Help Justify Advanced Placement

[Ghoulish Delight]

I presume he is on a track towards college? I'd mention that he feels that taking the honors class offers him the best opportunity to be an attractive candidate for any college he'd choose to apply to.

[Alex]

What is the route they want him in instead? Is it just a standard chemistry class or is he jumping the standard sciences sequence? In my high school the standard sequence was earth sciences, biology, chemistry, physics and I had to argue my way out of it to get earth sciences, chemistry/physics, AP chemistry/physics, independent study chemistry/physics.

The argument would be different depending what which you're trying to justify.

That said, I can't think of how to justify Advanced Placement (assuming you mean an actual AP-test taking class) since the idea that those courses are in any way college equivalent is a joke.

[Prudence]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

That said, I can't think of how to justify Advanced Placement (assuming you mean an actual AP-test taking class) since the idea that those courses are in any way college equivalent is a joke.

Indeed. My AP classes were far more advanced than their college level equivalents.

[Alex]

Then you're experience was the opposite of mine. Six AP classes, six passed AP tests and not one a particularly useful educational experience.

They were better in the sciences but the humanities one were just awful.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Then you're experience was the opposite of mine. Six AP classes, six passed AP tests and not one a particularly useful educational experience.

They were better in the sciences but the humanities one were just awful.

Are you kidding? Thanks to my AP English experience, I refined my BS skills to such a fine degree that I was able to show up to my first college humanities final an hour late, finish on time, and still receive a near perfect score. And even in the technical world, those same BS skills allow me to churn out plans, reports, proposals, etc. with no effort but better results than 99% of my coworkers (one manager tried to get our whole department to adopt the format from a report I threw together in an hour).

Best life skill I ever learned. Though I suppose that started in elementary school. It seems that through my whole educational career I had teachers that stressed the importance of being able to synthesize thoughts and data into an organized format.

So while I learned next to nothing about the books I read in AP English, I definitely considered it a worthwhile experience.

Of course, I also took 14 AP exams, so I'm a little crazy.