Opinions

Blurred lines between honors, AP classes cause frustration

Rachel Olefson ’25, Web News Editor|April 30, 2023

As a result of coursework from AP and Honors curriculum being mixed, Honors level classes have become frustrating as a result of doing the same work as AP students, but not receiving the same weight in their GPAs. (Graphic by Rachel Olefson ’25)

Last year, many other freshmen and I had a decision to make: should we take US History at A, Honors or AP level? AP sounded scary to me; my Global Themes teacher had only recommended two students in total out of her two honors sections to take APUSH, as many call the class, so I decided that continuing on the Honors track was my best option.

Once I arrived in Honors, however, I found discrepancies between my class and the other teachers’ honors sections. We would learn about different topics at different times, have completely different course work, and arguably, the work we were given was not of the same difficulty.

Because of this, I believe that more regularity is needed between classes of the same level, even if they are taught by different teachers.

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Personally, I think that if I’m doing AP-level work, with some of my assignments even being copied directly from the APUSH curriculum and coursework, that my class should receive more credit than we have been.

— Rachel Olefson ’25

While some of my classmates and I don’t mind the challenge in preparation for taking AP-level history courses next year, we couldn’t help but think about our frustration in not getting any AP credit even though our assignments were more rigorous than the course level we signed up for.

According to BestColleges.com, Honors and AP classes can be differentiated by the GPA weighting they offer, their difficulty level, curriculum and length, and of course the ability to earn college credit for an AP class.

The one thing that I think I’ve benefited from throughout the duration of my history class is that I’ve become more prepared for the increase in coursework I’ll face at the AP level next year. Although it’s nice to have a taste of AP classes before actually taking the class next year, I think that consistent above-level work can quickly become frustrating when the possible rewards seem so far removed from my current class and short-term goals.