are like my kids. They take AP to be ready for college, and well educated in important topics, but will not pursue science or math or English after they arrive so don’t want or need the credit for those.
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EMB87
3/17/2015 8:41 PM PDT
I always assumed that if I were qualified not to take a class, I could test out of it once I got to college. And that did end up happening — I easily tested out of the language requirement, but still ended up taking two quarters of conversational Chinese.
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ThunderCougarFalconBird
What a lot of people need to realize is that not every career *REQUIRES* an advanced degree! If you are going for a particular field, certifications may be all you need! Take a few courses at your local community college, then get your certifications…you can get certified in all sorts of fields…I’m in the tech field, so I only know those personally…but if you get your PMP, your CCNA, MCSE or other variances…What’s big right now is VMware certifications! Or Big Data certifications…These are all 6-figure jobs that at minimum will start you in the low $90s! Spend a few years doing your time and a $120K salary is not out of the question! And the great thing is you don’t have that $80K college loan to pay back! A couple hundred dollars in books and maybe a cram course ($5k max) and you’re certified! Most of these certification companies have computers you can “use” to test either for free or a fee! You want your MCSE? for $500 you can access the Microsoft Azure Cloud and have full access to all the software Microsoft publishes and you can play with it all!
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TTREE1
3/16/2015 4:49 PM PDT
I totally agree with this post! I’ve been in IT for for over 25 years. Most of that time I was with a fortune 200 Company and hadn’t even graduated HS!! I became an IT Manager there, Engineer and other titles all by taking certification classes and making the most of opportunities! I only completed HS in 2008 when a major workforce reduction found me (after surviving 23 years of those layoffs). My career is still soaring in IT. So much to do and so little time
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JC888
unfortunately if you don’t pull a ranged SAT it won’t matter how many scores of 5 on AP exams you get. Even though AP exams offer the only test for which is actually studied in the classroom they have limited value beyond establishing degree of rigour you built into your GPA. And even then there are cases of schools that go beyond the AP the kids pulls a B in the class and a 5 on the AP. Do colleges ‘adjust’ the perception of his GPA for what might have been a more challenging course than the AP? I doubt it. Just look up college profiles of various high schools and you will find limited correlation between % of kids getting 4/5 AP and % of kids with a banded SAT score into say ‘top 75′ schools. For instance two high schools could each have had 70% get 4 or 5 on AP but one will matriculate 80% to top 75 and another 40%. The reason is because the one school had higher middle 50% SAT scores.
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BrilliantButBouncy
I find it interesting that AP and IB are used so interchangeably here. My son is going into 9th grade and we are agonizing over whether or not to include AP classes in his IBCP program. This article gives me hope that we can skip the AP since he’ll have 5 IB credits when he graduates… but I’m still so unsure. I’ve heard so many times that AP is invaluable – but I’m not a fan. Thanks for your column – I always learn from it. And I look forward to your thoughts on IBCP!
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 4:29 PM PDT
I think you can find a copy of my book “Supertest” about IB in the library or get one of those cheap copies on Amazon. It explains why you do NOT need AP if you have IB. IB is somewhat better, in my view, because it works harder to teach writing. Thanks for the kind words, BBB.
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UIUCBlockI
3/16/2015 5:47 PM PDT
Wish there was more quality writing instruction. IB and Humanities programs teach the kids how to write…but what about students not in those programs?
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What_STEM_Crisis
AP, even though a repugnant monopoly of the College Board (CB) and not necessarily the optimal course content, serves admissions committees by nationally normalizing evaluation of achievement across high schools – arguably a 3 from high school #1 is a 3 from high school #2, etc. This is not necessarily true of letter grades. When our child went through this – how many AP’s to take with out time starving a demanding extracurricular – there were 10 courses on the final transcript. I thought it was way too many – but the admissions committees didn’t. A solution would be to standardize the high school grading system – but we can’t even do that for colleges within the Ivy League (by their own dean’s comment: The most common grade at Harvard is an A while Princeton had firm grade deflation until this past Fall) – so student bodies with identical HS GPA’s and SAT’s come out with a half point difference in their GPAs at the end of 4 years because of where they attended… and then the testing cartel collects money for the GRE, MCAT, LSAT, etc… to renormalize the applicant pool… sigh.
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FrankFrankly
After reviewing the content of what was taught in the regular classes we wouldn’t allow our kids to take a non-AP class. The other plus is there are far fewer discipline problems in the AP classes which culminates in a lot more learning is going on in the AP classes.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 4:32 PM PDT
very true Frank. I share STEM’s view, but how does he or she know the admissions committee needed all 10 APs?
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WillRichardson
3/16/2015 8:20 AM PDT [Edited]
Two points real fast.
1. The College Board loves this article, as it’s raking in hundreds of millions a year in test fees. Do the math…4.2 million tests last year at around $75 (avg) per test. Does anyone realize the marketing campaign that’s gone into making people believe that AP is a key to success? (And by the way, millions of our tax dollars have gone into the federal gov’t’s attempt to prop up these tests as well. See http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/education-ad… ) We’ve fallen victim to a narrative of “learning” and “success” that is driven by profits not the best interests of kids.
2. Let’s guess at what the pass rate would be for kids taking the AP test six months after the AP course. I’ve talked to dozens of kids who just flush all that “learning” out of their heads as soon as the test is over.
There are lots of reasons to take 0 AP tests, though apparently that’s not a part of the discussion.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 8:46 AM PDT
I appreciate the feelings of you, Will, and many other Americans that the College Board is a big scam. But if that is true, so is the entirety of American higher education, since it is made up of many huge non-profits, just like the College Board, that have convinced our families that they are necessary to existence, and create for middle class families the most traumatic experiences of their lives—can they get their kids into the schools they want and can they afford to pay these institutions that rake in billions. This is the system we have developed, bit by bit, responding to a lot of other American values, like love of learning, demand for credentials, romantic feelings toward our own college experiences. The College Board and the universities are mostly run by good people who believe that they are improving life here, and the millions of young people around the world who have tried to get here mostly because of these universities underscore the fact that this is thought to be one of the best things about America. I understand your view, but I don’t see any realistic way to establish an alternative system that does it any better. And having visited a lot of high schools in the last 30 years, it is clear to me they are much better having AP, IB and AICE (I don’t see you mentioning those other two) than they are without them. The alternative is courses that don’t teach much and are easy to disguise as real preparation for college.
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EMB87
3/17/2015 8:43 PM PDT
They’re ALMOST as scammy as the NCAA. Did you know March Madness is going to make over a billion dollars this year. And this kids who are actually playing in the tournament… get nothing.
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justaguy22
I think the author and the father’s focus is wrong. AP courses are not there to help you get into a college, but rather to make your college experience better.
I think I took 9 AP classes in high school. I did not apply to UVA, but I did apply to VT. With those 10 AP courses, I received sufficient credit to almost make me a sophomore. This gave me three advantages in college:
1. I did not have to take the basic level courses in the sciences, math, English and foreign languages. Instead I could move straight into the more interesting mid level courses.
2. I received priority scheduling. When I was at VT, scheduling was done based on how many credit hours a student had. I had more credit hours than almost all other students in my “year.” Thus I always got access to a class that I needed as part of my major’s progression. Not all students did and they had to stay for a 5th year in some cases.
3. I had lots of spare credit hours. with this I took additional classes to get 2 minors in subjects I was interested in. In addition, I did undergraduate research every semester I was there.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 8:48 AM PDT
Absolutely right, just a guy. As I said, this should be about getting ready for college, since there are lots of schools just as good as UVA.
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buttercup47
As a former college instructor, I can state that AP courses aren’t that impressive. I taught American National Government and the students who had AP classes in high school were no “better” students than the “regular” kids. They thought they were better, but in fact, their writing skills and critical thinking skills were sorely lacking. It would be nice if public education went back to teaching kids, not pandering to various groups.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 8:49 AM PDT
There is plenty of data on this butttercup, including big studies in Texas and California. Students who have taken and done well on AP do better in college than those with similar backgrounds—grades and tests—who did not take AP.
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Heidi Trubacz
How many are enough? ZERO. My kids took zero, and got in to great schools, got scholarships and have great jobs and no school debt. overrated is what those courses are, taught by teachers with high egos. I am in education and saw it from the inside out. Many college admission teams are admitting to putting less and less emphasis on these classes and more on community and school involvement.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 8:50 AM PDT
Tell us more Heidi. Your story would be a worthy addition. Where did they go to school and why did the school provide no such courses?
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Ginge Vitis
For starters, your daughter can attend Northern VA Community College which has a 2+2 program that GUARANTEES her admission to UVa. 2nd, as someone who has a Masters from the Engineering school at UVa, I’d have to say that UVa wasn’t all that impressive. The snob coefficient approaches unity at UVa.
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washingtonpostid4comment
3/17/2015 7:31 AM PDT
Guaranteed admission after an associates degree (and the appropriate GPA), sounds good. The devil is in the details. Often transfer students find they are lacking pre-reqs for the major they want (if they can get into the major they want). It ends up extending their number of years in college. This impact is more significant in certain majors than others, particularly ones that contain sophomore level classes needed for the major that aren’t offered at the community college level.
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UIUCBlockI
The caliber of the regular or honors classes needs to be a factor as Washpost14 pointed out. In MCPS, Honors XXX is not the same at School A vs School B vs School C. So in deciding between regular/honors/AP, each student and their parents need to consider…how much challenge does the student need/want, which subjects do they need/want more challenge, what are the classes like at their school, in which classes will they have academic peers, what is the caliber of work and expectations in the different classes…there’s a lot to consider.
My son finished with 7 APs plus Multi-Var. English, social sciences and math is where he wanted the higher challenge. AP sciences would have been at his academic level, but not his interest. His school’s honors level courses were not what we had anticipated as honors work and expectations…lots of busy work in some, reading selections at grade level or lower in English (until AP) and not enough writing. Research papers are not done at our high school, not even in the AP classes. If a student starts by taking 1 AP class has a freshman, which many do here and the high-achievers really can handle that, they can finish with a high number of APs without over doing it in the last 2 years. But it really needs to be an individual choice based on student preferences and what they have available to them.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 8:51 AM PDT
very smart, uiuc.
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Sandra Waszyk
My high school didn’t offer AP classes. Not only did they not offer them, I had never heard of an AP class till I got to college. I had no trouble getting into the University of Michigan without them, but I did find it unfair that a friend of mine had so many AP classes from his high school that he was technically a junior when he arrived. All he had to do was take the minimum 12 credits per semester, while I had to take 15. But do you need any AP to get accepted? No. That would be an unfair disadvantage to those who went to crummy high schools.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 8:53 AM PDT
As the piece says Sandra, you don’t need them if your school doesn’t have them, but these days if you school does have AP, you have to have a very good reason why you didn’t take them. And since they are usually more interesting and better taught than other courses at high schools, it doesn;t make much sense to pass them up.
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Kyle Johnson
Another thing to consider when deciding whether or not to allow a child to take AP courses is GPA. In many schools, an AP class is weighted more heavily and adds a larger number to the student’s GPS: in my case, for example, an A in AP Chemistry resulted in a 5.0 rather than a 4.0 being averaged into the GPA. In this sort of scenario, a student who takes only 2 or 3 AP classes may be mathematically unable to even break the top 10 of their class, while other students are taking 6 or 8 (or more) AP classes. And, as we know, every school considers GPA and class ranking very heavily when deciding who to accept.
BTW, also in my case, I took 4 AP courses as a junior and 5 as a senior, all of which were accepted by my college for credit, and which exempted me from my ‘base’ classes, allowing me to double-major and still graduate in 3 years. That’s another side to it…
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rgm
3/16/2015 5:08 AM PDT [Edited]
Great point. This is where being judged by what not only opportunities available, but what top students at your school are doing is a factor. If you have 5APs offered and take 4, that’s probably good. If you had 17APs offered and took 4, you might not get the ‘most competitive’ courses box checked on your guidance evaluation, and even with straight As you might not break the top 10%. In my students hs graduating class years 2009, 2011 & 2013 the top 10% was over a 4.0 due to APs.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 9:44 AM PDT
Good point Kyle. This has also killed off the single valedictorian in districts like Fairfax, since so many kids have GPAs above 4.0. So they have a “ring of scholars” or something at graduation, and the graduation speaker is picked not because of grades but, in many cases, speaking ability.
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Barbara Lagatella Evans
If you are lucky enough to have a choice, I strongly suggest taking college courses rather than AP classes. My daughter had that opportunity and every course was accepted and gave her 1.5 semesters of college credit. Also was able to complete prerequisites for many upper level courses. She graduated in 3 years!
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 9:47 AM PDT
You are talking about dual enrollment Barbara, as you know. It is a growing option. Local colleges welcome high schoolers to their courses (that is where I took calculus as a high school senior) or send instructors to the high schools to teach intro college courses. One warning—a former admissions dean at UVA warned me that these courses are often not as challenging as AP or IB, at least to his way of thinking, and he did not like having to give credit for them. Since they often do not have an independently written and graded test, as AP, IB and AICE do, they can be dumbed down without detection.
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A_Mother
3/16/2015 1:04 PM PDT
A semester of a college course will get a semester of college credit. A YEAR of an AP course and a passing exam score will get you a semester of college credit. You could spend a year taking an AP class then not pass the exam and get NO CREDITS. (at the very least, check out he pass rate for your school before you take a course). My son will enter college with at least a year of college credit. He had no trouble getting excepted to UC San Diego where all of his community college classes will transfer.
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pluperfectdc
This advice is good on the surface. The problem is that some HS students are indeed taking 10 AP classes. When faced with whom to admit for relatively few slots, admissions officers will likely select the student who took more AP classes. The cycle is thus perpetuated.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 9:52 AM PDT
I know it sound like admissions officers will pick the kid with more APs, but in the most selective colleges that just does not happen. I have been watching their procedures for many decades. As I said in the piece, if you take a good number of APs, IBs or AICEs, you are in the maybe pile with a lot of other people. To decide whom is finally selected, they definitely do NOT count tests. Instead, the big tie breakers are how unusual and deep are the extracurricular activities, how enthusiastic are the teacher recommendations, how clever and winnng are the essays and what is the class and racial background. If you are up there in that group of really strong students, you do have an advantage if you are poor, black or Hispanic.
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LowBudget
3/16/2015 10:06 AM PDT
10 AP classes and no extracurriculars may make an applicant look really narrow. So can a formulaic essay; one student I know commented that she’d been having lunch with a group of applicants who “all wrote about something they’d done that somebody else paid for them to do.” She also said the admissions officer was impressed that she’d taken AP courses in math and science despite the fact she didn’t get As in them. She was applying to a Communications program, and he said to her mother , “At least she was willing to stick her neck out and try.”
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Hermanhome97
3/20/2015 9:16 AM PDT
This is not true. I teach high school and I know a student a few years ago who had a PERFECT score on his SAT, a perfect, unweighted 4.0 for all his years of middle school and high school on his report card, was Asian, and had all 4/5s on his 10 AP courses. He assumed that he would have no problem getting into college, and so he only applied to 10 Ivy League schools – no “safety” schools. He had essentially no ex-curricular activities, but obviously was smart and had excellent grades. He was rejected for all of the schools that he applied to.
But several of his best friends, who also had very good grades, but not perfect, and not perfect scores on their SATs, but were very active with playing an instrument or doing tons of community service were accepted at places like Stanford and U Penn. The boy with the perfect grades needed to quickly get himself signed up for community college, and then transferred into a state school for second semester.
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washpost14
I have children in high school – they are signing up for several AP classes next year. I tried to discourage this due to the stress from the workload. They convinced me that the academic classes are more stressful to them because of the lack of interest from the students at this level, and the attitude of the teachers who teach at this level. (e.g. sarcastic, impatient) They also don’t like homework that is just busy work.
So, they are taking the AP classes. Managing the workload is easier than changing the dynamics of the class.
FYI – they go to a respected high school in Loudoun County, but I don’t imagine this problem is unique to us.
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washingtonpostid4comment
3/16/2015 6:18 AM PDT
We found that honors classes ended up being a lot of busy work quickly at low thinking levels as opposed to higher thinking levels and the normal level of work. The rigor came in quantity rather than quality. It was less stressful to have multiple AP classes than to have honors classes, which is a shame because the middle should have been increased thinking and learning instead of what it turned out to be, but when our county instituted honors back into the choice it allowed each teacher to determine what an honors course would entail.
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Heidi Trubacz
3/16/2015 7:03 AM PDT
sounds a bit snobby
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 9:54 AM PDT
Exactly right washpost14. The standard high school fare has problems, even in a great district like Loudoun, for the very reasons you cite. That is one reason why I said these intro college courses have been such a boon to high schools.
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DHTG
I am a graduate of UVa and have met with the legacy liaison with both of my children. Their advice: take the highest level class offered by your high school in as many of your 5 core courses as you can while getting as many A’s as possible. Their selection process is holistic, so a student can do this and still is not guaranteed admission.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 9:55 AM PDT
too true, dhtg.
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Entrope
Twenty-some years ago, I took as many AP courses as I could, but not for competitiveness’s sake: I did it to opt out of the introductory courses in college, which helped me graduate with two degrees (not just a double degree) in 4.5 years from a very competitive university. That in turn served me well in job hunts later.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 9:56 AM PDT
That is an option Entrope, but the vast majority of us lack your energy. I think the best thing that APs do is make high schools better.
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Willow River
Too bad that many high schools have done away with honors courses, leaving students with a choice between AP and classes geared toward ‘average,’ often non-college bound, students.
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rgm
3/16/2015 5:25 AM PDT [Edited]
I could not agree more! Honors levels courses are often very appropriate for many students taking AP courses. With the lack of honors level courses students take APs in their stronger subjects but are afraid to appear they are backing down academically elsewhere so end up overloading on APs. They end up compromising quality of work and grades in all classes, and their health. Or they take a ‘regular level’ course to balance a number of APs and risk end up getting dinged in admissions (ie they didn’t take AP Lit while they were balancing AP Physics).
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 9:59 AM PDT
good point rgm. But is that so bad? I have discovered that honors courses are often not very challenging, and do little more than provide a refuge for middle class kids from the non middle class kids who populate the regular courses. I once wrote a column suggesting that we get rid of the regular courses and give those poorer kids a chance at a better course full of middle class kids who will set a good example.
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rgm
3/16/2015 11:13 AM PDT [Edited]
Since I don’t have anything to compare it to, I can’t say. I do see your point, and certainly honors courses if not done well could create the effect you describe, helping no one. My older student was very adept at knowing his strengths, took APs there, and had no issues taking regular courses in areas he wasn’t interesed to balance his courseload and allow time for a demanding extracurricular. It worked well for him (typical engineer). My younger student, an academic through and through, could not stand to be dumbed down to in any way and we literally negotiated APs each year. There aren’t enough hours in the day to take 6-7 APs each year and function as a 17yo kid. This is where I wish honors had been an option. He chose to overload as much as we, and his counselor, would allow, knowing a drop off in grade was a possible trade off and he might be dinged in admissions. He was willing to take this trade off. He did fine in admissions, but he knew his strengths and applied to diverse schools knowing results could be unpredictable. I’m not a fan of the AP model tbh, but ignoring how it works in your students hs and at your students schools of interest is short sighted.
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Use Your Brain
“Advanced Placement” courses are offered in partnership with colleges and provide HS students the opportunity to gain early college experience.
The point of taking “advanced placement” classes is so that a student can take “college level courses” for “college credit” prior to graduation from high school.
Often, the instructors are indeed “college professors” who come to the high school to teach specific classes. In other instances, students will actually attend courses at a college, such as GA Tech in Atlanta, GA.
Students taking such courses are given a “first taste” of the higher standards expected of college students, but should they fail to succeed they need not include these courses in their college transcripts once they graduate from college and begin looking for jobs.
As for taking 9 or 10 AP classes, that would be almost impossible to achieve as these courses are usually limited to HS Seniors. Students would have had to complete or test out of all High School level coursework in that particular subject area before having the option to enroll.
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singrass
3/16/2015 3:37 AM PDT
Your observations are at odds with my own experience in many regards. I have never observed AP courses that were taught by college professors coming to the high school, nor AP courses that were taught by having students attend a local university. These are not bad ideas, mind you, but that is not the way that the College Board administers AP classes. Each teacher of an AP course at a high school has to go through an audit process with College Board, in which their syllabus is reviewed for compliance with the requirements of that particular class. If you pass the audit, you can teach the class and label it as an AP class.
I also don’t know of any high schools in which you can selectively remove courses from your transcript.
I am a former high school teacher (including AP) in Fairfax County, and am currently residing and teaching in another state.
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Monday QB
3/16/2015 5:20 AM PDT
Not all schools are the same, and AP courses are offered at all levels … even freshman year. Availability may be an issue for some, however. In a highly competitive school, admission to AP courses is by a test … so only those students who take a test in the spring can take the course in the fall … transfer students are totally cut out of the process, no matter their ability. Fair? Not necessarily. As a result, a National Merit Scholar could appear to be a slacker if transferring as a sophomore when the only courses available are regular courses. Have seen it happen.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 4:39 PM PDT
The idea of testing kids to get into AP has, thankfully, pretty much died off. It prevented a lot of motivated average kids from getting just the taste of college trauma they needed to succeed in college. High schools sometimes still demand certain GPAs or recommendations for AP, also a bad idea i will write about in April.
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Pheeberdoodle
3/16/2015 5:52 AM PDT
I’m in Massachusetts. Granted I’m in a larger town, but our school system offers 25+ different AP classes and top students are expected to take as many as they’re recommended for, starting freshman year. By the time students — many not even in the top 10% — hit junior year, most have taken 3-4 APs, and are signing up for 3-5 more senior year.
We have no college professors that I know of coming in to teach any of these classes — the teachers teach. Why wouldn’t they?
Obviously each school system is different, but I wouldn’t assume all high schools are like yours.
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Listener3
3/16/2015 12:44 AM PDT [Edited]
Another letter that misses the point. Jay, you have spawned an obsession with impressing colleges. The best courses, the best schools, being #1. How about an answer that focuses on this chiild’s interests, talents, and strengths, and not another answer on how to get into the best school? Parents wonder why kids are so stressed. This is a perfect example of focusing on the wrong thing and adding to the stress.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 5:39 PM PDT
I’m trying listener. The high schools list does not reward schools with the highest scores, but those with the faculty who try hardest to challenge every child with a course that will enhance their strengths, even if they flunk the test.
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Listener3
3/17/2015 8:23 AM PDT
really? then why didn’t you focus on talking this nervous dad off the ledge and get him to back off the drumbeat of pressure on his kid?
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Teufel Hunden
I’m a product of the Fairfax County public schools, and I can attest, the AP courses there are the real deal. I have the feeling the real reason UVA extracts 9 or 10 AP classes is to discourage in state students from even trying. They get a whole lot more money from out of state students, and they lower the standards as a result. The same applies here in California. My Son graduated with a 4.6 GPA (co-Valedictorian), yet UC Santa Cruz won’t take him. They get more money taking international students. Thankfully, Stanford, being a private (and much better) school, is happy to have him. Now, all I have to do is sell the businesses, house, Tahoe cabin, other kids, and gold in my teeth to pay for it.
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rgm
3/16/2015 4:42 AM PDT
While many states do indeed use OOS students and internationals as ‘cash cows’ UVA has a required instate:Out of state ratio of 2/3:1/3 dictated by the Virginia Assembly. They can not decrease the ratio of spots available to instate students. In other words, an OOS student can never ‘take’ the spot of an instate student…ever. They are two separate pools of applicants competing for two distinct sets of spots. They don’t bleed into each other. There’s no insentive to discourage any student from applying.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 5:43 PM PDT
great message semper. That UCSC rejection is interesting. You may have read the UC president, a former cabinet sec who knows how to play politics, says she is curbing out of state admissions until Gov Brown gives her more money.
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Saki Angie
If your daughter is as bright as she seems, she can get in anywhere. Affording it is the problem. I finished high school with not only AP courses, but had also taken college credit courses as well- and made all As in them. My graduating GPA was a 3.875 with zero disciplinary action on my record. I didn’t get accepted for any local or college specific scholarships I applied for. You know who did? Students who already had children, and those whose last names were the same as teachers, principals, or local officials. Same song and dance moving from a 2 year institution to a 4 year. Only this time I graduated with a 3.875, honors society, and Greek life affiliations.
Unless you know someone, your kid will not be getting anything. Let them take one or two AP courses and have them either volunteer or find a part time job. The money and life experience will be far more valuable than something that they may or may not get. As a bonus, a 4.0 and work experience trumps a 4.0 and nothing else.
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Pheeberdoodle
3/16/2015 5:59 AM PDT [Edited]
Yours is a terribly depressing post. Our guidance counselors are always saying that if we want more aid, we need to apply to schools that want us more. Did you only apply to top schools? Did your safeties offer any aid?
I’m asking honestly as a person with two juniors in HS who can probably get into some top schools — but I doubt they’d get much aid there.
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LowBudget
3/16/2015 9:56 AM PDT
Local scholarships generally just reduce the amount of financial aid for which a student is available, and they reduce other scholarships (need-based or academic) offered by the college or university before they reduce loans. Top private schools tend to have more scholarship money than state schools, so while the tuition may look horrific, the amount of aid available may make the bottom line similar to a public university.
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Rebecca Greer
Maybe it doesn’t come in to play for this family, but I thought I’d point out another reason many take APs… it saves you serious dough toward college, and you don’t have to spend your freshman year taking the same boring classes you have taken every year of your life until that point. Getting to take other classes that interest you more… and possibly being able to graduate early/pay less tuition… win win.
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Caleb J Fielding
The wright brothers were high school drop outs who owned a bicycle shop and they invented the airplane. Thomas edison dropped out of 3rd grade. College is not necessary for education or success for most in my generation college simply gives them a huge debt burden.
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lyonprep
“Taking six, seven, eight or 20 AP courses will almost never make you more attractive to those colleges that reject more students than they accept.” Although I’m not saying I’m in favor of people talking AP courses just for the sake of taking AP courses, I don’t believe this statement is true. So long as the students are getting A’s in these courses the one with the most impressive transcripts will win out, all else being equal. Now if his daughter used the time saves for studying to get some other verifiable accomplishments in her area of interest, then it might be worth forgoing the AP courses. I’m not saying that the state of affairs is a good one, but that’s the way it is.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 5:48 PM PDT
That’s just not true lyonprep. The selective schools do not count tests. If your APs and GPas and SATs are in the right range, you are essentially tied. The difference is extracurriculars, recommendations, essays and family background. They are looking for something “special” as they put it. Ask any college admissions officer at such a school.
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Richard Patel
This article poses an interesting couple of points:
AP courses have raised the bar in some high schools, mostly by forcibly keeping administrators, parents, and school boards out. Since it is a curriculum set to meet a particular test, attempts to fore teachers to slow down for students who can’t hack it or don’t teach about “X” because that is offensive are largely ignored to keep student test scores up. The point is – for students who can hack it, these are great classes.
But, being pushed to the maximum limits of stress are not for everyone, and it is not for the federal government, state government, or even the school board to make that determination. Parents and students should make that determination. Thus, there should be a clear realization that not all students learn at the same rate, and not all students even want to learn at the same rate, and that is fine. In other words, submitting yourself to national testing should be wholly voluntary based on what your individual desires are.
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BillMath1
3/15/2015 10:43 PM PDT
Wow, a well reasoned coherent response. I’m not sure you belong in the education section. What you said in the middle of the second paragraph should be the mantra of education in the U.S.. “In time, everyone can succeed… but everyone can’t succeed in the same time.”
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Pheeberdoodle
3/16/2015 6:05 AM PDT
Ideally, high schools should have both honors and AP courses. AP courses have a very specific curriculum and required speed, so you know what you’re getting into, and everyone’s in the same boat. It’s one of the advantages and disadvantages of a standardized test.
Honors classes should be teaching the same material, but in a more flexible way, and should appeal to bright students who don’t plan on taking the AP exam. E.g. my daughter, who plans on majoring in biology, and who was recommended for AP French next year. She hates foreign language with every fiber of her being and wanted no part of it, and I’m so glad there were options for her.
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starbucksgirl64
3/16/2015 9:03 AM PDT
Wow Richard Patel, I wish Arne Duncan had your mindset.
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jaymathews
3/16/2015 5:50 PM PDT
for Richard, that kind of thinking has kept a lot of motivated poor kids out of AP. take a look at my book about Jaime Escalante sometime.
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