I asked my mom (class of ‘93) what AP classes were like when she was in school, and she said they were exclusive to seniors and she only ever took AP English her last year of high school. She told this to her daughter who as a junior has already taken 5 AP classes in her high school career. Obviously times have changed but schools have been pushing harder and harder for these advanced classes as of late and I can’t be the only one to notice. Every time I talk to one of my peers it seems they are complaining of the stress of at least one AP class. I’m left wondering: when did these high level classes become so normalized to take?
According to College Boards website, 1,166,311 students in the class of 2022 took at least one AP class, which is 30.1% more than the class of 2012. Using these stats we can determine that more students take APs now than 10 years ago, and the trends show that numbers are only going to get higher from there.
Schools get funding for their inclusion of APs in their curriculum, and the numbers of students taking these APs make schools look better as a whole. Due to this, AP classes are overly-encouraged every year during course selection. Even freshmen are permitted to take some of these courses now. We are thrusting unprepared students into a position that they may not be ready for and causing them even more stress than they already have.
The senior vice president of college and career readiness at McGraw Education, Jeff Livingston sums this up perfectly. His take is that, “While AP enrollments are on the rise, the reality is that the vast majority of new AP class takers are not becoming AP exam passers. These students are unprepared for the rigors of college level coursework in high school.” This is supported by the average scores of AP tests found on College Board’s website which shows that about 30% of students across all AP’s last year scored a 1 or 2. 30% of students last year couldn’t even use their AP scores for college credit. Schools need to rethink whether these advanced classes are doing more harm than good.
The more I speak to my peers about these issues, the more my opinion on them is strengthened. Honors students are told APs are the “next step” and never it is never considered whether it is the right step for them. Some students feel inferior to their peers taking harder classes than them and might throw themselves into a high level class that they might not be ready for as a result. I know I myself have felt this pressure; during course selection I picked 4 very vigorous APs to take junior year and my parents convinced me to drop one. However, hearing all my friends talk about how many APs they were taking made me end up taking a different AP anyways.
Our school is not necessarily setting up students for success by pushing these AP classes, and they are sometimes doing more harm than good to students’ mental health and grades as a result. Remember that you are a person, not a number, and don’t give into these pressures if you don’t feel comfortable taking advanced classes.
Sources:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/why-50-of-students-fail-ap-exams-and-how-to-change-that
https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/about-ap-scores/score-distributions
