Mariana finally finished her AP Physics class homework, which was about Torques, at 11:30 pm.  After 2 hours of studying the night before, and getting a less than a seven-hour of satisfactory sleep, Mariana is ready to take her unit exam.

Advanced Placement Classes at The Columbus School are advanced classes for students who want to challenge themselves and learn a subject more in depth. The College Board, which sponsors AP classes,  offers around 40 different subjects including everything from Psychology to Chemistry. TCS offers about 20 subjects, plus students can take additional AP classes online at Virtual High School. For the last two weeks, students that have been preparing all year long, are going to demonstrate their knowledge of the course’s material by writing the exam.

This year’s exams took place between May 1 and May 12, exams had to be pre-ordered 3 months prior. Tests consist of multiple sections, the number of sections depends on the subject it is covering, for each, an estimated time is given. Exams have two sections; multiple choice and free response, depending on the course the number of questions vary. 

Taking AP Courses

AP courses offer students to take more challenging and academically advanced version of their favorite classes. For students looking to prepare themselves for college, AP subjects are a great choice. However, students need to take into account they are college level courses that come with challenging exams.

“I think AP Classes are really outstanding; they are college level courses and it’s a very good space for outstanding students so that they can get a better knowledge of a subject,” Jorge Vasquez, Chief of the AP Department said.

Due to the complexity and difficulty present in most AP’s, the level of student’s success heavily depends on how well the teacher explains and how much passion they have for teaching. Each teacher has their own method of managing their class and that’s reflecting upon their students.

“Classes depend more on the rigurosity of each teacher and how they decide to teach the class,” Vasquez said.

Every year, students start to challenge themselves and sign up for more AP Classes, few students decide not to do the exam but as years pass students start to feel more secure and motivated about doing the exam.

“This year, In TCS there is around 280 students in AP Classes and 174 students are taking the AP Exam,” Vasquez said.

Benefits

AP Courses, although they are quite challenging and hard also have multiple benefits that end up attracting more students.

Since AP’s are difficult courses some colleges that are allied with The College Board accept the credits of the class, letting you skip that subject in university. College credits are given to the students who score more than a 3 on the exam.

“Taking AP’s looks good on a student’s resume and helps them get into better colleges. It happens to be that AP Calculus is the number one course that colleges pay attention to when selecting students,” Samuel Edelstein, AP Calculus AB & BC teacher, said.

Also, students who feel they are “advanced” in a class can skip taking normal classes. People who took AP Physics in 11th grade do not need to take Physics 12 in their Senior year.

“It is rewarding that I do not to see Physics 12 in my senior year due to the fact that I was in AP Physics 1 this Junior year,”  Luisa Mejia, 11th grader, AP Physics, English & Calculus AB student, said.

Last but not least, AP Courses give students who feel passionate about a subject an opportunity to sign in a class they are fascniated about.

“I love the fact that I can choose which classes I want to take and which ones I don’t. When they give us this choice we are able to know more about the stuff we are passionate about and not about the stuff we are forced to know,” Sergio Osorio, 11th grader, AP Chemistry & Biology student, said.

Time

Time management is one of the most important concepts that a student should master in order to excel in their course. If time is managed adequately, stress bestowed upon students is greatly reduced. Cramming is not an option in APs; if a student has an exam on Friday, he/she should begin studying the material thoroughly since Monday. 

“Per week, I require 2-3 hours of studying for my AP’s and the quantity of hours varies depending on if we have a test that week,” Diego Botin, 11th grader, AP Chemistry, Physics & Calculus AB student, said.

School and social life are intertwined in high school, for some, it is hard to separate and manage them accordingly. When taking AP courses, students must sacrifice some of their personal time in order to succeed. However, this is no easy task; students tend to become lazy and procrastinate, leading them off track.

“Sometimes I know I should study during the weekend too if I have an exam on Monday but between parties, hanging out with friends, and just relaxing at home, it’s hard to separate time for school work,” Mejia said.

Work Load

Teenagers tend to leave things last minute, but that isn’t an option when taking APs. If a student misses class for a week out sick, they will have a tough time catching up on the topics and even worse is they will have very little time to do a large amount of work.

“Workload distribution is crucial in any AP because there is usually a lot of homework and it’s nearly impossible to do it all in one sitting,” Carolina Penagos, 11th grader, AP Calculus AB, Chemistry, Physics, & English student, said.

Taking the AP Exam

For some students, the AP exam means credits for college and saving money, for others it means testing your knowledge on the subject, it could also mean both. The AP exam is the most important test of the year for many high school students and determines if you learned the content of the class.

“It’s unbelievable that after so much work, everything we’ve studied gets summed up in one exam. This exam could determine what I end up studying in college,” Osorio said.

Some teachers use questions from past exams to prepare their students. They use this questions in activities or quizzes which expose students to the level of questions they need to be prepared for. 

“I use real AP questions from all years (1969-2016) on every single test so that students are constantly exposed to the level that they need to reach. I also try to make sure that all the practice problems are very similar,“ Samuel Edelstein, AP Calculus teacher, said.