It is a typical Tuesday night when Senior Joanna Sobiech sits down to do her homework. An average night includes her AP Literature multiple choice, her simple harmonic motion AP Physics packet, studying for her AP Spanish test, her AP Government practice multiple choice, studying for her AP Calculus test and her practice multiple choice and review packets for AP Biology. After four hours of homework Sobiech is still not even finished.
As the year comes to a close, seniors are hurrying to send in applications, commit to colleges and receive as many scholarships as they can. If that wasn’t enough, they appear to be overloaded with end of the year homework.
AP tests always cause a stir for seniors. Between prepping for the exams and staying ahead in their classes, students can get extremely stressed out.
To say multiple AP’s are a lot of work is an understatement. There is nothing more stressful then being told these next few weeks are the most critical for your education. With all the pressure put on seniors to get into the college of their choice, you would think they would be given a break. However, it is quite the opposite. It seems that in the past few weeks there has been more homework handed out and more studying to do than ever in the past four years, but how much is too much?
It seems that some teachers have the mentality that the only AP class that matters is their own, or maybe they just do not realize that students are taking multiple AP’s. It is understandable that they want the best for us and that they want us to be prepared for college. However, college students do not have five or more classes a day five days a week. Having numerous college level classes on a high school schedule is unrealistic.
Some may think that it is the student’s choice to take that many AP’s, which is true, but then why are sophomores, juniors and seniors encouraged to take as many AP’s as possible? The only two solutions that may seem to work are either cutting seniors some slack or limiting them to how many AP classes they can take.
The school’s effort to encourage AP classes and strong, hard schedules and their promotion of extensive education is appreciated. However, if they plan on students keeping up, they should throw the kids a line every once in a while.
--Submitted by Sara Skiba, Design Editor |
