As students choose their new classes for the next year in March, there is a concerning trend: students cram their schedules with Advanced Placement (AP) classes, not because they are interested in those subjects but because they think it will make them look appealing for colleges. Though APs can provide students with a challenging academic experience that prepares them for the future, taking too many at once can overwhelm students with work and stress compared to taking a class that students actually have an interest in.
Keeping this in mind, students should balance their course schedule by learning to take classes that they are genuinely interested in, not just to boost their GPA.
“Students are like ‘This is an opportunity to increase my GPA,’” school counselor Nicole Epres said. “I think in general they should really be looking at the class itself, what is being taught and if it aligns with their interests, because at the end of the day it’s not about that GPA. It’s about what you are learning, what are you taking away from this class that you can apply to for your future.”
Taking non-AP classes can expose students to new interests and skills that can be difficult to learn when they grow older. For example, sophomore Liv Skeete takes one non-academic class she is interested in every year to expose herself to new interests.
“I take things that are difficult to learn later in life that are very accessible in high school,” Skeete said. “Like, as an adult if you haven’t taken vocal lessons before, or you haven’t done art class before, there’s not many adults that would go out there and do that for themselves. So I figure we have these amazing opportunities available at our school to go explore new things and I like to take advantage of them.”
Despite what most may think, cramming a schedule with APs does not boost college admissions significantly. Colleges look for students who continuously improve and challenge themselves across their entire high school career, not just in one year, and reducing one or two AP classes does not greatly reduce chances of admissions, according to CollegeVine.
Cramming APs can lead to a loss of identity as well, as students defer pursuing their own passion projects and taking interesting classes for the sake of college, as junior Nero Xu learned. He believes that there should be a healthy balance between challenging oneself with APs and leaving room for interests.
“If we’re just doing things for the sake of college applications, we leave no room for ourselves to explore topics that we might actually want to pursue in the future because we want to look good for colleges,” junior Nero Xu said. “I feel like we’re forgetting the basis of our identity as people in favor of just, I suppose, being the one blind good student that we think colleges want.”
For the chance to learn new skills, students need to normalize taking classes that they are interested in even if they are not APs or Honors classes.
