Jump to content

Menu

AP each year in a subject area?


Recommended Posts

My second DS is considering taking AP Human Geography next year as a 9th grader. If he does this, will he need to take a Social Studies AP every year through high school? 

 

Will it be sufficient for him to take an AP each year in a different subject? 

 

Would it look like slacking if he took an AP in a subject area one year and not the next? 

 

Thank you! 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, he won't have to take an social studies AP each remaining year to be competitive. Of course, it's OK if that's what interests him, but it probably would serve him better to have APs (or SAT subject tests or dual enrollment) in a few different fields. For example, my dd took AP Latin and AP English comp before senior year, and followed them up with home-designed classes afterwards. She could have gone on to AP English Lit, but wasn't interested. It was fine for admissions. :)

Edited by Kathy in Richmond
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dd will have multiple social science APs because that is what interests her! She'll also have an English, a math, and a science AP, plus language and political science courses taken as DE.

 

I think it would be very, very challenging to take a yearly AP in the sciences and languages (you'd have to have one heck of a middle school background or be able to double up)! There are only 2 English and 3 math APs :)

Edited by Luckymama
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are only 2 English and 2 math APs :)

 

My oldest DS is taking English Language and Comp in 9th and English Literature in 10th! We run out of those pretty quickly! 

 

(This high school thing is turning out to be a good exercise in seeing the child in front of me!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think it would be odd at all to take an AP social studies class one year and not the next. My dd only takes AP's for subjects she is really interested in. This year was music theory and human geography. Next year will be environmental science and English language. Senior year possibly comparative government.

 

The reason most public school students take AP's is to get some early college requirements out of the way. I don't know that any college would give 4 semesters of social studies credit for 4 good AP test grades. If you are just doing it to show knowledge in a subject area and not for the credit, again I don't think multiple tests are needed. We are trying to spread ours out over a few different subjects, but most importantly, picking the classes by interest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think it would be odd at all to take an AP social studies class one year and not the next. My dd only takes AP's for subjects she is really interested in. This year was music theory and human geography. Next year will be environmental science and English language. Senior year possibly comparative government.

 

The reason most public school students take AP's is to get some early college requirements out of the way. I don't know that any college would give 4 semesters of social studies credit for 4 good AP test grades. If you are just doing it to show knowledge in a subject area and not for the credit, again I don't think multiple tests are needed. We are trying to spread ours out over a few different subjects, but most importantly, picking the classes by interest.

 

I have mostly encountered public and private school students choosing AP because those are the most challenging courses available at their school.  In many cases, grade weighting policies mean that taking a non-AP option will lower a student's gpa (for example a senior who has already taken several AP courses who then chooses regular economics over an AP Econ choice will lower end up with a lower gpa).  If the top 10% of students in your school are taking mostly AP courses, not taking them tends to put a student into a lower band when compared with classmates.

 

I also haven't run into colleges that restrict their AP credit based only on how many courses were taken in a category (ie, the 4 semesters of social studies credit).  I have seen that colleges will grant different credit, depending on what major the incoming student declares.  And the student may find that the AP credits fill general education requirements, rather than degree requirements (for example, a computer science major may not need 4 semesters of history).  

 

I did notice when I was going through degree plans with my ds that some of the schools he was looking at have degree requirements and also university requirements.  For example, at one school he would have to have a collaborative team experience, a presentation experience, a world culture credit and other university requirements on top of his degree requirements.  Having credit for something like AP European History or AP Comparative Government might meet one of the university requirements, freeing that spot in his schedule for something of greater personal interest.  In other words, just because the AP course goes to a gen ed vs degree requirement, doesn't mean that there was no value to the course or the credit received.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My second DS is considering taking AP Human Geography next year as a 9th grader. If he does this, will he need to take a Social Studies AP every year through high school? 

 

Will it be sufficient for him to take an AP each year in a different subject? 

 

Would it look like slacking if he took an AP in a subject area one year and not the next? 

 

Thank you! 

 

You don't have to take an AP course in every subject every year.  As other mentioned, some subject areas just don't have enough courses to take AP level every single year.

 

I would say that if he does well in the AP Human Geography, then the level of difficulty in that area shouldn't slide too much in subsequent years.  Even for courses that are not in the student's particular area of interest, you want to show a general development of skills and challenge level.

 

If he doesn't take an AP history course, then you can ensure that his readings are of appropriate upper high school level.  If he takes an AP English course in 10th grade, then 11th and 12th should continue on with high quality pieces of literature, not go back to a lower level text (or drop English entirely).

 

DS2 will complete AP Latin this year.  For his senior year, he will take an intro course in a modern language.  He will have taken 4 AP history/government courses.  Senior year, he'll do a non AP Economics course (because I don't have the expertise to write an AP syllabus and our time zones make online courses a real challenge).  I'll use a strong text and make sure that the course description is solid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have mostly encountered public and private school students choosing AP because those are the most challenging courses available at their school.  In many cases, grade weighting policies mean that taking a non-AP option will lower a student's gpa (for example a senior who has already taken several AP courses who then chooses regular economics over an AP Econ choice will lower end up with a lower gpa).  If the top 10% of students in your school are taking mostly AP courses, not taking them tends to put a student into a lower band when compared with classmates.

 

I also haven't run into colleges that restrict their AP credit based only on how many courses were taken in a category (ie, the 4 semesters of social studies credit).  I have seen that colleges will grant different credit, depending on what major the incoming student declares.  And the student may find that the AP credits fill general education requirements, rather than degree requirements (for example, a computer science major may not need 4 semesters of history).  

 

I did notice when I was going through degree plans with my ds that some of the schools he was looking at have degree requirements and also university requirements.  For example, at one school he would have to have a collaborative team experience, a presentation experience, a world culture credit and other university requirements on top of his degree requirements.  Having credit for something like AP European History or AP Comparative Government might meet one of the university requirements, freeing that spot in his schedule for something of greater personal interest.  In other words, just because the AP course goes to a gen ed vs degree requirement, doesn't mean that there was no value to the course or the credit received.

 

In our area honors classes and AP classes are both weighted equally, and there are honors classes for at least the first three grade levels in each subject. In English and foreign language they offer honors classes at the 400 and 500 levels.  Other subjects like science and math would require you to take the AP class in your fourth year to be able to get 5.0 for an A, there is no honors math class for seniors. 

 

A few colleges I've looked at have restrictions on the number of AP credits you can use within a certain subject. This is from an AP Q&A I found when doing some research on AP tests for my high schooler.

"Additionally, some schools may prevent students from earning large amounts of credits in a narrow range of academic subject areas (such as piling up credits solely in the hard sciences)."

 

I think AP classes are definitely worth the time, and I wasn't saying that there is no value to taking the courses, but I personally don't feel the need to keep up with the public/private school kids regarding a GPA or having my kids test out of as many college classes as possible. For us, taking AP's satisfies an interest in a subject beyond what we might be able to do at home while also showing a high capability within that subject. 

Edited by brookspr
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, not odd to take one AP subject area one year and not the next.  How the APs will be treated by the school, definitely varies by school.  Some give advanced placement, some give credit, some give none.  Some may limit it by saying at least 50% of the courses toward the degree must be taken *at* the school,

 

One school ds is looking at will take a 4 or a 5, a placement test or interview with the department.  Another, will use any of his AP's in any appropriate gen ed slot, and specific APs in the degree slot.  However, to get credit for University Physics, they don't offer a partial.  You have to complete BOTH Physics C E & M and Mechanics with a 4 or 5 to get credit for the 2 semesters.  If you only take AP Physics C-Mechanics, they won't grant you any credit.

 

In dd's case, at one university, her Calc credits will count toward her math degree, but not her Biology gen ed requirements.  She has to either take (or CLEP) the lower level science gen ed requirements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read an interesting article on this once.  If he wants to appear very balanced for a rigorous liberal arts school then it is actually best for him to balance his AP courses/tests from all subjects.  If he is "selling" himself as super-sold-out math and science kid then he wants to take as many math and science AP's as possible.  Likewise, he would focus on taking all of the history AP exams he can if he wanted to be a history major and just wasn't into math/science.  If he can do it skill-wise, the best thing is to have a balance.  We met with a college placement counselor who suggested dd drop an AP in humanities and add a science for this reason.  She is strong across the board so she needs to have about the same amount of APs from all subjects.

 

 

ETA:  I think that AP Human Geo is a perfect AP to start with!  DD found it quite easy.

Edited by Attolia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In our area honors classes and AP classes are both weighted equally, and there are honors classes for at least the first three grade levels in each subject. In English and foreign language they offer honors classes at the 400 and 500 levels.  Other subjects like science and math would require you to take the AP class in your fourth year to be able to get 5.0 for an A, there is no honors math class for seniors. 

 

A few colleges I've looked at have restrictions on the number of AP credits you can use within a certain subject. This is from an AP Q&A I found when doing some research on AP tests for my high schooler.

"Additionally, some schools may prevent students from earning large amounts of credits in a narrow range of academic subject areas (such as piling up credits solely in the hard sciences)."

 

I think AP classes are definitely worth the time, and I wasn't saying that there is no value to taking the courses, but I personally don't feel the need to keep up with the public/private school kids regarding a GPA or having my kids test out of as many college classes as possible. For us, taking AP's satisfies an interest in a subject beyond what we might be able to do at home while also showing a high capability within that subject. 

 

This is definitely one of those topics that depends on the school.

 

The local district where we used to live did not offer honors if there was an AP course.  So there would be regular track US History and AP US History, but no option for an honors high school level course.  

 

This local district weighted AP courses, but not to the same extent as a nearby district (similar socio-economic demographics) across the state border.  Because students in the two districts applied to the same colleges from what was essentially the same metro area, the perception was that students in the first district were hurt by having lower gpas for similar courseloads.

 

The topic of honors courses and gpa weighting became a major discussion point in school board elections.  In particular, parents were pushing for a return of honors course options for students who wanted rigorous college prep work, but not a solid AP schedule.  There was also a discussion of the issue of pressure to perform placed on students, with several suicides in area high schools.  When we left, they were slowly adding some honors courses back in.  

 

I would be interested in reading some of the AP policies you ran into.  I haven't seen a policy where there was a limit on credit by course category (as opposed to either a limit on validation credit in general or a limit to how applicable credit would be).  There aren't a lot of high school level homeschoolers here, so I try to stay on top of policies and restrictions.  I'd like to add this wrinkle to my notes.

Edited by Sebastian (a lady)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...