AP Euro History

[nicolewi]

Sophomore DD signed up for AP Euro Hist. This would be her first AP class. We have to sign up in January within a short timeframe with very little information given. I don’t like the way they handle it at all. She’s an excellent student so I think we just kind of figured she should take an AP course, and we found out that regular honors English seemed to make a lot more sense than the AP English option. So we signed up for AP European history thinking it might be interesting for her but have been regretting it. It’s supposed to be super hard and I don’t even know if credits that she would get from that course would be helpful to her. I heard from someone else that at our major state university the credits only transfer as elective credits. She is getting really anxious (has anxiety) about school with her challenging course load being one repeated focus area.

She likes history but actually she likes “happy history”; like the history of fashion, culture, style.

Her counselor messaged me this morning that there’s a problem with her schedule, so I think we might actually have an opportunity to change it if I wanted to push it.

Any general thoughts on this course?

[waverly]

I don't have experience with that specific course. I think it would be great for my DS who is a hardcore European history fan, and maybe not so great for others.

I'm sort of balanced about all the honors and AP stuff, so I think if she wants to change it to go ahead and change it. It sounds like it will be stressful and not help out much for college anyway.

I've already accepted that college will be expensive so I don't plan on using AP classes to offset costs. AP classes in general show rigor for admission, and that is the only thing I would really be using them for, but I would pick the ones they would be most interested in and likely to succeed.  If she isn't interested in that kind of history than it sounds like a poor fit. 

[Poppy]

Well, this is probably not so relevant since it was 25 years ago, but I took it and hated it. The teacher was a jerk, though, and history was my weakest and least favorite subject. It felt like so much memorization and so many stupid battles and border shifts which would then change again over and over. I did enjoy learning about the the intellectual movements, though. I think I ended up with a 4. It got me credit toward an ELA elective in college, which I did appreciate.

I don't know, if your kid doesn't want to take it then they should switch. I doubt they'll regret switching.

[nicolewi]

If we can switch, and if she wants to switch, we will. Just wanted to make sure we make a balanced decision. Wasn’t sure if anyone out there would feel like this was an amazing course and totally worthwhile experience.

[erbear]

I loved AP Euro and thought it was much easier than APUSH. what’s the worst that happens?

I notice you say “we” in your post. Does SHE want to take the class? If so, back out. You already did high school.

[expectantsteelerfan]

My only experience is when I tried to take it as a student when I was in hs. I was a good student, loved to read, and was taking all other top level classes. But when the class started and I actually got the book, saw the amount of reading that was expected per night, and did some of the reading and saw how boring I found it and how hard it was for me to retain the info from the reading, I realized right away the class wasn't for me and dropped down to regular history (in our school there was no honors history class, it was regular, remedial, or AP, which was why I took AP to begin with). I went on to take all the other AP classes I was eligible for, including English, Physics, Calc AB, and Psych, and graduated in the top 10% of my class, so I didn't regret not taking the AP history class even though most of my friends and people I felt like I was 'competing' with did.

[kath16]

i mean, it's super specific to the student and teacher. let her drive this one though.

[mainelyfoolish]

When my DC16 was trying to decide between AP Euro and the regular history class last year, I asked them who they'd rather be in class with - the kids they knew were signing up for AP Euro or the kids they knew would be in the regular class. That pushed them over the line in favor of AP Euro. That said, my kid is a big history buff who I knew would be engaged with the class content and I whom believed could handle the rigor. They did very well in the class (earned an A and got a 5 on the AP exam). I would not have encouraged the AP class if my kid was "meh" on history.

[niq]

Like most of school it's very teacher dependent. If she does Academic Bowl (or whatever it's called in your area -- Quiz Bowl, College Bowl, etc.) or watches Jeopardy!, there's a lot of fact overlap.

When I took it it was an absolute avalanche of facts to learn, and tons of stuff that students have little to no familiarity with (we don't talk a lot about the French Revolution or German Unification much these days). But I had a very good teacher and was motivated to pay a lot of attention after being gassed up by older students about how hard it was . As a consequence of putting tons of effort into Euro, my English class, and other stuff (extracurriculars, dating, etc.), I fell apart in Spanish and didn't put much effort into AP Environmental Science.

AP Euro has very few test takers, so it does stand out on your transcript.

I think 10th grade is a little early to take an AP course that involves that much writing, but it depends on how much practice you get on banging out a five paragraph essay, Document Based Questions, etc.

[erbear]

Aug 13, 2024 12:20:41 GMT -5 niq said:

Like most of school it's very teacher dependent. If she does Academic Bowl (or whatever it's called in your area -- Quiz Bowl, College Bowl, etc.) or watches Jeopardy!, there's a lot of fact overlap.

When I took it it was an absolute avalanche of facts to learn, and tons of stuff that students have little to no familiarity with (we don't talk a lot about the French Revolution or German Unification much these days). But I had a very good teacher and was motivated to pay a lot of attention after being gassed up by older students about how hard it was . As a consequence of putting tons of effort into Euro, my English class, and other stuff (extracurriculars, dating, etc.), I fell apart in Spanish and didn't put much effort into AP Environmental Science.

AP Euro has very few test takers, so it does stand out on your transcript.

I think 10th grade is a little early to take an AP course that involves that much writing, but it depends on how much practice you get on banging out a five paragraph essay, Document Based Questions, etc.

This is also a great point. I don’t know where the drive to start APs as a sophomore started in this country, but it’s not developmentally appropriate for a lot of kids. I wish we were still in the world of 1 as a junior and maybe 2-3 as a senior (this is what I did, and I went to Yale). This amount of stress on APs is wild.

[jennistarr1]

i wouldn't let a AP class drop your student's GPA  so I would consider that in the difficulty level

in terms of credits, even as electives, generally the credits are still helpful

[nicolewi]

Thanks for the thoughts. We are really happy that this came up because she was stressing a lot about having signed up for AP Euro history, and now we might be able to change it. I also was able to reach out to a couple kids locally who took it.

[formerlyak]

DS took AP Euro and didn’t think it was that hard. It was just a lot of memorization and if you got behind, catching up was rough.

[pinkpeony08]

I LOVED AP Euro history in high school - one of my most memorable classes. I didn't pass with a high enough score on the test to get AP credit in college, but I learned a ton and find it relevant all the time to have some knowledge about European history.

[frlcb]

My son has taken AP World and AP Euro and loved AP Euro (he liked AP World but liked Euro more). He is doing APUSH this year. I would not want a class that your child will struggle with just for the AP label.

[puppylove64]

I did not push my kid to take AP courses. The class is usually harder, very writing intensive and they must pass a standardized test to even maybe get college credit for the course.

Instead I pushed him to do dual enrollment classes at our local college. He got college credit for those classes with no issues. Our state also pays for dual enrollment, so it was essentially free college and I feel like he got a good idea of what to expect in college. I took AP classes and scored a 3 and my college only accepted 4 & 5. So I feel like I hurt my HS GPA and stressed over a hard class for nothing.

[nicolewi]

Update: she switched to honors world history. We were able to see her AP Euro class list and it wasn't fantastic or anything, and I actually think she will enjoy a broader world survey more than a deep dive into Europe. I'm all for anything that reduces her stress level about the upcoming school year. She was just taking it b/c she felt like she should try to get the college credit. Also, it did help with fixing her schedule, although we still had to drop from her first choice gym class to her 3rd choice, and change her one "fun" elective. All in all it should be okay.

[niq]

Aug 13, 2024 15:46:50 GMT -5 jennistarr1 said:

i wouldn't let a AP class drop your student's GPA  so I would consider that in the difficulty level

in terms of credits, even as electives, generally the credits are still helpful

It makes me sad that GPA & class rank have become the be-all and end-all. I wish we encouraged trying to stretch yourself more. (Even if in this specific case I think there's a good reason not to try AP Euro as a 10th grader).

[formerlyak]

niq, a lot of schools have dropped the concept of class rank and it doesn't affect college admissions. You just check a box on the application that says your school doesn't rank. GPA is important, but I will say it isn't the end all be all. My ds' college - UC Berkeley- just released the admissions stats for his class. His GPA was below the average admitted GPA. They practice holistic admissions and stress that essays and activities are looked at as a key part of the application. Given that his GPA was below the admitted average, but his extra curricular and essays were stellar. In fact, two of them (there are 4 short essays for the University of California application) focused on ways he stretched himself to try new things, just as you mentioned. I believe that GPA wasn't the end all be all in his case.

[erbear]

Aug 14, 2024 17:34:59 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

niq, a lot of schools have dropped the concept of class rank and it doesn't affect college admissions. You just check a box on the application that says your school doesn't rank. GPA is important, but I will say it isn't the end all be all. My ds' college - UC Berkeley- just released the admissions stats for his class. His GPA was below the average admitted GPA. They practice holistic admissions and stress that essays and activities are looked at as a key part of the application. Given that his GPA was below the admitted average, but his extra curricular and essays were stellar. In fact, two of them (there are 4 short essays for the University of California application) focused on ways he stretched himself to try new things, just as you mentioned. I believe that GPA wasn't the end all be all in his case.

My school has never ranked and it doesn’t seem to hurt kids’ college admissions.

[minniemouse]

My oldest is going into 10th and taking AP world this year. She keeps hearing horror stories about how much work it is from older kids but I know she will be fine! I took AP European history in 10th grade back in the 90s and it wasn’t too bad. I’ve heard that AP European doesn’t cover the 10th grade global studies requirement in NY, but Im not sure if that’s true or not, since it definitely used to. But things may have changed in 29 years lol. Dd will still have to take the global studies regents in June after the Ap world exam in May.

[imimahoney]

Aug 15, 2024 9:48:28 GMT -5 minniemouse said:

My oldest is going into 10th and taking AP world this year. She keeps hearing horror stories about how much work it is from older kids but I know she will be fine! I took AP European history in 10th grade back in the 90s and it wasn’t too bad. I’ve heard that AP European doesn’t cover the 10th grade global studies requirement in NY, but Im not sure if that’s true or not, since it definitely used to. But things may have changed in 29 years lol. Dd will still have to take the global studies regents in June after the Ap world exam in May.

AP World is definitely a ton of work but if they keep up on the reading they should be fine. The biggest struggle for kids is usually the pace. It goes from year 0 to the present in a school year (or shorter if you start after labor day). You miss a few chapters and you are now behind 500 years.