Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments AP - Honors - info about

DD13 and DD12 (DYS) will be high school freshman next year. What are some good websites to go to for learning about Honors vs AP, work load, looking towards college, etc? I need to keep in mind that DD13, while the most organized kid on the planet, is extremely anxious about grades so we need to keep her balanced. She is very studious so that is in her favor as well as a love of math (and in her new school was voted to lead the class!). DD12 will be entering high school as a very young 13 year old who is disorganized and well,just young. She is good at everything so I really wonder what she will want to do. Side note - she will be helping the high school kids this year put together a literary magazine because at age 11 she was co-editor of our previous school's magazine.

I would look at the College Board website. It might not have everything your looking for it's probably a good start. I'm sure someone on here could provide you a link

You can find a lot of info online, but fwiw the best info we've had re actual classes and AP/Honors/college search etc has come from through our local high school, both counselors, fellow parents, resources offered by the school district, and our kids themselves as they become independent, thinking adults charting their own way in life.

The thing about AP and Honors classes - the quality, availability, work load, etc will vary a lot from area to area, and even from class to class within a school based on who's teaching the class. Choices re courses taken are often also dictated to a certain extent by your school or school district.

When my kids were younger, I had a lot of expectations re APs etc.... as they grew into teens and actually experienced high school I realized that their best prep for college actually came from giving them the freedom to make their own choices. My ds made a course choice for senior year that flies against all conventional and internet-wisdom re what one should do if one is a highly capable kid shooting to attend a nit-picky admissions college in a currently trending career field, but he made the decision from a point of being well-informed all around, and he made the decision that was right for him.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I endorse polarbear's position. Sussing this out requires direct conversations with the individual schools. There are some standards around the AP label, but what does "Honors" mean to them?

In my school, "Honors" was a label that was affixed to any top-level class that didn't have a connection to an AP test. There was an Honors Algebra II class because The College Board doesn't offer an AP test for that subject, but they do for US History, so advanced students wanted APUSH. There was no either/or, they were simply the labels you looked for if you were an advanced student and wanted the most challenging version of your courses. Whether anyone actually took the AP test at the end of an AP course was entirely at student/parent discretion.

I’ve been thinking about this lately. My kids are a few years off but our local high school offers AP, IB, some UW dual credit classes, and WA’s running start program through the local community college. I’m not sure what they’ll do but it seems like there are a lot of choices for smart motivated students.

As nicoledad already mentioned, College Board's AP website will give you the official info on the various AP classes. As polarbear and Dude pointed out, you need to get relevant comparisons on the various offerings from the actual school your DDs will attend next year. For example, at DS/DD's school, the "average" and "slow" students are in the "honors" courses because all the bright kids are in "GT" or AP classes; while the district still has standard core classes at many (most?) of the high schools, our particular high school has eliminated the standard courses in English, Science and Social Studies. The only exception I see is in math. My point being beware the label and consider it in context.