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    parentologyco, Smartlady60, petercgeelan, eterpstra, Valib90
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    Joined: Jan 2010
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    Our high school-aged babysitter was over last night. She told us that our local public highs school, which is top 10% in California, now limits kids to 8 AP or honors classes for all of high school. Apparently the University of California schools only consider 8 to add extra points to their GPA.
    She was shut out of 2 AP classes this year and was very upset.
    My kids are only in elementary school. However, I'm curious if others have seen this and what your thoughts are. The school district did it to make high school less stressful for the kids.

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    Our high school only allows kids to take APs in their junior and senior years, which in theory would limit them to 12 given that there are six periods.

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    I imagine they must also pull football players once they've played in six winning games, and never let sophomores play on the varsity teams.

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    If our football players weren't pulled until they won six games, football players would be in HS for 7 or 8 years.

    The 8 AP class limit troubles me less than the 8 AP or Honors mentioned by the OP (at least if Honors there works the same way it works here). They may have a lot of kids "gaming" the GPA thing by taking more weighted courses and finding ways to take unweighted ones pass/fail (such as online health class or a "summer school" PE class). Some kids actually do this so they have a good shot at valedictorian.

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    I must be missing something

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    Summer school PE is somewhat common here (Northwest suburbs of Chicago)for the very reason you mentioned.

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    MOST schools have a sort of de facto limit on AP since they have "prerequisites" (often mandating that a student have spent a year in the "prep" course covering the material prior to tackling the AP version*), that only junior or senior students can enroll in AP, that no student may take more than two or three at once, etc. etc.

    * and frankly, how in the heck are students supposed to TAKE all of those prerequisite courses, all of the different graduation requirements, AND fit in AP, I'd like to know?

    Anyway.

    Yes-- kids game the system for GPA points. On the other hand, it does you no good at all to take three AP classes unless you get A's in them, if you KWIM.

    They are harder than the standard/honors courses, if only because of the rate and workload.

    DD will graduate having taken just 4 full-year AP classes. It's all she's had time for, frankly-- in light of the silly prerequisite thing, I mean.

    On the other hand, limiting honors/college prep coursework seems bad, bad, bad to me. She's taken about 14 of those.


    Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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    Actually, I now see that everything I wrote above is invalid. Was dog tired when I read the OP last night. I obviously do not understand the system here. Now you put it like that, i.e. 8 total over 4 years it is woefully low - I misread the original post as concern over limiting things to 8 AP classes in the senior year. Sorry about that I have deleted my earlier post.

    Last edited by madeinuk; 09/15/13 04:32 AM.

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    I guess I thought there would be more outrage on this chat site- people are outraged when their first grader can't bring in books from home to read. Our public school offers for AP classes for STEM kids: AP physics, biology, chemistry, AB calculus, BC calculus, and statistic. That is 6 right there. Then if you take two years of a foreign language AP, what about- US history, art history, etc?
    I just don't see how/why they would limit these kind of classes if kids are qualified to take them and want to take them. I got a year of college credit from the 3 AP tests I took, way back when, which allowed me to graduate from my private university early and save a lot of money!
    Our babysitter was in tears because her GPA is "only" a 4.00 and she doesn't think she will get into any of our UC state schools! They wouldn't let her take 4 AP classes her senior year, only two.

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    Well, but that's the catch, see-- LOTS of parents pressuring schools to let their kids take more-more-more of these prep/AP classes, but then complaining about the rigor once they get into them.

    Technically, AP courses ARE supposed to be both WAY more work and WAY faster. College level, right?

    So I understand placing barriers to keep out the kids who truly shouldn't be in them due to not being able to keep up with the pace or output expectations-- and to keep the level of instruction appropriately high, which has quite frankly become quite a problem in the AP program during the last ten years or so...

    the problem with "AP for all" is that it turns into an AP free-for-all, if you see what I mean. Parents want kids to be earning good grades and passing AP tests. Otherwise, they figure, what is the point?

    I consider that attitude about any class to be something of an abomination-- because it leads straight down the rabbit-hole to "test-prep-land."

    Which is exactly what AP has become in all too many cases. Because there are too many kids in those classes now that have no real business in them (that is, if you NEED to take a full year of "physics" before tackling AP Physics B, uhhhhh-- maybe AP isn't for you, YK?) they devolve into test-prep vehicles to keep butts in seats.

    So-- easier work. Check. (Busywork, as it happens). LOTS of it... because that way we can still claim adequate "rigor" in the curriculum... see, look how hard the students must work in our AP offerings... smirk (like hamsters running on wheels, but hey...)

    Test preparation-- check, again.

    Deep understanding? Er-- only inadvertently for most students. Faster pacing-- suuuuuuuure... an inch deep and ten miles wide equals... a hydrofoil. wink






    Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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