In a competitive district like Oak Park Unified School District, it’s easy to get lost in what you are supposed to be doing. From parents to counselors, to the girl next to you in class, everyone is hyper aware of what it takes to get into an Ivy League. It seems as though it is impossible to be successful if you haven’t taken 12 AP classes, three extracurriculars, seven clubs and created a nonprofit by the time college applications come around.
Despite all of this dedication, there are still countless students at the top of their class who get rejected from their dream schools. Class of 2028 experienced an all time high number of applicants and all time low acceptance rates, with Yale University hitting a record low of 3.7 percent compared to the previous year’s 4.5 percent acceptance rate.
So many find themselves wondering if all the work done throughout high school truly pays off. Teenagers dedicate 4 years of their lives for the chance to ensure their future, constantly wondering if they are taking enough APs or “the right” APs. These courses are generally taken to boost a student’s GPA and obtain college credit, but some have started to question their benefit, or lack thereof, in student’s lives.
An important consideration is that not all AP classes are created equal. Different district’s AP and Honors classes are at varying levels of difficulty depending on the overall academic focus of the school. While AP curriculum requirements are established by the College Board, both AP and Honors courses are subject to variation depending on the district, school and teacher.
The difficulty of each high school also determines the preparedness of its students for whichever college they are accepted into. While the AP classes for more academically driven schools may be more difficult, they also leave the student ready for any college they end up going to; sometimes even over prepared.
How many AP courses are available at a student’s high school is another variable to consider. The college admissions teams are aware of how many APs each school offers. So if someone going to a school with three APs available takes three APs, it reflects differently than if someone going to a school with 24 APs available, just takes the three APs.
According to a College Board summary of research, involvement in accelerated courses is linked to college success, with the biggest change seen between completing zero APs or one AP and one AP or two APs. Regardless of the score received on those AP exams, there was not a significant difference between taking five APs and more than five in college success. In other words, while participating in AP courses is extremely beneficial in the future, students do not need to overwhelm their schedules with them.
If students do choose to enroll in their school’s AP course selection, their score on the AP exam is also a pivotal factor in whether or not those classes make a difference in their acceptance. AP courses are not required, and consequently it is also not required that students report their scores on their applications.
While fours or fives are a good thing to self-report, threes and below are in some instances more likely to weigh down your application than not including scores at all. This is because college boards look for proficiency in each aspect of a student’s application, and failing or barely passing an AP test only highlights the missing 4 or 5 for that test.
Regardless of all the risks, there are still some substantial benefits to investing time and energy into accelerated courses. Besides preparing students for college and potentially reducing the number of credits they need to take, some schools also allow AP test scores to fulfill their standardized testing requirements. NYU requires three test scores, while the University of Rochester only mandates one.
The only drawback to this rule is that they generally require an official AP score report, which unlike self-reporting requires students to pay extra if they wish to hold back any less than satisfactory scores.
Many have concluded that APs on college applications primarily function on a quality-over-quantity basis, but that can differ depending on the highschool. Because OPUSD is such an academically driven district, Oak Park High School students may need to take more APs than those of other districts in order to keep up with their peers.
But above all else, colleges are looking for the human being behind each academic portfolio.
“Yes, we want to see AP classes, but we also want to see students develop interests and talents outside of the classroom…[colleges do not] want every single student in the library 24/7,” Assistant Dean of USC admissions Becky Chassin said.
Accelerated classes should not be taken at the cost of their grade or mental health, and that time can instead be spent on finding their passion, and what makes them truly unique.
