APs Make You Look Complacent, Not Curious.

3/9/2015

My heart broke today when I learned about yet another teen suicide in Palo Alto. Looking through the comments on the article, as well as notes from recent community forums, it's clear that many parents and students in the PAUSD want to cap the number of APs a student can take -- or even eliminate APs altogether.

I haven't decided if that's a good idea or not. But, through my experience working and studying with admissions officers at Stanford, as well as working as a college admissions counselor, I have decided one thing:

AP classes make you look complacent, not curious.

Why? Think about it from an admissions officer's perspective.

Say you've got... I dunno... 8,000 applicants who took AP U.S. History; AP Calculus; AP Biology; AP Physics; AP Language; and AP Whatever Else...

And then you've got one student who was curious about Marine Biology. So she took a Marine Biology elective -- you know, instead of AP Fill-in-the-Blank. And she loved it so much that she applied for an internship at an aquarium -- and used the money to get scuba certified! Then, with several dives under her weight belt, she completed her Underwater Naturalist certification. Meaning she could (and did) go out into the wild and identify animals, plants, real examples of commensalism, parasitism, amensalism and synnecrosis.

Realizing that the underwater world is completely different at night, she then took a part-time job to pay for a Night Diver course at her local dive shop. Fascinated by all this, she knew she would (probably) do something biology-related in college, and decided to take her one and only AP in Biology.

Which student would you admit?

Colleges don't want to fill their ranks with zombies. They've gotten better, lately, at recognizing the difference between a hoop-jumper who wants to do one of six things after graduation, or whose only real goal is getting into their first-choice school (which, by the way, is not an accomplishment)... and someone with real interests. Real passion. Real courage.

Because in today's toxic, high-achieving, and sometimes suicide-inducing environment... it takes courage to not follow the same path as everyone else. It takes courage not to push yourself to tears on a weekly basis. It takes courage not to take on more than you can handle -- and, instead, to develop your real passions. Whether they be Harry Potter links, vintage fashion, ear training, or something else.

Real passion is getting rarer and rarer as more kids hurry through childhood, sacrificing playtime for homework and flashcards time. And parents aren't helping. Last week, when a New York elementary (elementary!) school banned homework, parents weren't supportive. They were enraged! Many threatened to pull their kids out of that school if the policy wasn't changed.

Parents didn't want their kids to play. They wanted their kids to stress and do busywork. I guess they missed the memo: the best way to give your child a creative, entrepreneurial mind isn't with flashcards. It's through great questions, great dialogue and exploration.

Like, this kid. He's going to be a freaking water/plumbing/flood control/interior design/something else genius some day.

I can imagine his college essay now: "It all started with my passion for toilets."

But seriously. Not only does it take courage to pave your own path to success... it's also a lot harder than following the painful, stressful, well-trodden one that every other high-achiever is following.

Because instead of following the crowd, jumping through hoops and doing all the "right" things... you actually have to think. You actually have to ask yourself, "What am I passionate about?" "What do I want, and how can I find or create an opportunity for that?" or even just, "What if?"

It takes self-awareness. It takes outside-the-box thinking. It takes true ownership and leadership skills -- not contrived "I'm starting some kind of club at school this year because doing so will look good on my college app" leadership.

It takes the kinds of skills that computers, outsourced workers and machines don't have. Skills that will be valuable in the future.

And colleges have realized this. Their admissions standards aren't perfect yet, but they're shifting. Lani Guinier, Harvard Law professor and author of The Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America:

To solve complex problems, you don’t just want only those people who do well on the SAT or who do really well on the LSAT... The LSAT is a very weak predictor of the students’ success in law school. The LSAT predicted 14 percent of the variance in the first year of law school, and 15 percent in the second year, which means that 85 percent of the time the LSAT was not predictive. So my point is that we should be nurturing a diverse group of problem solvers rather than measuring a much less diverse group of test takers.

Moreover, according to one Stanford admissions officer I spoke with,

Stanford is as guilty as other highly-selective schools at admitting strong test-takers... But we are definitely now doing a better job than before of admitting a DIVERSE group of those students.

In other words, grades and test scores aren't the be-all, end-all of top schools.

Even if they were, so what? "Paly Sophomore" lamented in the comments of the aforementioned news article that he was afraid of disappointing his parents by going to a state school like UC Davis. To which I say: a lot of UC Davis students graduate much more prepared for a career than a lot of Stanford students. Especially if you want a career in something crazy cool, like winemaking, bird catching or veterinary medicine. Throughout this blog, I've given countless examples of people who didn't go to top schools who still built amazing success, amazing lives, or both.

This proud UC Davis alum turned her weird bird obsession into a career in ornithology -- she's worked in Point Reyes National Seashore, the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, Hawaii and Utah. She and her friends always amaze me with the interesting jobs they end up finding. By comparison, my Stanford friends are kind of boring...

Besides, it's not like you're going to graduate from an Ivy and people will just start throwing jobs at you because of your degree. (For more, check out Going to Stanford Doesn't Mean You'll Get a Stanford Education - And Going to a State School Doesn't Mean You Won't.) They care a lot more about your experience and relevant coursework. Your Stanford degree will help a little. It'll open the door for you a little. But it's up to you to impress hiring managers. Because they're hiring people, not degrees.

But I digress.

The point is, in a world of automation and outsourced workers -- in a world of passionless, directionless overachievers -- your APs aren't going to make you look interesting. They're not going to make you stand out.

They're just going to make you look like you're good at following the path others set and doing things computers do better, but you don't have any "real" passion.

For more, check out The Two Biggest Mistakes Students Make on Their College Apps Have NOTHING To Do With Writing.

24 Comments

newbie

3/9/2015 01:33:36 pm

thank you!! I've forwarded your blog onto my high schooler's college counselor! As a family, we will be discussing the number of AP classes selected for next year -- I'm hoping 1 or 2 will drop off!! I agree with you completely -- there are MANY paths to success. That motto is typical of home schooling families.

Eva Glasrud link

3/11/2015 10:27:07 am

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. Although I loooooooved my high school experience, I've always been a little jealous of the self-directedness of a home school education.

Evelyn link

3/10/2015 06:41:56 am

Just shared this with the Coastal Studies for Girls alumnae and current students. Such a great message and reminder to celebrate each unique, powerful and authentic path. Special gratitude for the piece about honoring true passions and letting them serve as a guide.

3/11/2015 10:25:24 am

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I was checking out the Coastal Studies for Girls site -- all I can say is, "Wow! What a program!" I feel like that is exactly what education should look like. Not stress and competition and APs. :)

Millenial hoop-jumper

3/10/2015 04:33:59 pm

Too bad my passion for X won't make enough money to pay off the ridiculous student loans from my UC undergrad and grad school education.

Yes it sounds nice to buck the hoop jumping in favor of finding "real passion" but the risks of not becoming financially self sufficient in the post-recession economy scare my generation into taking every precaution. At least if we work ourselves to the bone we won't feel as guilty with our freelance photography or part time sales jobs when the Baby Boomers criticize us for being lazy and entitled.

Additionally, AP credits allowed my sister and I to graduate college early and save tuition money.

Stanford Grad Student

3/11/2015 06:37:30 am

I personally think that AP classes do serve a place. I too took APs and got to skip some of my first year courses in undergrad. However I think the message of this post is not that APs are inherently a bad decision. It's more that teens should be less obsessed with grades, APs, what SAT score they get, what college they go to, etc etc etc and more focused figuring themselves out. The big question is the why. Why are you taking that AP course? Interest and intellectual stimulation? Or just because you think parents/peers/society/colleges want you to.

I was one of those obsessed with grades teens not so many years ago. I was driven by a need for perfection and to be above my peers. I graduated near the top of my class both in high school and college. But you know what I didn't do? Explore myself. It was a huge mistake. After graduation I spend many years lost and found it much harder to explore my options after college and high school than during those times. Eventually I went to grad school but still don't fully know what I want to do next. I think that is the point here. By focussing so much on grades and APs students lose focus on exploring themselves and figuring out what really matters.

Your post sounds like you are arguing being controlled by fear, fear of not landing a good job, fear of disappointing parents, fear of not being a "success". I think that is a dangerous way of thinking because I think it will lead to the opposite of success.

I am a PhD student at Stanford now (but I think that is more due to the fact that I did something unique after undergrad and not due to my GPA). The most successful grad student I know, by far, did not go to an elite school. He did not have a good GPA (he told me he was a B-/C+ student). Yet he has published in more elite journals than any of my peers, and has even been flown to other universities to teach methods he invented to other researchers. So you might wonder how he came to be so successful. He followed his interests. He worked as a tech after graduation and learned he was good at research and he enjoyed it. People recognized his talent and thus he was able to get into an elite graduate school. Why? Because at least in my field grad schools don't really care all that much about where you went to school, what your GPA was, or what your GRE score was. They care about one thing, how good you are at science and research. Therefor a student that pursues these interests is much more prepared than one who just hoop jumped. I am sure this student will get many job offers after finishing his PhD and no one will care even in the least where he went to undergrad or what grades he had.

That is the point that you are missing. If you are taking APs for the right reason, because you are inherently interested in the subject, they can be great. They are intellectually more rigorous, you'll learn more, and you might get to test out of some college courses. But if you are not taking them out of interest, know that you are taking them at the expense of something else. An internship perhaps? An elective that really interests you? Friendships? Mental health?

3/11/2015 10:24:11 am

It makes sense to take APs if your goal is to save money -- like I told Rachel, it is crippling to graduate into a less-than-awesome economy saddled with debt. But I'm not convinced that that's the real reason most kids take them. I think they're trying to stand out by doing the exact same thing everyone else who's trying to stand out is doing -- at the expense of their health, happiness and curiosity.

As far as not being able to convert your real passion into an income. Sadly, not everyone can. But exploring your passion definitely improves your odds. Let's stick with the bird example. Say I spent a ton of time in high school birdwatching. Volunteering at raptor observatories. Learning field methodologies. Learning how to identify birds by their call... and the unexpected ways to locate the kinds of birds you're looking for. I'd definitely have a leg up on someone with a fancy degree but no out-of-book experience in the field.

Or say my passion was... mixing music. And I worked on mixing my music a lot, and I built up a little online following. And then I created a Patreon campaign, and, collectively, my fans committed to donating $100 to me every time I posted a video. Which I did once per month. Now I've supplemented my income with an extra $1,200. Maybe that can be a trip to Hawaii. Or I can use it to pay down my student loans faster. Or I can invest it -- that money could grown into $80,000 by the time I retire.

(Though, admittedly, I made a half-hearted attempt at a Patreon campaign once, and it didn't really go too well. Of course, if you're feeling generous, the link is https://www.patreon.com/TheHappyTalent)

They say that in the next few years, up to 50% of workers in the US are going to be 1099 (contract) workers. Developing your passions will allow you to capitalize on that -- making money at graphic design, writing, matchmaking, selling used clothes or embroidered socks online, or whatever else you might want to do. Maybe not full-time. But some part of the time.

Emi

11/10/2015 10:43:12 pm

While I agree with the general message of your article, I disagree with part about APs making you look "complacent". High schoolers - at least the ones I went to high school with - indeed took APs to accumulate credits for college. In fact, our counselor made it seem like that was the very purpose of AP classes. (And I'm really glad I took them, I finished undergrad in three years and got my Master's early.) Getting AP credits frees up a LOT of room in your college schedule - you can do more internships, do research, take classes that you actually want rather than are required to take for "general education", or graduate early to save money. Also, if there does happen to be an AP option for a subject you actually like - you should take it! AP classes challenge you more, and you will see if you are a good fit to pursue the subject in college. I especially recommend this to students who are thinking of studying maths and sciences - it really benefitted me.

I understand that APs don't necessarily make you look "special" in a college application - but it is the minimum students are doing nowadays. I don't know if I recommend students undercutting and taking honors if they could complete an AP course.

College student

3/11/2015 02:45:14 am

In addition, if admissions had to decide between one student who took one AP and pursued their passion, and another student who took many APs and still pursued their passion, wouldn't that be an easy decision who to admit?

3/11/2015 09:58:07 am

In that case, it might just come down to luck. As I wrote in "Getting Into Your First Choice College is Not an Accomplishment"(www.thehappytalent.com/blog/getting-into-your-first-choice-college-is-not-an-accomplishment), even if you're a top candidate from a top school, you still need to be a little lucky to get into a top school.

Maybe the tie breaker between two candidates is that one of them played the violin and the other played the bassoon.

Maybe the tie breaker was because one student had worked on a farm and another had volunteered in a nursing home

Or maybe the tie breaker was that the school was looking for someone with depth, rather than breadth. In which case someone who hyper-focused on marine biology would have an edge over someone who took lots of APs in lots of different things.

Because, by definition, there are only 24 hours in a day. (Except for International Women's Day, which is only 23 hours.) If you're taking 7 APs, how deep can you get in any specific passion.

Getting into a school like Stanford is, in a way, a huge accomplishment for anyone. But there's also some amount of luck involved.

Diane Main

3/11/2015 10:11:50 am

Oh my goodness! I just realized that International Women's Day took a hit from Daylight Savings Time, didn't it? Like everything else in this world, women get less than men. We get one substandard day, and they get the rest of the year. (Before haters start flaming me, I'm kind of joking. And not.)

Rachel

3/11/2015 09:03:23 am

I signed up for AP English when I was in high school. After about 3 days I realized it was just way more busywork and not any more stimulating, so I quit. I wanted to enjoy what I knew would be the period of least responsibility of my life. I had kind of a shitty GPA because I goofed off, then went to community college and signed up for a guaranteed admission program to a UC. Work smart, not hard. I graduated with the exact same degree for half the cost of my peers who slaved away getting top marks in high school.

And despite never taking a single AP class I still got into vet school.

3/11/2015 10:00:41 am

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. This is exactly the kind of story more students -- and their parents -- need to hear. Especially considering how crippling it is for so many young people to graduate with tons of debt.

Paly student

3/12/2015 07:01:02 am

Hey, I wanted to let you know that we're reading this. I really appreciate your post. I feel that pressure every single day and I know others here do too. It's been a really rough week, thanks so much for writing this.

UIUC undergrad

3/13/2015 11:56:16 am

AP's for me have only had a positive impact.I only wish that I made the effort to take one more. I've struggled through them and been pushed to my limit but i feel I am better off for it(of course this is biased because i had fairly good results). Coming into college with so many credits has been so beneficial financially and in choice of classes.Yet there has a really good idea that it is centered around. People should be able to better explore their passions in highschool but I don't think APs are the thing that's holding them back. It comes down to quality of electives. I was really interested in exploring computer science and engineering related topics. I found that the classes were just low quality "blowoff' filler classes that exist only so that people can get enough credits to graduate. The nice things about APs is that they have a standard high quality and I only wish that my school offered some other ones because the quality is not equivalent everywhere. Coming to college and meeting people from all over illinois and around the world it is easy to see that certain highschools or individuals parents have been able to create far better than average opportunities for their students than others.This is of course from a point of view of a student at a very science heavy school. The solution I see is change in education culture that focuses more on quality education and less on grades that is more conscious about exactly what education leads where. I was lucky enough to make a leap of faith into an unconventional engineering major that I feel like I am passionate about.

3/13/2015 04:05:27 pm

That's definitely a problem with the education system -- overemphasizing grades, at the expense of a truly enriching experience. And I think it's one reason a lot of very smart people end up feeling turned off by school.

One thing I loved about my high school, Phillips Exeter, was that every single grade you got in every single class (even math) was determined a fair bit by class participation. Did you come to class prepared each day? Maybe you didn't understand the math so you couldn't finish the homework -- that's fine! But did you at least come to class with specific questions? Can you show us that you tried it a certain way and it didn't work? Did anyone else try it a different way? What happened?

But sadly, not all schools have the resources that mine did. That being the case, I can see why you found your APs so enriching -- you were hungry! And you wanted a challenge. As I wrote in my response to Y jin, some kids legitimately LOVE studying. They legitimately LOVE that challenge. And it sounds like you're one of those kids. So, for you, I think it is awesome that you had the chance to take lots of APs.

But for a lot of kids... they do it because they have to, or they "should," not because they want to. They constantly feel stressed. They're constantly working toward some far-off, disconnected goal. And they lose their sense of self.

I mentioned to someone on Facebook recently, "One of the things I learned in psychology is that when you have a goal because it's YOUR goal, who YOU want to be, you are driven by a desire to succeed. And you achieve that goal, you feel pleasure. You feel excited. You feel awesome!

But when you have a goal because you think other people think you should have that goal... you are driven by a fear of failure. And when you accomplish your goal, you feel relief.

It's a very important difference when it comes to happiness, motivation and mental health.

Tim Holiday

3/22/2019 05:11:08 am

Great post

Y jin

3/13/2015 02:13:52 pm

People may not so agreeable if you didn't say you are part of the system. You make your opinion official. A lot of kids do not know what their passion is until they enter college or even later. It is more than the kids who love toilet. you can't say these hard working kids are dull. In fact top schools all admit money donors kids, like Chinese officials kids.

3/13/2015 03:54:40 pm

My opinion comes from my experience working and studying with admissions officers -- which is important, because it means I'm not just writing wishfully about an ideal world.

I also didn't mean to call kids who take lots of APs dull -- what I could have more explicitly said is that some kids legitimately love studying ALL the time. Others wish they had more time to spend working on the class(es) or activity they find interesting, but they're told that they have to take more APs and spend more time studying for standardized tests. For this group of kids, taking lots of APs is stressful, disheartening and soul-sucking. They spend their summer in the library studying for AP Whatever, not because they want to, but because they "should."

But let's go back to that first group. The ones who legitimately love APs and studying. A lot of them will get into top schools -- because top schools want kids who have shown commitment to... something. They want to craft a student body with some combination of breadth (having taken lots of APs and participated in many activities, for example) and depth (having a weird bird obsession or passion for marine biology). This is probably more true for some schools, like Stanford, than others, like Caltech. (Caltech is a smaller and more specialized student body, and my impression is that they are looking for a very specific type of intelligence, vs. a school like Stanford, which has world-class departments in both the sciences and humanities, and a much larger student body.)

So, put another way, I'd say this. In Harry Potter, book four, when Harry was doing the first challenge in the Tri-wizard Tournament, Professor Moody was like, "Play to your strengths." And that's exactly the same advice we should be giving our kids.

If you have a passion for fashion, maybe you can go really in-depth with that. Develop some kind of niche expertise. Take online courses in design. Buy a sewing machine. Start a blog or online store. Get on the costume design team for the school play. Start an organization that raises money to buy nice, professional interview clothes for low-income women, single mothers, or the homeless. Make an online knitting course. Start a small personal shopping business. Any of these activities would be very educational for you -- you'd learn leadership, entrepreneurship, design thinking, etc. etc. etc. And you'd be showing tons of initiative, which is what good schools want -- they want to KNOW that if they admit you, you will take advantage of the many amazing resources they have on campus, and not just the library.

Or maybe you thrive on the challenge of getting an A on the next exam, on gaming the system, of taking as many of the hardest classes as possible. Maybe you REALLY want to take AP Calc, Stats, Physics and Computer Science -- all at once. Not because you "should." Not because your parents pressured you to. But because YOU really, really want to do that. Getting As on your tests feels as good to you as making a sweet post move feels to me. Then you should do that.

Or. Maybe you haven't quite discovered that passion yet, but you still want a good education. In that case, your best bet is probably going to be to keep as many options open as possible. If there's a possibility you might want to do engineering in college, keep taking math, even if you've fulfilled all the high school math requirements. But you don't push yourself to tears taking as many APs as possible. Maybe, since you're still exploring what you love, it makes sense to explore some electives. Some people complain that electives are a joke at their school -- but if you're introduced to a topic you're interested in, there is no limit to how far you can run with it, supplementing your classroom learning with youtube videos, iTunesU lectures, real lectures at local colleges, meetups, internships, etc. It could turn into a really cool senior project. It could turn into the realization that AP Bio would help you understand this topic better. Or... it could turn into the realization that you do NOT want to do marine biology/political science/fill in the blank. The only way to find your passion is to actively look for it. Very rarely does it just fall into your lap.

And, of course, this varies by culture. I've never been a part of the Chinese school system, but I've heard that ALL that matters there is grades and test scores. In that case, you may need to shift your strategy. But schools in the US have learned that there are many kinds of intelligence, and many paths to success, and , to that end, their job is to build a diverse student body.

3/14/2015 04:33:20 am

Your strength to work in high tech industry is only about how fast you learn because it changes so fast.
Nevertheless, I agree most what you said as a parent. I wish my kids develop their passion earlier. But I don't agree it should be the rule for college admission.
Thanks.

Marissa

3/15/2015 01:07:19 am

I agree 100% Eva! I am always surprised by the fact that this doesn't stop once you're actually accepted to college. As you know, as soon as you're a student at XYZ top school, the playing field is leveled so that we can again compete amongst ourselves to get into the top classes, get the best on campus jobs, the best summer internships...

Ria K

8/20/2015 12:50:05 am

I understand what your overall point is in this post; it's true that some students might see AP classes as their "ticket" into elite colleges, and so overload on them at the expense of other things. But calling students who take a lot of AP's "too afraid" to pursue their passions is a bit of a stretch, especially when you can't identify with the mindset of the students in question.

For example, I was the typical crazy, "passionless" high school student who took 18 AP classes. But I don't consider myself a robot, and that's because (1) AP classes gave me more knowledge and breadth than normal classes ever could, (2) all AP classes are not equal and you can't just lump them all into one category and label them as "bad," and (3) AP classes were a way of me taking charge of my own education. I was in a situation where my school was really far away from my house, and essentially I had to rely on my parents to drive me around for hours each day to join clubs and explore my various passions. Now, I have a sibling who also needs to be driven around and taken care of, and my parents simply didn't have the time or energy to transport me to the places I wanted to be. So I took charge of my own education and learning by taking a lot of advanced classes, which could expand my knowledge without taking away from the well being of my family in the process. Thanks to this, I have the breadth of knowledge I need to more fully explore my passions in college and I'm excited to do so.

Basically, the bottom line is that different people have different reasons for the choices they make, so we shouldn't be so quick to criticize students who take more traditional routes to academic success if that is actually the best option for them. It's great to tell people to explore and find their passions, and of course if students have the option to do so they should. But at such an early age I'm not sure that's the best option for every single person, especially when we're so reliant on other people for rides, what we can do, where we can go, etc. For some people, a better option is to educate themselves in the confines of what they can do independently, and develop their passions more fully when they don't need to rely on so many other people to give so much time and energy to make their own exploration possible.

work voicemail greeting examples link

1/6/2016 01:35:23 pm

Well post ad its tell us about aps classes and how to student learn bio with basic skills and how resolve bio equation thanks for sharing good info .

ORLANDA BURKS

4/26/2017 11:17:47 pm

As we know most youth only read headlines/titles and instead of the actual content of an article. Therefore I would like to first, thank you so much for changing your Twitter posts leading to your 2015 article over time from:
“AP Classes Make You Look Complacent, Not Curious.”
to “Do #APclasses make you look curious... or complacent?”

I agree with the opinion of the commenter, "Stanford Grad Student" on this matter. In addition, parents must facilitate a balanced life by being in tune with their child's workload and stress levels. Thus, I believe high school students should NOT use all of their AP credits to skip the maximum number of college classes. A student’s freshman year in both high school and college sets a baseline for their starting and final GPA respectively. I suggest they students re-take some of these AP courses in college to boost their GPA as they complete the challenging transition to college life. Students must enjoy college which is their first opportunity to make and live with their decisions without complete parental oversite.
“Life is a journey, not a destination.” a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

College life will shape and mold you if you take the time to let it. Most college students and their parents wished the student had taken AP courses in high school, see link https://www.achieve.org/infographics/expectations

See my firm, Order My Steps LLC’s Recruiting Advice series on our Twitter (@ItsOrderMySteps) and Facebook that helps youth with college search. Search this hashtag #omsRA 2C our experiences of 50+ visits with college coaches and representatives. See one of these many helpful hints below:

#omsRA 10 - Be the best #student you can be, challenge yourself by taking honors & advance courses

Dad of students attending Vanderbilt and Stanford.

APs Make You Look Complacent, Not Curious.

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