Ben Kirschner, a senior student at Hall High School, has taken 8 AP courses throughout his high school career. He said that he takes AP courses in classes that he’s interested in and knows he’s going to use in his future career.
According to Collegeboard, a national organization that helps students navigate from high school to college, “AP gives students the chance to tackle college-level work while they're still in high school and earn college credit and placement.”
Additionally, Kirschner takes some AP courses for the AP credit. “It's sort of just like, got to take an AP class. There's sort of a social pressure to do that. I think to some extent, like, yeah, I think I will use those credits. You know, most of the exams I've done well enough on that I will be able to use the credit. But apart from that, I think it's sort of just like when you're signing up for the courses, everybody's talking about, oh, I'm doing AP this, I'm doing AP that. It's just sort of like the default.”
Collegeboard has conducted research that “shows that the largest predicted boost in college grades and on-time degree completion comes from moving a student from 0 to 1 AP and from 1 to 2 APs. Introducing students to the rigors of AP courses is strongly associated with future college success and is associated with the largest return on college outcomes. We also show that taking and performing well on more than five AP Exams does not markedly alter first-year college grades and four-year degree completion.”
Additional surveys published in the International Journal of High School Research “indicates that when the average student takes more APs, they tend to spend more time on homework, get less sleep, and have higher self-perceived stress. However, students who took one to three AP classes generally had the best median mental well-being score.”
