Students participating in the AP program balance challenging coursework with extracurricular activities, learning time management and preparing for the rigor of college courses.
Staying up late to finish a research paper, spending extra hours in the science lab or working weekends on an art portfolio are tasks many students add to their schedules. These activities are part of the Advanced Placement (AP) Program, a series of courses offered by The College Board for students wanting to engage in higher-level learning and critical thinking environments. AP classes expand upon what students have previously learned and provide extra challenges on prior topics. Students taking AP courses can earn college credit, build college skills and, depending on the AP exam score they receive and their prospective school, skip introductory college classes.
Participating in the AP program involves balancing schedules and managing time well. Students may find themselves with less time extracurricular activities and having to focus more on work for AP classes.
“That’s part of the balancing act that everybody has to do,” AP United States Government and Politics teacher Skip Thibault said. “Time is a limited resource—we only have so much of it—so you’ve got to decide how to spend your time, just like how you’re going to spend your money. Do I want to spend my time reading things I’m not interested in, or do I want to do it playing my sport or doing my club? It’s an economic decision: opportunity cost.”
Balancing the coursework of AP classes with other activities presents a challenge for many students. This challenge grows when students take numerous AP classes over the course of a year or a semester.
“I see a lot of times when high achieving students take five or six AP courses,” Principal Justin Bartholomew said. “I think that it’s good that you’re challenging yourself, but I really think you have to sit back and say, ‘Okay, what else am I contributing to my school community, to my surrounding community, because if I’m taking six AP courses, my time is non-stop dominated by schoolwork. What opportunities do I have to really get involved in a club and be of any value to that club, or contribute to a sport and be of value to that sport?’….We’ve gotten into this very big, huge culture of, ‘I gotta get to Harvard, I gotta get to Yale, I gotta get into UNC—if I don’t get into UNC I’m a failure.’ No, you’re not. It doesn’t matter where you go, it’s what you do with the time you have, and that means the most. It depends on the student. I would not want my daughter to take five or six AP courses. I don’t care if she was brilliant, I would not want her to do that.”
Last year, senior Brennen McAllister took five AP classes. McAllister says AP classes were a challenge at first, but the challenge grew easier with time.
“It was hard,” McAllister said. “Lots of nights I didn’t get sleep, but eventually, when I got into the routine of having all the homework, I got used to it.”
Every student adjusts to AP classes differently. Junior Jasmine Wilkie said one of her AP classes was overwhelming, and chose to drop the class.
“I was in APUSH (AP United States History) for about three days,” Wilkie said. “I have really bad generalized anxiety disorder, and also a little bit of a panic disorder, and APUSH really brought that out for me, because it was just a crazy workload. I went home, I didn’t get any sleep. The summer before with all the summer work was when I really knew it wasn’t going to work for me. I stayed up days at a time, doing things, and it just wasn’t healthy for me, so I dropped it.”
There is no limitation to how many AP classes students can take. However, each AP class centers around a specific topic, and the coursework for each AP class focuses on the course’s subject matter.
“Don’t take the AP unless you love the topic,” AP Biology teacher Victoria Raymond said. “You don’t have to have five or six AP’s to get into a good college. Take what you’re willing and desiring to invest that kind of level of effort in. My students know I froth at the mouth for what I teach, so come on and join the fun. And that’s the kind of thing we’re hoping to do. I think students would be better off just being very selective in that AP’s that they do take, so that they can enjoy the ride.”
According to some teachers, too often students take an AP class for the extra GPA weight these courses carry. AP classes give students the opportunity to study a topic in more depth and detail, and some teachers say grades should not always be a student’s primary fixation.
“My least favorite thing about teaching AP kids is how obsessed they are with grades, because I’m not so obsessed with grades,” Thibault said. “I just want a roomful of students who want to talk about stuff, and I know they’re learning stuff and they’re getting into it, and they’re thinking about things they’ve never thought about before at a level they’ve never thought about before. To me, that’s pretty cool. I put a grade on that?”
As a straight-A student, junior Brenda Ruto had to come to terms with making a B in an AP class. Ruto said she eventually realized that it’s not always about the grade you make, but about the work you do.
“When I was younger, if I didn’t get an A, I would be so upset, and I was a straight-A student until this year,” Ruto said. “It was a little bit hard getting my first B, but at the same time, I still realized that I did a lot of extra work, and I was in a bunch of extra clubs. I’m not trying to say that I had to sacrifice my grades, but I realized that you don’t necessarily have to push yourself to the point where you’re so stressed out about it…. In the past, a B would’ve made me so upset, but now, it’s something to be proud of, because I’m involved in so many more things than I was before.”
AP United States History teacher Sara Keever said if students maintain a positive response to a challenge and work hard, the experience and rigor of an AP class is worth the time and the effort.
“I think that if a student is going to have a positive outlook about meeting a challenge head on and doing the best that they can, regardless of the result, then I would say that the AP is the right place for them,” Keever said. “Because if you end up with a C in an AP, first of all, your life is going to continue just fine, and second of all, you’ve had an incredible experience and practice in what college courses are actually going to be like. You’ve got your eyes a little more open to what it’s going to be like later. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s a great experience.”
– By Leah Kallam
