How many AP classes have your kids completed or plan to complete before graduation

[Caroline]

My oldest will be in 10th grade next year. He is taking his first two AP classes--chemistry and world history. He had to get A's in the prerequisite classes and get reccomended by his teachers for both classes. His current plan has him taking at least 6 by graduation. That seems par for the course for the upper level students around here. I was just wondering if it was the same elsewhere.

[merylvdm]

My oldest daughter took her first one in 10th grade and ended up with 7 in total. My one son has done 5 so far (he took 2 in 10th grade) and will do at least 3 this year.

 

In the area where we live no one seems to take anywhere near as many. Most take the AP classes just for the weighting and then don't bother with the exams.

[RosesAreRed]

My son took 7 or 8 AP exams and passed with mostly 4's and 5's. He is upset now he didn't take more. He loved seeing almost all of his gen ed classes waived when signing up for college classes last week.

[Luckymama]

My son is an outlier at his school with 4 junior year and 6 senior year. One other guy will have 9 at graduation, most guys near their academic standing take 4-6 total. At their school, only juniors and seniors may take APs.

 

My daughter will be taking her first AP (US History) as a sophomore this year. I'm not sure what other APs she will take. Probably both Stats and one of the Calcs, one or two sciences at most, definitely Psych and English Lit, and possibly another history. I'm not sure how the school's scheduling grid works for those upper-level courses.

[mom22greatkids]

Merylvdm,

 

I don't mean to seem dumb here but I am new to this AP thing and just getting my feet wet. What does weighting mean? Is that something that is for public school students? If not, I don't understand why anyone would pay to take an AP class and then not take the exam?

[rhrice3]

My son did not take any his fresh/soph year as a home schooler. Had I known what I know now, he would have started as a fresh. He is now in public high school since we moved to FL. He took 2 or 3 this year, and he will take all AP courses next year except orchestra. This school district requires all students that take AP courses to sit for the exams, or they do not get credit at all for the classl! The public high school that he attends teaches every AP course available except Latin. When my son had his senior course schedule reviewed, he was not even allowed to take Honors in most areas - Eng, Sc, math - but his teachers insisted on AP in these areas. He is taking an additional science AP and AP Human geography as his last electives.

 

If your child is very bright, I would recommend starting as a fresh with one class and increasing each year afterwards. Here they allow bright fresh to take AP Environmental Science, and they say AP Psychology is one of the easiest.

 

Good luck!

ReneeR

[piraterose]

Can someone tell me the difference between honors and AP classes?

 

Growing up our school did not have honor classes per say we had things like English 10y and English 10x (the harder one) but had AP English which I took and I believe some sort of AP math class - which we only available to seniors. All 7 students in my class received 3s so obviously I think our teacher missed something preparing us for the test. There were no requirements to take an APclass - just a willingness to work hard.

 

So I understand the benefit of AP classes, but what it the benefit of honor classes and how do the two differ? It seems like there is a lot more tracking or prereqs involved in high school today. And you pretty much have to be mental ready come freshmen year, unlike me who took English 9y (on the rec of middle school teachers), English 10x, Journalism and then AP English senior year. I was able to find my way in high school after middle school destroyed my self-esteem, but it doesn't seem like kids have the benefit of time any long and most show ability to keep up quite early.

[Caroline]

Weighting means that in the GPA calculation, an A is scored as a 4.5 or 5 instead of a 4. Most colleges will recalculate GPAs. In our school system, the student can only get the weighted grade if he sits for the test. In some private schools, students who get 5s on exams get reimbursed for their exams fees.

 

Has anyone had a child do AP Bio without taking a regular bio class first? My son may try that next year.

 

It is interesting to read all of the responses. Thanks for responding. Reading about all the AP classes your kids are taking has made me think about encouraging my son to take more his junior and senior years.

[mom22greatkids]

Thanks for the response. Funny, I never knew that!

[MBM]

My oldest will be in 10th grade next year. He is taking his first two AP classes--chemistry and world history. He had to get A's in the prerequisite classes and get reccomended by his teachers for both classes. His current plan has him taking at least 6 by graduation. That seems par for the course for the upper level students around here. I was just wondering if it was the same elsewhere.

 

My youngest is just an eighth grader, but at this point it looks like he'll possibly take calculus, statistics and physics.

 

The high school he'll most likely attend does not allow any freshmen and only a few sophomores to take AP classes. Four to six classes would be about right here, but from the schedules I've seen for a few jazz band students, some have taken eight. That would be a tough schedule especially since the jazz band kids take two to three music classes per day.

 

That's terrific that your son is taking two AP classes his sophomore year. I was flipping through the study guides at Border's recently, and they're not easy! I've also noticed a number of high school students studying at our library, and I'm assuming they might be (smartly) getting a head start in an AP class.

 

Good luck to your son, Caroline. :)

[Chris in VA]

Can someone tell me the difference between honors and AP classes?

 

Growing up our school did not have honor classes per say we had things like English 10y and English 10x (the harder one) but had AP English which I took and I believe some sort of AP math class - which we only available to seniors. All 7 students in my class received 3s so obviously I think our teacher missed something preparing us for the test. There were no requirements to take an APclass - just a willingness to work hard.

 

So I understand the benefit of AP classes, but what it the benefit of honor classes and how do the two differ? It seems like there is a lot more tracking or prereqs involved in high school today. And you pretty much have to be mental ready come freshmen year, unlike me who took English 9y (on the rec of middle school teachers), English 10x, Journalism and then AP English senior year. I was able to find my way in high school after middle school destroyed my self-esteem, but it doesn't seem like kids have the benefit of time any long and most show ability to keep up quite early.

 

In our public school system, honors classes are pre-AP. I don't know if you have to take honors first in every instance, but I do know that for many classes, like Physics and Chem, you have to take honors first as a prereq.

[Luckymama]

My two highschoolers attend schools with courses divided into "phases" with phase 1 being the lowest ability group and phase 5 being the highest level. Courses are not named as honors. At ds's school, phase 5 is AP and only available to juniors and seniors. As a junior last year, he took 4 phase 5 AP classes and the remaining as phase 4 classes. At dd's school (larger), phase 5 is the highest level for any course including APs. As a freshman, she took all phase 5 classes.

 

Both schools give "bumps" to the grade the student received based on the phase level of the course. This weighted grade is used in computation of class ranking. At ds's school, an A in a phase 5 is a 4.4, an A in a phase 4 is a 4.3 and an A in a phase 3 is a 4.2.

 

On a side note, I just read on ds's school website that 80% of the students who take AP classes/exams receive college credit by their institution of choice (if the school accepts AP credits). Holy cow! Those AP scores can't come soon enough!

[RosesAreRed]

Merylvdm,

 

I don't mean to seem dumb here but I am new to this AP thing and just getting my feet wet. What does weighting mean? Is that something that is for public school students? If not, I don't understand why anyone would pay to take an AP class and then not take the exam?

 

Ds was in public school and AP classes were free. The College Board charges for taking the test. For some classes he had to take the honors class first and others he had a pre req - a summer session to qualify for AP placement. There is no limit on who can take an AP - but schedules make it unusual for a freshman. My sons first AP was World History as a sophomore.

 

Weighted grades in our district are different (with .10 in the equation) and weighted, non weighted, and A-E,G courses are reported on the transcript.

 

As for the comment about everyone getting a 3 - a three qualifies at most universities for credit. You don't get more credit for a 5. :tongue_smilie:

[2cents]

I'm hoping to have mine take as many as they can. They can take the AP classes via FLVS which offers 14 AP classes so far. I'm also planning on getting them started on CLEP's too. The more classes they can test out of the better. :)

[Luckymama]

We are deep in the making The List of schools ds will apply to, so I am getting very familiar with AP credit policies. If you dig deep enough on a particular school's website, you can find their policy. Some schools use AP scores for course credit, others for only placement at a higher level.

 

At UDelaware, 3's are accepted for a few classes (ie the hardest ones) while 4s or 5s are needed for others to receive credit. Some public universities accept a 3 in anything, others you must have a 4. Some private schools will only take a 5, others will not accept any AP class score for credit OR for placement. Some schools combine credit and placement for a 5.

[piraterose]

As for the comment about everyone getting a 3 - a three qualifies at most universities for credit. You don't get more credit for a 5. :tongue_smilie:

 

"Most" being the operative word. Back in 1991 I did not qualified for credit at my private liberal art college - you had to have a 4 at least. I can't speak for all of the other 6 kids in my AP class, but the feeling I got was the many of them missed out on credit as well.

 

But it was really unusual to take the AP class in my time - out of a class of 245 kids in our grade, only 7 of us took the class - we were all planning to go to tough colleges, which might have explained why the 3s were not good enough for us.

 

Today it seems like AP is the norm, if not required, for college bound kids.