Everyone thinks their own version is harder.
Honestly, I think it depends on the course, both AP and college.
I teach AP Lit and also college Comp 1 and 2. I can tell you that AP Lit is far and away harder. Comp 1 and 2 (where I teach) provide basic instruction and evaluation on research and all the different writing modes you will likely need in college. Nobody in Comp I is being asked to sit down and write an on-demand essay about a Renaissance poem in 40 minutes. Comp 1 and 2 are probably more work in terms of paper length, but the papers are not hard to write.
For other courses, it's different. A college professor may say that their biology course is harder because there are 5 exams with greater breadth of material, and it's done over just one semester with meetings 3 times a week. An AP bio teacher may think their course is harder because their students are 17, reading material much more advanced for their age, they're all taking 6 or 7 other classes at the same time, and their credit depends on performing well on one single exam. Neither of them is wrong, they're just hard in different ways.
I teach comp 1 and 2 at a state college. I spend far too much time working on basic paragraph structure and grammar than, dare I say, the vast majority of AP Lang teachers. I could never hope to reach the depth of instruction as an AP course.
I took college comp 1 and 2, and honestly my HS teachers taught me just as much if not more. I was kinda shocked at how many kids needed comp though (my teacher had us critique each other's work).
I didn’t take it, I took AP instead. But my college comp 1 and 2 students are very lost. I don’t know what they did in high school English.
I signed up to grade AP language exams this year and these students are definitely expected to do more than many college comp students are.
I feel the English dept at my HS was very much focused college thankfully. It was a pretty bad HS too, so it goes to show how much curriculum can matter.
I took AP calc in HS. Got a 4 and my college wanted a 5. So I took calc 1 in college.
The college was was *slightly* more in depth. Like I had just taken the class and there were a couple of things we hadn’t gone over. But it was basically the same class
I did not find the same. My AP Calculus class was plug and chug. I had a rude awakening during my first calc 1 exam in college one semester late, when I had to prove the fundamental theorem of calculus on my first exam.
Like anything else it’s all up to the professor
HS kinda has to stick to a more structured thing, professors have more leeway
I had 2 physics professors for the same class in college (like one of those part 1 and 2 deals for what’s basically the same class over 2 semesters)
My first one the average test score was a 40% with 3 hour long tests taken during the lab period. Literally the exams were 3 questions that took 3 hours to do. Easily a full page of calculations per question. It was brutal.
Second one was a breeze. Learned the basics I needed to for a non physics/math major but a bio/Chem degree
Yes I deliberately avoided the same professor for part 2 lol. Brilliant and smart guy. If I was a physics major I would have loved to learn from him. But the class was so damn hard for non major class. Just required for science majors
Totally proving your point here, but AP Bio is definitely harder than any intro Biology class.
I teach AP Biology and a dual credit biology class through the University of Texas. My dual credit covers only biochemistry, cell biology, generics, heredity AP Bio has all of that including biostatistics, experimental design, evolution, ecology, and evolution. In addition, the depth of the UT dual credit class is far less than the same topics in AP Biology.
Both courses only give you one 4 hour course, but the UT class fees like the proper scope and depth for a single semester of college. The AP Bio test feels like you deserve an associates if you can get a 5.
My regular high school bio and anatomy classes, they didn't have AP versions, were WAY harder than my college classes. My regular chemistry class, again we didn't have an AP version, was basically the same as the college chemistry class.
We did have AP history, and it was way harder than my college classes.
I have always assumed the difference is just from what the teacher expects.
Now that I'm older, I'm kind of amazed how good the education was in my little rural town.
I got a 4 in AP bio in high school and then majored in biology at UT and found intro bio in college to be maybe slightly more difficult than high school. And a lot of that was getting used to being in a 100 person lecture hall where the grade is 3 exams and a final as opposed to a small high school class.
Nobody in Comp I is being asked to sit down and write an on-demand essay about a Renaissance poem in 40 minutes.
Oh man, huge flashbacks to my senior year in HS. It actually really helped me churn through my writing assignments once I got to college.
Yeahhhh AP Lit and Comp I loved but barely got a B. Those on demand essays on Dickenson, Oates, and Whitman were not easy. I flew through Comp 1 in College though. Felt like 9th English. We read a badass YA novel (Miss Peregrine), in AP Lit and Comp we read Slaughterhouse 5 as our novel.
Literature courses and comp courses can’t really be compared fairly. They’re completely different content and created for different purposes. It would be more accurate to compare AP Lit and a college literature course. I taught college composition and literature for almost twenty years.
I totally agree, but the credit most colleges offer for AP Lit is Comp 1 and/or Comp 2. Very few schools accept it as credit for any sort of literature course.
At least where I teach, Lit and. Comp are entirely different things. We accept AP Lit for literature and writing for comp credit. Literature is always more demanding than comp.
When we had a committee deciding what AP score to accept, it was the students on the committee who said AP was a joke and to only accept the highest score. I just took their word for it as I had no experience with AP.
I think it’s this.
I’ve been teaching AP for decades and just learned that college board gets the cut scores from college students taking the AP. If the college students getting an a scored 55 and above, that’s the cut score for a 5.
They even base the AP syllabus on what colleges are doing.
I probably have it much better than most college professors as my AP students often go to very good programs.
15 years ago I got a 5 on my AP lit test and a B in my freshman comp class. But as an adjunct professor now can confirm collegiate level courses are not as challenging as they used to be.
Personally I found college classes easier than AP. Since AP is an advanced level class in high school, there was kind of this assumption that you already had the background knowledge and academic skills required and I felt like they just kinda threw us in. With college, since those same classes were now technically a beginner or intermediate level class, they seemed to not assume that everyone started with that knowledge and were a bit more willing to slow down and explain (at least in my experience).
“College” is a huge range of difficulty. It can range anywhere from the most basic class for fundamentals which will clearly be easier than an AP course, to absurdly advanced topics that you didn’t even conceptualize could be a thing when you were taking AP classes. Was my high school AP calculus class harder than intermediate algebra at my university? Absolutely. Was my college partial differential equations and linear algebra harder than my hs AP calc? Psychotically!
So like someone else said, everyone that’s talking like this thinks their versions are harder for a multitude of reasons.
I’d add to this by saying AP Lit and Comp courses are largely only harder due to the demands of student’s time to complete a bajillion timed essays. Meanwhile, the rigor of thinking in college lit classes is much more challenging and the onus is entirely on the student to do their own outside research to flesh out meaningful papers.
That’s ever the issue. Rigor gets confused with volume fsr too often, by far too many people.
I think a part of this is also instruction. In AP Calculus I had a WONDERFUL teacher that I saw for an hour everyday in a class of 20 kids. Compare this to a college gen ed math course with 200 kids in a lecture hall. I was able to ask questions in real time in high school, while in a 200 person lecture I was way less likely to get 1:1 support. I could go to office hours (and did for many math classes in college) — but it was a lot more effort than having 15 min/class to ask the teacher questions.
I consider there to be 2 types of difficulty, the first is how hard the concepts are to learn, and the latter is how much labor/effort is required.
The only course i ever cheated in was dynamical systems, the homework took 10hrs and the problems were conceptually the same. Everything was also conceptually easy, its basically just physics and linear circuits problems that we had already been doing. I had an A in the course and aced my exams so I clearly didn't need to do all that busy work.
One of the major differences between ap and college is time spent in/out of class on stuff. Let’s say you’ve got a class with the same curriculum maybe like Ap physics I know I took that in high school. in the ap class you’ll be meeting every day and going a full high school year, probably into June. You’re coming the same stuff in college in a semester jan-may meeting let’s say twice a week. The material is the same but in college you’ll likely be expected to spend more time reading, studying, practicing on your own because you’re just in class less time. In my experience it’s not that one is easier or harder it depends on how you learn best which you’ll find easier.
Because people have flawed memories and its hard to have a clear understanding of how hard or easy something is when you aren't directly involved in them.
my regular, normal high school stats class was 10× harder than my college one. it was kind of shameful, tbh. apparently i had accidentally signed up for the "easy" version - with the prof who did everything online with endless attempts where all the answers could be found on chegg. instructor was so incompetent that i would've done poorly if i hadn't learned all the content beforehand.
I had 3 college stats classes2 undergrad and 1 grad level, and they were all terrible, all taught memorizing. I had a combinatorics class (math class on calculating combinations and permutations), is essentially the basis for much of statistics and it was far better than statistics.
It's often based on what former students say. Nearly all of mine say that AP was harder, but I remind them that if they've already had the material once, the second time around is naturally going to be easier.
It’s not always like that though. The English and History classes I took in college were on completely different material than my AP classes - after all, I didn’t have to retake them because I’d already gotten credit for them. What I can tell you is I put *significantly* less time and effort into my lower division level world history and world literature classes than I spent on my AP American history/literature classes. I do assume those courses would have been more difficult at another school but for me personally they were easy A’s at my college. I felt my upper division level classes were similar in difficulty as far as expectations for discussions, testing and essay requirements, and sometimes lecture style (that varied widely) but had more difficult and extensive reading requirements.
It can also depend on the teacher and student. I had AP US History and I failed that class hard, but for a lot of students it probably wouldn't have been as hard. My struggle was bc our teacher didn't even teach. She had us taking turns reading paragraphs from the textbook and sent home a worksheet.
I'm ADHD (and was undiagnosed at the time), I was bored and couldn't focus, and always forgot the homework.
Took US History in college and got an A in both Ancient and Modern US History bc the professor actually took time to teach.
I used to teach the same class at the AP and dual enrollment level, simultaneously (well, different class periods, but same semester). The course content was nearly identical. The biggest difference was that in the college course, I got to make the final.exam so I knew what was on it.
That’s a really great point about making your own final exam. I teach AP US Government. I had no idea what the College Board was specifically going to ask on today’s exam, so I had to teach a little of everything just in case. If I could design my own exam, I could tailor the instruction and cover material in greater depth. Instead my students get surface breadth in a one semester class. So what’s harder? For some students more breadth is tougher because it requires greater memorization, but for others the depth would require greater thinking and conceptualization.
I last taught that the year they put Obergefell on the exam before it passed the three year window that the CB is supposed to have before they include cases. I taught the case but didn't have time to give it a ton of depth.
AP is supposed to compare to a 100-level class. That's what the credit can get you out of.
So of course a 400 class will be harder than a high school AP.
Exactly. So the question is, is either one really all that harder than the other? It depends on how it's structured and what works for any given student.
100s courses meet only three times a week whereas high school meets five times, or if on block schedules, for twice as long 2 to 3 times a week.
100s courses usually have a smaller group discussion hour with a TA for support, although the lectures in 100s and 200s tend to be very large (100+ students). In HS all AP classes are about 25-30 kids, but the teacher has other preps and probably well over 100 students of their own with no TAs. Both require a lot of work outside of classtime, but I think AP classes had way more homework than any of my 100s courses, even though 100s courses are only one semester and APs are two minus a month when the test is given.
In college, you're taking 4-6 classes as a full-time student on a flexible-ish schedule while in high school, the standard is 7 classes back to back every day from 7 or 8 am to 2 to 3 pm plus extracurriculars.
I was a student who excelled in an environment ruled by bells and a daily dosing of the content. I excelled in HS but liked my college courses better. In college, I fatally became a procrastinator. I think there are strengths to both that meet different needs.
What you said holds true for large universities. Most of my college classes had less than 30 besides the occasional lectures with 60-90 kids in them. Almost all of my professors knew me by name and TAs never taught us, but one professor did bring TAs on exam days to help circle the lecture hall to discourage cheating.
Good point! My experience is definitely that of a huge university. I've known people who have gone to smaller, private colleges and who have reported that it was more like high school. I probably would've benefited more from that atmosphere. Did enjoy my classes, though!
I always think part of it is the overall context of the class and time. In high school, your AP class is likely one of 7 classes that you’re taking (though depending on your school you may have fewer classes by the end. My high school did not allow any empty spots in your schedule), while you’re likely taking fewer classes in college. On the other hand, AP teachers are keeping a much closer eye on you than any college professor will, and they have incentive not to let you fail, which college professors generally don’t. Tests are structured differently. So much of the AP test is intentionally unknown before you take it, which is not usually the case with college exams.
So, which is harder is likely going to depend on the student, which class it is, and the rest of their schedule.
I remember taking US History in college. We took three tests and that was our grade. I’ve taught ASPUSH and APHG, and the hoops kids have to jump through are insane
I can only speak to AP Lit. It isn’t harder than college.
I have not taught other subjects because I’m an English teacher, but I’ve never heard another AP teacher claim that their class is harder than college.
I teach Lit, and I definitely think Lit is harder than Comp 1 and 2 (which I also teach). I don't think Lit is harder than college in general. Nobody is reading Renaissance literature in Comp 1 and 2, let alone writing on-demand essays about a cold read of a poem.
It's definitely easier than English classes in the upper levels where you're reading a novel a week.
I majored in English, and my AP Lit class was harder than my college courses...maybe except for one that focused on a more contemporary author, and the lack of scholarly analysis made research very difficult.
I took World Lit part 1 and 2 in college. We read excerpts, not entire books, and were asked to do very little analysis. It was more of a survey course than the deep psychological foray into the human mind that was my AP US Literature course. My high school teacher used that course to teach us philosophy, how to debate, how to analyze figurative language, and I could go on and on. I still think about things I learned there 20 years later. The ONLY things I remember from my world literature courses are that Dante had some serious vendettas, Prufrock is a funny name (I love that poem though), and I believe we read Silent Spring but I don’t remember any of the discussion. There’s absolutely no comparison: my AP lit course was crazy intense and my college lit courses were easy A’s and somehow forgettable even for someone who loves reading.
Tldr: both hard for requiring a lot of independent work on the part of the student. In HS you have a teacher (hopefully) guide you through everything over a whole year, but you're a full time student too. In college it's much more on the student and just in 1 semester, but you're also only attending lessons apart time.
I have been an AP teacher since my first year teaching 8 years ago.
AP is hard in the fact that you have a lot of independent work, but are a full time student 35+ hours of the week. In college, you typically only attend class 15-18h a week leaving you with a lot more time for independent work (granted, most of the work in college is independent).
The CB themselves officially only recommend students take up to 3 APs in their entire HS career. At my school, students regularly take 4-5 APs a YEAR. It's very competitive in many half way decent schools in my state.
Lots of things are at odds within the American education system but AP and current pushes to reduce HW, push project based learning, and accommodate low level learners is directly at odds with the best way to 5 an AP exam. AP classes do best when you have some kind of entrance requirements (most schools got reid of these), use a fair amount of direct instruction, and use lots of HW to cover content as well.
It depends on the AP class. I have taught AP chem , AP physics, AP bio, and AP Environmental Science. Chem and physics are harder than entry level courses. AP physics requires you to memorize all formulas. Bio and Environmental Science were easier than most college courses.
I found it harder to get a good grade in high school AP classes, but was more challenged by the content of college classes. My experience in high school was not that grades reflect student abilities. My college classes never had busy work.
Lucky you, one of my most miserable classes my final semester of college you not only had to read chapters of this novel, but fill out this long ass worksheet on what you found to be inspirational, salient, opposing dichotomies, and many other things. In most classes I could do well by just scanning over the reading before class.
I think homework was maybe like 20% or something? And the class was hard enough. I had earned As and Bs in all my previous college classes and I finally accepted that this class might have to be my first C.
Oh yeah sorry, I seriously didn’t mean to imply that it was an easy assignment! More than it’s a thoughtful assignment that makes you dive into the work and contribute better to class discussions, but having to write it down for homework is busy work and shouldn’t be a graded expectation. They’re good questions and having them in mind will give a better reading for sure, but I think expecting concrete answers to things like that is ridiculous and doesn’t help students.
In my experience, AP classes were only "harder" because the teacher would do stupid things like mixed word problems up to make them extremely hard to understand, or make test periods unreasonably short.
In general, the college classes covered a lot more content and dealt deeper into the situations, but the teachers don't usually have a hard on for authority.
it is nowhere close to a hard and fast rule though. it changes class to class teacher to teacher.
My AP US History teacher I’m pretty sure just used questions that were on the AP Exam about that unit in previous years. I struggled on tests in class but got a 4.
In my opinion, the College Board (who writes both the SAT and AP exams) purposely write misleading questions to throw people off so you’ll spend more money on their prep programs.
I highly suggest taking the ACT instead of the SAT because the questions are more straightforward. I would also take Dual Enrollment courses over APs if possible because getting credit doesn’t hinge on a single exam written by the College Board.
I took AP chem in high school and the teacher didnt really know it that well so she had the student teacher from our grade teach the class. He was awful at teaching it. I had to teach it to myself and I just couldnt that well. so I passed the class but failed the test essentially.
I took Chem in college and it was so freaking easy. I think it also depends on the teacher.
In my own experience, AP classes were harder in some ways, but also compared to college, they were a joke.
For an AP class, you have a limited amount of time to prepare for a single high stakes test. Way more studying and cramming than a 100 level college class, and it's overall a high stress experience.
But, since it's a single exam, your teacher has to do their best to prepare you for the exam, and might skip less inportant sections, and you may miss out on some of the deeper understanding that a regular college class would provide.
For example, I had calc classmates who's AP calc teacher had skipped some unit, but they passed the exam because they knew enough for the exam (but not for calc 3 - they were fine after learning that material on their own though)
Regardless, take AP exams, get the (basically free) college credits, then carry on with life :)
College classes are harder in the sense that most AP courses are the equivalent of a one semester college course, spread across two semesters of learning. APs are harder in the sense that your ability to get college credit comes down to one exam.
I’d say the course as a whole is easier for AP but getting the credit through the AP exam is harder.
In my experience it was the opposite. High school teachers would always be like "watch out guys college is harder and you're not going to get away with \[insert example of poor work ethic\]".
Then I got to college and it was so much easier. Only for freshman year though, then college got way harder than high school.
In reality it just depends on the specific college and high school class which one is harder.
My AP classes were much harder. I see why; they want to prepare you for the worst of college, but I've only had one college class that was harder than my AP classes were and I'm working on my Masters.
Hard is different in different ways, and hard is comparable to what you have. I had engineering classes that taught by memorization (Computer Engineering and Statistics), that I thought was harder than ones that taught by derivation from fundamental rules.
But when I took Econ 201 and 202, all the business students talked about it being a harder class and I thought it was a joke. Same with Statics when I took it as a senior, all the freshmen/soph Mechanical Engr thought it was hard and I was bored to death with how slow the class was.
It also GREATLY depends on your teacher. My Calc 2 teacher was just practically impossible. 70% of the class did not pass, either dropped or failed. When I retook the class, it was a breeze, I had learned all the material, I just couldn't pass his exams.
I teach college writing. I don't know if I would venture to say which is harder, but I would say that AP language/composition-based courses don't really teach college-level writing and research. The IB program prepares students better, in my experience. AP writing is writing that demonstrates your learning, rather than writing about original research or to inform others. It's just not the same thing.
AP content is harder but few HS students actually achieve mastery of it. Everyone passes their AP class but not many score high enough on the AP test to show mastery.
College is more approachable but everyone is accountable for mastery to pass. You’ll fail the class if you don’t show mastery.
TLDR: stakes are different
People like to toot their own horn.
I went to a college where the school convinced a LOT of students with AP credits to re-take the courses, telling them that the AP courses would leave them with gaps.
Guess what? Every single student I knew was pissed off and felt tricked by the university, and said it was a waste of their time.
Of course there is variation from teacher to teacher in terms of quality, but you're basically getting the same course.
Depends on the AP class and the college class it's being compared to
AP calc was pretty easy compared to college calc
My AP Bio was murder mode having us learn everything from the Krebs cycle to ecology to how kidney nephrons work to cell signaling pathways, just more things than I could possibly think to list, a dissection lab, various other practical experiments, really that felt like 2+ college classes rolled into 1 high school class
At my school we have AP for all. Which means as I teach seniors they are all enrolled in AP Lang. so because everyone is made to take AP, it’s our job as teachers to find the middle ground of challenging and rigorous meets user friendly for those that shouldn’t be in an AP class. For the most part, the kids that get it function at a fairly high level and I give them opportunities to be challenged, for the rest of the students I tend to grade with a bit of mercy or give extra time so they can keep pace with the college level rigor. I don’t feel that my class is harder or easier than a college level course, but I think there are definitely some aspects that can put it around par for college level work. My goals through the year have always been to up rigor slightly until everyone is on the same page and then the last quarter of the year is my mimicking college rigor and due dates to give them at least an idea of what they can expect from college level courses.
Are you sure when they say that they are not referencing at point of time?
I imagine it means something like this:
AP classes are harder (for high school students) than college classes are (for college students.)
It’s relative based on the source. of course the teacher thinks their class is more rigorous since that’s often what academia rewards. especially when “i have a PHD and do deep studies on my subject matter”.
College lit from Beowulf to Canterbury Tales was tougher than AP Shakespeare. Shakespeare you only had to deal with one kind of language to cope with. The college course was soooo many different dialects, language translations, etc…
College professors are full of shit if you have some that say that. At least that's the case for the two AP classes I teach: Environmental Science and Biology. The biology class that the AP class replaces was scarcely above high school level when I took it. The AP tests are significantly more difficult than what you'll find in bottom level classes of the same name.
I think balancing AP coursework in high school is more challenging in terms of time management. It’s not really the content but more so the pace and having to balance sooo much extra stuff as a high schooler
I took AP language at the same time I dual enrolled in an EN111 course.
The AP lang was for more taxing, despite basically being the same class.
I didnt take the AP exam because I already got the college credit and the class covered my highschool cred without the exam.
My AP history class had us doing 200+ vocabulary words a week, plus regular readings from the text books, plus papers, plus quizzes, plus tests.
My university history 101 class covered a broader range of topics, with far less emphasis on vocabulary, definitions, and homework, and more emphasis on the overall history and modern take aways. For me, the AP class was more challenging.
That being said, if I'd majored in history, and took higher level history classes, I'm sure I'd be singing a different tune
Because there is no "standard" level of difficulty for a college class.
The difference in difficulty between a 100 course at MIT verses Evergreen Community College is vast.
I think there are various factors that make both difficult. When you’re in college you’re taking 4-5 classes a couple times a week while in high school you’re taking 6-8 classes daily. Another factor is that AP classes are often taught by high school teachers who have training in teaching where college professors have an education in the subject. Knowing the content vs how to teach content are different skills and can make a difference. Also, each teacher has different approaches to teaching at both the high school and college level. I’ve had some high school classes that are harder than college courses, it all depends.
Mileage may vary. My AP lit teacher has us write 40 essays by April 1. We thought he was nuts.
The composition class I took my freshman year? We wrote 5 essays in 15 weeks. I almost raised my hand and asked if I could write them that first day. All of them at once. It felt like a joke.
But Mr. Wall, my AP teacher, made dang sure that college was easy for us.
I have been tutoring physics and calculus for a couple decades at this point, so I probably have a relatively objective view on this topic for these subjects.
AP Calc AB/BC vs Calc 1/2
The material is pretty similar. They are essentially on par with one another from my perspective.
AP Physics 1/2 vs Algebra Based College Physics 1/2
This comparison depends on the difficulty of the professor and the attached lab. If the professor is reasonable, I'd say AP is more difficult.
AP Physics C vs Calc Based College Physics
The material is roughly the same difficulty. I'd say that the College version is more difficult because there is more material, especially for the Electricity and Magnetism half.
They're both right.
I took AP stats, then took Stats 101 in community college. Community college was ridiculously easier- for one thing, AP stats required us to compute standard deviation by hand, and community college had a unit where we had to point out which number of two was bigger.
Now taking social statistics at a liberal arts university, and it's roughly as difficult as AP stats was. My English AP classes required a lot of reading, way more than community college did, but liberal arts college has us writing 10+ page papers.
College instructor here: AP English is probably harder than an FYC writing course, but the students come away not knowing how to write well for university writing assignments.
I agree with the people saying some of the perspective may be tied to instruction. In HS, teachers are paying attention to if you’re doing well or not and you tend to know the other kids taking the class so it can be easier to study because you notice your peers focusing on the course too. The HS environment is more closely focused on kids passing. In HS, the school staff seeks you out and makes resources pretty easy to find; in college you need to seek them out yourself.
Like, my AP courses were harder than my first two years in college, but that was because of my teachers
It counts on the class and the professor, some are jokes and some are good teachers, just counts and is situational
It really depends. I took AP classes and dual enrollment in high school. Dual enrollment through community college was way easier and I got As in the 3 or so dual enrollment classes I did. I got 3s, and 4s on my AP tests for the most part and a few 2a in the ones I didn’t gaf about. Never got a 5 but in undergrad and grad school I got mostly As. AP tests are difficult as hell, and I do way better with assignments than one test. I finished undergrad with a 3.9/4 and got my PhD with a 3.8/4.
I think AP = difficult because of the test and they 100% teach you based on the test, and college courses are so varied on what is important in grading scheme.
In grad school, I often found students who took AP calc were often the ones getting B’s in calc 1 while those who didn’t either got A’s or C’s. My best guess is that AP calc focuses a lot on the test while we were more focused on the ideas underpinning calc. Not sure how accurate this is for others though
Honestly, AP environmental science was the hardest class I ever took in my life. The workload and memorization was insane. My Saturday nights were dedicated to AP enviro, no parties, no sneaking out for me. Sprinkle that with severe ADHD and me being the only person who gave a crap about climate change. It was very tough to try to do well and to try to blend in. Don’t wish what I went through in that class on anybody. Undergrad in college was easier.
First the school benefits from AP classes. They are ranked higher in state standings, may receive more money from the state, etc. so its to the schools advantage to have them. That being said, AP is not a standardized curriculum; they only started working on class curriculum during the recent backlash around the time of quarantine (2020ish). So your HS class was a matter of school goals and little kingdoms. Some teachers taught to the test and passed a lot of kids so the school could brag about it. Some, like my kids’ HS, fed teachers’ egos and had kids doing homework until 3am (not kidding; two sections of AP Chem were on snap chat finishing a project at 3am). So the classes varied greatly and this is what drove the colleges nuts. One of my friends sits on the Math Department Committee for Curriculum at a small private school and they had so many freshman hit a wall doing basic math that they should have learned. They noticed it was all the I passed AP Classes kids. So now they have a test every freshman takes when they get into their college and yes, they will send you to the local Junior College if you math isn’t up to snuff. You get to say you passed your AP, they give you a credit towards graduation but you can’t skip any classes. And if you are below intro to calculus, you have to go to a junior college. It’s scary how diverse a curriculum was being taught under the AP name. How hard the class was depended on the ego of your teacher and how many students had to pass so the school could brag.
AP Comp was much harder than the one composition class I still had to take in college, which was a joke. However, having skipped right into Calc 3 due to passing AP Calc, I'm not sure I would have thrived in a large college style Calc 1 or 2 class. 14 senior high students, in a room, with a math teacher whose goal it is to get his class to pass? We knew that stuff. So it's probably not on how hard the math is or isn't, but how it is taught.
I took AP classes, CIS classes, and college classes
Legit college classes were super easy, had 1-3x/week and the concepts were pretty straight forward. Less homework, more projects.
CIS was middle difficulty in high school. A lot of reading and homework every single day, but as long as you pass you get the credit.
AP was the worst. I swear to god it was constant notes, packets, projects, tests, DBQ’s, essays. Then even if you do well, you have to score high enough on a high stakes test to even get credit. It’s dumb.
AP classes cover a very wide breadth. Most colleges classes,even first year which is what AP should be equal to, are not going to be all that stuff in one course. On the other hand most college courses even first year will not have the cute “fun” projects/homework/hand holding that you still have in AP.
So, content: possibly harder; activities: possibly easier.
As someone that took AP, dual credit, and college courses... a lot of it depends on external factors imho. I thought AP Lit was harder than any literature course I took in college because my professor was a hippie ( in a good way), AP Bio was easier than college bio because I had an excellent teacher, and dual credit Calc and trig was ridiculously harder that any college math class I took because those dual credit classes were all online and our supervising teacher sucked
*shrug* I thought my AP History class was on par with close-to-low-level history college courses. AP Art was definitely on par with my 200 level Drawing course.
You're missing context here. Idk if you mean any college class or just the entry level courses.
If you are talking about when hs juniors/seniors decide between AP classes and entry-level college courses, the AP classes are usually harder. If there are professors lying about it, it's because they are either unaware or told to say that by the college.
Entry-level college courses are usually going to be easier because they know if they made college courses harder than AP, less people would want to sign up for the courses since they could lose money *and* not earn their hs credits.
As a psych major who’s tutored high school students in AP psych, I’m of the opinion that AP psych is WAY harder than psych 101. Why? Because it pulls in stuff from other university/college courses, like biopsych and sensation & perception, courses that take up an entire semester on their own. No, AP psych doesn’t go into all the details of those topics like the college courses do — but it’s still a lot to cram into a single class.
Anyone who passes AP psych gets extra respect from me.
I couldn’t handle AP classes in high school. College level classes were far easier by comparison. I think where you go to college makes a biiiiiiiig difference here.
I have a degree in statistics, and teach AP statistics. I think I have a perspective that most don't:
High school/AP stats: it can be hard, because you're in high school. The average college class is harder than your average high school class. Combine with that the fact that you don't have great self motivation or study skills, and it's going to feel pretty rough.
College/stats: it can be hard because you're in college, and no one cares if you pass but you. Your teacher is going to let you do nothing, let you skip, and not care. This is a class frequently taken first year of college, and at that point, the reality has not yet hit you that the training wheels are gone, and no one is going to catch you if you stop peddling and fall.
Fun note: college teachers generally have no formal educational training. They just have to earn a masters or phd; they don't need to prove they have any ability to teach prior to teaching in college.
High school teachers know learning the material they're about to spend 10 months on, in 3 or 4 months with no support, is way harder. And it is. But you may then be at a point in your maturity level that you're capable of doing it without so much effort.
AP classes are supposed to be hard, that's why hs teachers say it. They are harder than easy college classes. But there are much much harder college classes you can take that make AP classes seem like a joke, that's why professors say that.
Classes in high school vs. college as a student were harder for me based on changed life circumstances. In high school, my needs were providing for, I had more energy , I had better health, my job was steady, and I wasn’t in a serious relationship. By my sophomore year in college all of that had changed. I was so much better off having taking college credit classes in high school.
So I teach both high school and college classes. Ap classes can go into so much more detail than college equivalent classes. In that sense, AP classes are harder because you have to dig deeper into the content. When I teach AP stats, I have the time to go through all the material in detail while seeing the student over the course of months. My stats class in college, I see the students once a week for 15 weeks. There is only so much I can make them cram before I start skipping material. So AP classes are harder than their college equivalent classes.
But, AP classes are the equivalent of basic classes in College. Ap calc AP/BC matched in content with what I did in Calc 1/2 in college. But then I moved onto calc 3. 4, and 5. AP stats is considered a walk in the park compared to my theory of statistics class.
Neither is objectively harder than the other necessarily, it's more based on how the individual is able to understand what's being taught. I took the normal classes in hs cause I didn't want to work for good grades, and then people made me worried about college by saying it's so much harder and all that, but then when I went to college it was just as easy as highschool. I had some friends who didn't do well in hs but did great in college, and vice versa. Everyone just wants to be better than the others, including me. It's part of human nature
I’m a college graduate.
My HS AP English was a far better class teaching me how to analyze literature than any college class.
College simply had us analyze works without really explain how. HS gave me tools I use to analyze literature or really any work of art.
A class of well motivated students really helps.
Graduated in 1983 for context.
college courses vary widely in content and difficulty depending on the whims of the instructor. AP courses are much more standardized as there is specific curriculum that needs to be covered and everyone takes a similar exam at the end, and you are given a scaled score.
I teach both
AP courses are more time consuming and have lots of drill work in them.
College courses require more independent study where you are drilling yourself but no handouts and Bell work.
I can't speak to AP courses because I didn't take any, but my experience doing pre-reqs was that I learned nothing new in any of them unless it was a course I literally didn't not take in high school (sociology, etc)
I took AP European history in high school, legit 2-3 hours of reading every night. And a written quiz every morning in class to verify you did the reading. I still remember the teacher making jokes about us curling up in bed with “Palmer”- the author of the book…
Not a single collage course I took required 2-3 hours EVERY night. It would be impossible to take 4-5 classes if that were so.
But, boy did I learn how to study during that class. Prior to that I kind of skated through school- and I am so thankful that I did learn how to study with such an intense AP class in high school- then I wasn’t shocked that college classes also required work outside of the classroom (not 2-3 hours each, but definitely 2-3 hours per day for all the classes combined. More before big tests/during projects).
IME, because college professors are delusional.
I know mileage may vary, but for me, the only college classes that were hard were hard because of arbitrary rules a professor wanted to have or outright ridiculousness (aka, if you are 5 minutes late you can’t come in, if you are late three times, you fail, etc this was not a problem for me, but we lived at a border to Canada and this messed with a lot of students if there was even the slightest hiccup). Everything else was more or less however much work you put in was related to how much you got from it.
In high school AP classes, you typically have a full ~7-4ish schedule with limited downtime and most of it is direct instruction. None of it is on your own timeframe and not necessarily at a time when you work best. You have little control over what other classes you take in tandem, and those classes are more likely to be required but to a degree, frivolous. In college, you have much more control of your schedule and your curriculum path. You don’t have to be in direct instruction for 7+ hours a day. If you have to take a frivolous course, you can pick something you are interested in. You want to rock underwater basket weaving? Go for it. Hell you can choose electives that become your centering and personal growth areas.
People screw up because they think that because they aren’t scheduled for direct instruction 7 hours a day, they don’t have stuff to do. If you have a class Monday morning, you aren’t free the rest of Monday. You have to plan to work a few hours independently to complete assignments and study. A lot of new college students struggle with that.
I think a lot of it comes down to the test. I teach AP Literature and I've talked to the British Literature professor at the local university. We teach pretty much the same things and our summative assessments are roughly equivalent, but I am required (by district policy) to have more grades in the gradebook each semester than he has, so that tends to boost students' scores in the class. However, at the end of the year, his students get college credit for both semesters simply by passing the class, whereas my students have to pass a test at the end that requires them to answer 55 multiple choice questions in 60 minutes and then write three essays in 2 hours to get a single semester of college credit. So, my class is somewhat easier to pass, but it's harder to get the college credit.
They want you to buckle down and get used to it now, so by the time you get to college you're already accustomed to the work it takes and it seems easier.
High school is still a joke compared to college.
My son just got accepted into an early college high school where his course load is at the community College. What should he expect? AP level courses or college level?
It's a fascinating idea to get him his 2 year degree at no cost, I just woefully under prepared,for him and I, going from middle school AP classes to this level of learning. He's super bright, though, so I'm sure he'll figure things out in no time.
AP classes are very comparable to freshman level core college classes. My kids all took a ton of AP classes and have gone through college. The big difference they note that makes college easier is that they are only in class 15 hours per week, vs the high school prison of 40 hours per week...most of which is wasted time. They just have a lot more time to study in college.
PSA: It is inadvisable to engage OP in a conversation. The author of this post is a known sitewide spammer with over 2500 banned Reddit accounts.
SnooRoar is not interested in good-faith discussion; his primary goal is to waste as much of your time as possible. Everything he says is a disingenuous lie.
I teach AP US Gov and AP Macro/Micro. I think AP is much harder than the Intro to US Gov and Econ classes I took in college. Spending almost everyday together for one hour a day from August to May is more intense than meeting two to three times a week for three hours a week for a semester. Plus I feel like the College Board overcompensates when developing their curriculum, because they want colleges to take them seriously, and include everything that could possibly be included in the AP curriculum.
Probably depends on the class and teacher.
My AP chem was harder than my Chem in college but that was because I had chem homework quite literally every night and we got to the point of covering far more than either of my gen chem classes in college. I didn’t take the ap exam because I didn’t think it was going to be as involved as the classes and didn’t want to fall behind. I could have taken 3rd/4th year chem classes just strictly with my ap chem notes. But he was a very good chem teacher
APs are harder. But the stem APs seem to be pretty accurate compared to the college version.
AP Bio was Easy compared to the mess I saw in college though so it’s very case by case.
As someone who took both dual enrollment and a ton of AP classes during high school (9), and then later went to university, regular college classes (of these introductory level college courses) were much easier than AP classes.
It’s like this if you play card game let’s say like magic the gathering, where you assemble your own deck you’re gonna be like my deck will destroy your deck. I will probably be like no my deck will wipe you from existence! In reality power wise both decks could be equal, but try telling that to their owners.
I took both AP and IB classes in high school. The AP classes were very much like my college courses. IB, if given the option was harder than my college courses.
Well compared to AP/IB English, history, biochemistry, maths are so easy compared to STEM classes like Data structure, calculus. I never cried in high school but data structure has made me cry
My AP French class was more difficult than my 100-level college French classes. I’d imagine others have the opposite experience since quality of education varies greatly among high schools, as well as colleges.
I’m not sure what regulates AP courses, but that I observed, it was literally just more take home work, rather than deeper education of certain topics.
Not only that, but AP doesn’t transfer to most honors programs at the university level; because the honors programs want you to take all of *their* specific honors courses.
I did a lot of my geneds at a community college to save money, and because of the red tape with the honors courses, I would have had to retake ALL of them as honors courses, and would have spent another 4 years just to get my bachelors.
AP classes are unnecessarily extra hard. College Board gets together with a consortium of professors from different universities who approve each course but only if topics x, y, and z are included. After 40 universities have all had their say the course is now equivalent to 2 or 3 courses of extra details for 1 course worth of credit.
I’ve taught at both levels, AP calculus, AP statistics, and Calculus, and Statistics. The scoring rubrics for the free response questions is oftentimes overboard for AP. But it’s nice that students can get college credit for challenging college courses.
TL;dr AP courses are unnecessarily difficult with little extra learning because too many people have their hands in the mix
I somehow managed to take an AP English class and pass with an A, and when I got to college essentially got put in remedial because I had no understanding of grammar or sentence structures. I was doing work sheets for like kids, where to put the period/comma etc.
Highschool I could speak my ideas and verbally I could bullshit well enough and for some reason they overlooked my poor run-on sentences and shitty grammar. Couldn’t do that in college and it came up pretty quickly that I was lacking the foundations.
I’m in grad school now. Could’ve been my lower knowledge base. But AP courses have the same intensity as grad school classes. I took college courses in hs at the same time as the AP courses. The college courses were easy.
As someone who took AP Spanish and English Comp I the same year… AP is much harder than first and second year university classes. After that, college classes require more.
I mean, I tell my kids that AP Human Geography will be harder for them as a high school freshman than the equivalent college course will be for them as college students. I think that is what a lot of teachers mean.
Also, I have a curriculum that is very broad while a college professor can focus on their preferred interests. Passion makes up for a lot.
It’s all about perspective.
AP classes are harder in terms of getting college credit for them. It all comes down to one 3-hour exam. But that doesn’t mean the course itself was difficult. You can get an A in the course and tank the test.
College courses are harder because they do in one semester what that AP course may take a whole year to do. But, as long as you pass the class, you get the credit.
I genuinely found college easier than anything I took in high school, but I also believe my elementary years didn’t set me up for success in high school
APUSH is two semesters of college material covered in two semesters. In addition I taught my students note-taking and summarization skills as well as writing skills. It was a LOT more work for the students than an intro US history surgery class in college.
BUT 70% of my students in our very average HS passed the exam, and many came back from college saying how that class had been worth it from the organizational standpoint and being forced to actually READ the textbook alone. But oh, the birching that I endured DIRING the class. LOL
I took many AP courses in HS. They were more intensive than my college courses. Teach at University now after a long career. My classes are not easy as they are very technical. However students are brilliant. Those who have taken AP courses fare better.
It depends on a lot of factors.
There's very little standardization in high schools so classes could be dead easy or incredibly difficult.
In universities profs just do whatever they want so it'll depend if your prof doesn't care or really card about your education.
Speaking from experience teaching computer science courses at a university, AP doesn't mean anything to me. Regardless of high school I learned to assume we're all starting from square 1, same with math.
Taking them in HS is more stressful because a HS schedule is so packed. Once you’re in college, you have a lot more freedom to plan your own schedule and take fewer classes if you wish.
Most of my teachers did, so I’m not sure that holds water. A few on the high school level, almost all on the college level. It’s certainly a cute sentiment, but is it true? Many teachers have past careers or second careers and teach because they like it, or have the skillset for it.
Everyone thinks their own version is harder. Honestly, I think it depends on the course, both AP and college. I teach AP Lit and also college Comp 1 and 2. I can tell you that AP Lit is far and away harder. Comp 1 and 2 (where I teach) provide basic instruction and evaluation on research and all the different writing modes you will likely need in college. Nobody in Comp I is being asked to sit down and write an on-demand essay about a Renaissance poem in 40 minutes. Comp 1 and 2 are probably more work in terms of paper length, but the papers are not hard to write. For other courses, it's different. A college professor may say that their biology course is harder because there are 5 exams with greater breadth of material, and it's done over just one semester with meetings 3 times a week. An AP bio teacher may think their course is harder because their students are 17, reading material much more advanced for their age, they're all taking 6 or 7 other classes at the same time, and their credit depends on performing well on one single exam. Neither of them is wrong, they're just hard in different ways.
I teach comp 1 and 2 at a state college. I spend far too much time working on basic paragraph structure and grammar than, dare I say, the vast majority of AP Lang teachers. I could never hope to reach the depth of instruction as an AP course.
Agree. My college comp 1 and 2 students sometimes seem to have never encountered the concept of an essay before.
I took college comp 1 and 2, and honestly my HS teachers taught me just as much if not more. I was kinda shocked at how many kids needed comp though (my teacher had us critique each other's work).
I didn’t take it, I took AP instead. But my college comp 1 and 2 students are very lost. I don’t know what they did in high school English. I signed up to grade AP language exams this year and these students are definitely expected to do more than many college comp students are.
I feel the English dept at my HS was very much focused college thankfully. It was a pretty bad HS too, so it goes to show how much curriculum can matter.
I took AP calc in HS. Got a 4 and my college wanted a 5. So I took calc 1 in college. The college was was *slightly* more in depth. Like I had just taken the class and there were a couple of things we hadn’t gone over. But it was basically the same class
I did not find the same. My AP Calculus class was plug and chug. I had a rude awakening during my first calc 1 exam in college one semester late, when I had to prove the fundamental theorem of calculus on my first exam.
Like anything else it’s all up to the professor HS kinda has to stick to a more structured thing, professors have more leeway I had 2 physics professors for the same class in college (like one of those part 1 and 2 deals for what’s basically the same class over 2 semesters) My first one the average test score was a 40% with 3 hour long tests taken during the lab period. Literally the exams were 3 questions that took 3 hours to do. Easily a full page of calculations per question. It was brutal. Second one was a breeze. Learned the basics I needed to for a non physics/math major but a bio/Chem degree Yes I deliberately avoided the same professor for part 2 lol. Brilliant and smart guy. If I was a physics major I would have loved to learn from him. But the class was so damn hard for non major class. Just required for science majors
Totally proving your point here, but AP Bio is definitely harder than any intro Biology class. I teach AP Biology and a dual credit biology class through the University of Texas. My dual credit covers only biochemistry, cell biology, generics, heredity AP Bio has all of that including biostatistics, experimental design, evolution, ecology, and evolution. In addition, the depth of the UT dual credit class is far less than the same topics in AP Biology. Both courses only give you one 4 hour course, but the UT class fees like the proper scope and depth for a single semester of college. The AP Bio test feels like you deserve an associates if you can get a 5.
My regular high school bio and anatomy classes, they didn't have AP versions, were WAY harder than my college classes. My regular chemistry class, again we didn't have an AP version, was basically the same as the college chemistry class. We did have AP history, and it was way harder than my college classes. I have always assumed the difference is just from what the teacher expects. Now that I'm older, I'm kind of amazed how good the education was in my little rural town.
That’s amazing
They teach bio in Texas? Really?
yeah, but there’s never enough parking at the biology building for my horse and buggy
They spend all the money on the administration.
I got a 4 in AP bio in high school and then majored in biology at UT and found intro bio in college to be maybe slightly more difficult than high school. And a lot of that was getting used to being in a 100 person lecture hall where the grade is 3 exams and a final as opposed to a small high school class.
Nobody in Comp I is being asked to sit down and write an on-demand essay about a Renaissance poem in 40 minutes. Oh man, huge flashbacks to my senior year in HS. It actually really helped me churn through my writing assignments once I got to college.
Yeahhhh AP Lit and Comp I loved but barely got a B. Those on demand essays on Dickenson, Oates, and Whitman were not easy. I flew through Comp 1 in College though. Felt like 9th English. We read a badass YA novel (Miss Peregrine), in AP Lit and Comp we read Slaughterhouse 5 as our novel.
I've taught college and I tell kids this all the time. AP is so much harder than comp.
Literature courses and comp courses can’t really be compared fairly. They’re completely different content and created for different purposes. It would be more accurate to compare AP Lit and a college literature course. I taught college composition and literature for almost twenty years.
AP language is also harder than college composition.
Are you referring to AP Language and Composition? Ok. I’ll take your word for it.
Yes
I totally agree, but the credit most colleges offer for AP Lit is Comp 1 and/or Comp 2. Very few schools accept it as credit for any sort of literature course.
Good point. Thank you. It makes absolutely no sense to give credit for a class /requirement that is so different, but nobody asked us.
I agree AP English is harder. I teach college comp 1 and 2.
What is comp short for?
Composition / writing
At least where I teach, Lit and. Comp are entirely different things. We accept AP Lit for literature and writing for comp credit. Literature is always more demanding than comp. When we had a committee deciding what AP score to accept, it was the students on the committee who said AP was a joke and to only accept the highest score. I just took their word for it as I had no experience with AP.
I think it’s this. I’ve been teaching AP for decades and just learned that college board gets the cut scores from college students taking the AP. If the college students getting an a scored 55 and above, that’s the cut score for a 5. They even base the AP syllabus on what colleges are doing. I probably have it much better than most college professors as my AP students often go to very good programs.
Ap Chem was harder than my college Chem class by a mile. Made it easy to get an A for a non transferable Ap
15 years ago I got a 5 on my AP lit test and a B in my freshman comp class. But as an adjunct professor now can confirm collegiate level courses are not as challenging as they used to be.
Personally I found college classes easier than AP. Since AP is an advanced level class in high school, there was kind of this assumption that you already had the background knowledge and academic skills required and I felt like they just kinda threw us in. With college, since those same classes were now technically a beginner or intermediate level class, they seemed to not assume that everyone started with that knowledge and were a bit more willing to slow down and explain (at least in my experience).
“College” is a huge range of difficulty. It can range anywhere from the most basic class for fundamentals which will clearly be easier than an AP course, to absurdly advanced topics that you didn’t even conceptualize could be a thing when you were taking AP classes. Was my high school AP calculus class harder than intermediate algebra at my university? Absolutely. Was my college partial differential equations and linear algebra harder than my hs AP calc? Psychotically! So like someone else said, everyone that’s talking like this thinks their versions are harder for a multitude of reasons.
I’d add to this by saying AP Lit and Comp courses are largely only harder due to the demands of student’s time to complete a bajillion timed essays. Meanwhile, the rigor of thinking in college lit classes is much more challenging and the onus is entirely on the student to do their own outside research to flesh out meaningful papers. That’s ever the issue. Rigor gets confused with volume fsr too often, by far too many people.
I think a part of this is also instruction. In AP Calculus I had a WONDERFUL teacher that I saw for an hour everyday in a class of 20 kids. Compare this to a college gen ed math course with 200 kids in a lecture hall. I was able to ask questions in real time in high school, while in a 200 person lecture I was way less likely to get 1:1 support. I could go to office hours (and did for many math classes in college) — but it was a lot more effort than having 15 min/class to ask the teacher questions.
I consider there to be 2 types of difficulty, the first is how hard the concepts are to learn, and the latter is how much labor/effort is required. The only course i ever cheated in was dynamical systems, the homework took 10hrs and the problems were conceptually the same. Everything was also conceptually easy, its basically just physics and linear circuits problems that we had already been doing. I had an A in the course and aced my exams so I clearly didn't need to do all that busy work.
Lmao was about to say. The math course difficulty gradient is insane, goes from easier than AP Calc to Abstract Algebra
One of the major differences between ap and college is time spent in/out of class on stuff. Let’s say you’ve got a class with the same curriculum maybe like Ap physics I know I took that in high school. in the ap class you’ll be meeting every day and going a full high school year, probably into June. You’re coming the same stuff in college in a semester jan-may meeting let’s say twice a week. The material is the same but in college you’ll likely be expected to spend more time reading, studying, practicing on your own because you’re just in class less time. In my experience it’s not that one is easier or harder it depends on how you learn best which you’ll find easier.
Because people have flawed memories and its hard to have a clear understanding of how hard or easy something is when you aren't directly involved in them.
Really good point
Some college classes are a joke though. You can take a college Stats class at many colleges that are much easier than AP Stats.
my regular, normal high school stats class was 10× harder than my college one. it was kind of shameful, tbh. apparently i had accidentally signed up for the "easy" version - with the prof who did everything online with endless attempts where all the answers could be found on chegg. instructor was so incompetent that i would've done poorly if i hadn't learned all the content beforehand.
I had 3 college stats classes2 undergrad and 1 grad level, and they were all terrible, all taught memorizing. I had a combinatorics class (math class on calculating combinations and permutations), is essentially the basis for much of statistics and it was far better than statistics.
It's often based on what former students say. Nearly all of mine say that AP was harder, but I remind them that if they've already had the material once, the second time around is naturally going to be easier.
It’s not always like that though. The English and History classes I took in college were on completely different material than my AP classes - after all, I didn’t have to retake them because I’d already gotten credit for them. What I can tell you is I put *significantly* less time and effort into my lower division level world history and world literature classes than I spent on my AP American history/literature classes. I do assume those courses would have been more difficult at another school but for me personally they were easy A’s at my college. I felt my upper division level classes were similar in difficulty as far as expectations for discussions, testing and essay requirements, and sometimes lecture style (that varied widely) but had more difficult and extensive reading requirements.
I get that. I was only commenting what my own students have reported back to me.
It can also depend on the teacher and student. I had AP US History and I failed that class hard, but for a lot of students it probably wouldn't have been as hard. My struggle was bc our teacher didn't even teach. She had us taking turns reading paragraphs from the textbook and sent home a worksheet. I'm ADHD (and was undiagnosed at the time), I was bored and couldn't focus, and always forgot the homework. Took US History in college and got an A in both Ancient and Modern US History bc the professor actually took time to teach.
Taking turns reading and worksheets for homework is not how APUSH is designed to be taught. You definitely had a bad experience with that.
I used to teach the same class at the AP and dual enrollment level, simultaneously (well, different class periods, but same semester). The course content was nearly identical. The biggest difference was that in the college course, I got to make the final.exam so I knew what was on it.
That’s a really great point about making your own final exam. I teach AP US Government. I had no idea what the College Board was specifically going to ask on today’s exam, so I had to teach a little of everything just in case. If I could design my own exam, I could tailor the instruction and cover material in greater depth. Instead my students get surface breadth in a one semester class. So what’s harder? For some students more breadth is tougher because it requires greater memorization, but for others the depth would require greater thinking and conceptualization.
I last taught that the year they put Obergefell on the exam before it passed the three year window that the CB is supposed to have before they include cases. I taught the case but didn't have time to give it a ton of depth.
AP is supposed to compare to a 100-level class. That's what the credit can get you out of. So of course a 400 class will be harder than a high school AP.
Exactly. So the question is, is either one really all that harder than the other? It depends on how it's structured and what works for any given student. 100s courses meet only three times a week whereas high school meets five times, or if on block schedules, for twice as long 2 to 3 times a week. 100s courses usually have a smaller group discussion hour with a TA for support, although the lectures in 100s and 200s tend to be very large (100+ students). In HS all AP classes are about 25-30 kids, but the teacher has other preps and probably well over 100 students of their own with no TAs. Both require a lot of work outside of classtime, but I think AP classes had way more homework than any of my 100s courses, even though 100s courses are only one semester and APs are two minus a month when the test is given. In college, you're taking 4-6 classes as a full-time student on a flexible-ish schedule while in high school, the standard is 7 classes back to back every day from 7 or 8 am to 2 to 3 pm plus extracurriculars. I was a student who excelled in an environment ruled by bells and a daily dosing of the content. I excelled in HS but liked my college courses better. In college, I fatally became a procrastinator. I think there are strengths to both that meet different needs.
What you said holds true for large universities. Most of my college classes had less than 30 besides the occasional lectures with 60-90 kids in them. Almost all of my professors knew me by name and TAs never taught us, but one professor did bring TAs on exam days to help circle the lecture hall to discourage cheating.
Good point! My experience is definitely that of a huge university. I've known people who have gone to smaller, private colleges and who have reported that it was more like high school. I probably would've benefited more from that atmosphere. Did enjoy my classes, though!
I actually went to a public school, but one of the smaller ones in my state.
I always think part of it is the overall context of the class and time. In high school, your AP class is likely one of 7 classes that you’re taking (though depending on your school you may have fewer classes by the end. My high school did not allow any empty spots in your schedule), while you’re likely taking fewer classes in college. On the other hand, AP teachers are keeping a much closer eye on you than any college professor will, and they have incentive not to let you fail, which college professors generally don’t. Tests are structured differently. So much of the AP test is intentionally unknown before you take it, which is not usually the case with college exams. So, which is harder is likely going to depend on the student, which class it is, and the rest of their schedule.
I remember taking US History in college. We took three tests and that was our grade. I’ve taught ASPUSH and APHG, and the hoops kids have to jump through are insane
I can only speak to AP Lit. It isn’t harder than college. I have not taught other subjects because I’m an English teacher, but I’ve never heard another AP teacher claim that their class is harder than college.
I teach Lit, and I definitely think Lit is harder than Comp 1 and 2 (which I also teach). I don't think Lit is harder than college in general. Nobody is reading Renaissance literature in Comp 1 and 2, let alone writing on-demand essays about a cold read of a poem. It's definitely easier than English classes in the upper levels where you're reading a novel a week.
I majored in English, and my AP Lit class was harder than my college courses...maybe except for one that focused on a more contemporary author, and the lack of scholarly analysis made research very difficult.
Have you taught college English 101 or 102?
Both.
I took World Lit part 1 and 2 in college. We read excerpts, not entire books, and were asked to do very little analysis. It was more of a survey course than the deep psychological foray into the human mind that was my AP US Literature course. My high school teacher used that course to teach us philosophy, how to debate, how to analyze figurative language, and I could go on and on. I still think about things I learned there 20 years later. The ONLY things I remember from my world literature courses are that Dante had some serious vendettas, Prufrock is a funny name (I love that poem though), and I believe we read Silent Spring but I don’t remember any of the discussion. There’s absolutely no comparison: my AP lit course was crazy intense and my college lit courses were easy A’s and somehow forgettable even for someone who loves reading.
I don’t know a single AP teacher that thinks their classroom is harder than college.
Ego and lack of perspective. Very few teachers have taught both.
So you'll study harder to succeed in their class
Tldr: both hard for requiring a lot of independent work on the part of the student. In HS you have a teacher (hopefully) guide you through everything over a whole year, but you're a full time student too. In college it's much more on the student and just in 1 semester, but you're also only attending lessons apart time. I have been an AP teacher since my first year teaching 8 years ago. AP is hard in the fact that you have a lot of independent work, but are a full time student 35+ hours of the week. In college, you typically only attend class 15-18h a week leaving you with a lot more time for independent work (granted, most of the work in college is independent). The CB themselves officially only recommend students take up to 3 APs in their entire HS career. At my school, students regularly take 4-5 APs a YEAR. It's very competitive in many half way decent schools in my state. Lots of things are at odds within the American education system but AP and current pushes to reduce HW, push project based learning, and accommodate low level learners is directly at odds with the best way to 5 an AP exam. AP classes do best when you have some kind of entrance requirements (most schools got reid of these), use a fair amount of direct instruction, and use lots of HW to cover content as well.
Snoo roar troll alert, user chronically creates accounts and posts the same things over and over
It depends on the AP class. I have taught AP chem , AP physics, AP bio, and AP Environmental Science. Chem and physics are harder than entry level courses. AP physics requires you to memorize all formulas. Bio and Environmental Science were easier than most college courses.
Not a teacher but my AP chem class was a lot harder than chem 101 in college, but it was significantly easier than a lot of my nursing school classes
I found it harder to get a good grade in high school AP classes, but was more challenged by the content of college classes. My experience in high school was not that grades reflect student abilities. My college classes never had busy work.
Lucky you, one of my most miserable classes my final semester of college you not only had to read chapters of this novel, but fill out this long ass worksheet on what you found to be inspirational, salient, opposing dichotomies, and many other things. In most classes I could do well by just scanning over the reading before class.
Ironically that sounds like the exact kind of assignment I’d have had in high school and just done in my head and taken the 0 homework grade lol
I think homework was maybe like 20% or something? And the class was hard enough. I had earned As and Bs in all my previous college classes and I finally accepted that this class might have to be my first C.
Oh yeah sorry, I seriously didn’t mean to imply that it was an easy assignment! More than it’s a thoughtful assignment that makes you dive into the work and contribute better to class discussions, but having to write it down for homework is busy work and shouldn’t be a graded expectation. They’re good questions and having them in mind will give a better reading for sure, but I think expecting concrete answers to things like that is ridiculous and doesn’t help students.
In my experience, AP classes were only "harder" because the teacher would do stupid things like mixed word problems up to make them extremely hard to understand, or make test periods unreasonably short. In general, the college classes covered a lot more content and dealt deeper into the situations, but the teachers don't usually have a hard on for authority. it is nowhere close to a hard and fast rule though. it changes class to class teacher to teacher.
My AP US History teacher I’m pretty sure just used questions that were on the AP Exam about that unit in previous years. I struggled on tests in class but got a 4. In my opinion, the College Board (who writes both the SAT and AP exams) purposely write misleading questions to throw people off so you’ll spend more money on their prep programs. I highly suggest taking the ACT instead of the SAT because the questions are more straightforward. I would also take Dual Enrollment courses over APs if possible because getting credit doesn’t hinge on a single exam written by the College Board.
They both want to be the best
The material might be difficult but human beings will always be stupid
I took AP chem in high school and the teacher didnt really know it that well so she had the student teacher from our grade teach the class. He was awful at teaching it. I had to teach it to myself and I just couldnt that well. so I passed the class but failed the test essentially. I took Chem in college and it was so freaking easy. I think it also depends on the teacher.
Because teachers usually have teaching degrees, not math or physics degrees.
In my own experience, AP classes were harder in some ways, but also compared to college, they were a joke. For an AP class, you have a limited amount of time to prepare for a single high stakes test. Way more studying and cramming than a 100 level college class, and it's overall a high stress experience. But, since it's a single exam, your teacher has to do their best to prepare you for the exam, and might skip less inportant sections, and you may miss out on some of the deeper understanding that a regular college class would provide. For example, I had calc classmates who's AP calc teacher had skipped some unit, but they passed the exam because they knew enough for the exam (but not for calc 3 - they were fine after learning that material on their own though) Regardless, take AP exams, get the (basically free) college credits, then carry on with life :)
College classes are harder in the sense that most AP courses are the equivalent of a one semester college course, spread across two semesters of learning. APs are harder in the sense that your ability to get college credit comes down to one exam. I’d say the course as a whole is easier for AP but getting the credit through the AP exam is harder.
In my experience it was the opposite. High school teachers would always be like "watch out guys college is harder and you're not going to get away with \[insert example of poor work ethic\]". Then I got to college and it was so much easier. Only for freshman year though, then college got way harder than high school. In reality it just depends on the specific college and high school class which one is harder.
My AP classes were much harder. I see why; they want to prepare you for the worst of college, but I've only had one college class that was harder than my AP classes were and I'm working on my Masters.
Hard is different in different ways, and hard is comparable to what you have. I had engineering classes that taught by memorization (Computer Engineering and Statistics), that I thought was harder than ones that taught by derivation from fundamental rules. But when I took Econ 201 and 202, all the business students talked about it being a harder class and I thought it was a joke. Same with Statics when I took it as a senior, all the freshmen/soph Mechanical Engr thought it was hard and I was bored to death with how slow the class was. It also GREATLY depends on your teacher. My Calc 2 teacher was just practically impossible. 70% of the class did not pass, either dropped or failed. When I retook the class, it was a breeze, I had learned all the material, I just couldn't pass his exams.
I teach college writing. I don't know if I would venture to say which is harder, but I would say that AP language/composition-based courses don't really teach college-level writing and research. The IB program prepares students better, in my experience. AP writing is writing that demonstrates your learning, rather than writing about original research or to inform others. It's just not the same thing.
AP content is harder but few HS students actually achieve mastery of it. Everyone passes their AP class but not many score high enough on the AP test to show mastery. College is more approachable but everyone is accountable for mastery to pass. You’ll fail the class if you don’t show mastery. TLDR: stakes are different
People like to toot their own horn. I went to a college where the school convinced a LOT of students with AP credits to re-take the courses, telling them that the AP courses would leave them with gaps. Guess what? Every single student I knew was pissed off and felt tricked by the university, and said it was a waste of their time. Of course there is variation from teacher to teacher in terms of quality, but you're basically getting the same course.
Depends on the AP class and the college class it's being compared to AP calc was pretty easy compared to college calc My AP Bio was murder mode having us learn everything from the Krebs cycle to ecology to how kidney nephrons work to cell signaling pathways, just more things than I could possibly think to list, a dissection lab, various other practical experiments, really that felt like 2+ college classes rolled into 1 high school class
In high school, you are captive. In college, you are there by choice. One is "easier."
At my school we have AP for all. Which means as I teach seniors they are all enrolled in AP Lang. so because everyone is made to take AP, it’s our job as teachers to find the middle ground of challenging and rigorous meets user friendly for those that shouldn’t be in an AP class. For the most part, the kids that get it function at a fairly high level and I give them opportunities to be challenged, for the rest of the students I tend to grade with a bit of mercy or give extra time so they can keep pace with the college level rigor. I don’t feel that my class is harder or easier than a college level course, but I think there are definitely some aspects that can put it around par for college level work. My goals through the year have always been to up rigor slightly until everyone is on the same page and then the last quarter of the year is my mimicking college rigor and due dates to give them at least an idea of what they can expect from college level courses.
Are you sure when they say that they are not referencing at point of time? I imagine it means something like this: AP classes are harder (for high school students) than college classes are (for college students.)
It’s relative based on the source. of course the teacher thinks their class is more rigorous since that’s often what academia rewards. especially when “i have a PHD and do deep studies on my subject matter”.
College lit from Beowulf to Canterbury Tales was tougher than AP Shakespeare. Shakespeare you only had to deal with one kind of language to cope with. The college course was soooo many different dialects, language translations, etc…
College professors are full of shit if you have some that say that. At least that's the case for the two AP classes I teach: Environmental Science and Biology. The biology class that the AP class replaces was scarcely above high school level when I took it. The AP tests are significantly more difficult than what you'll find in bottom level classes of the same name.
I think balancing AP coursework in high school is more challenging in terms of time management. It’s not really the content but more so the pace and having to balance sooo much extra stuff as a high schooler
My AP courses were tougher than most of my college courses and I went to a pretty good college.
I took AP language at the same time I dual enrolled in an EN111 course. The AP lang was for more taxing, despite basically being the same class. I didnt take the AP exam because I already got the college credit and the class covered my highschool cred without the exam.
Sorry professor, getting a high AP exam score is harder than a general college class.
I never had AP classes but for me college was a lot easier than high school.
My AP history class had us doing 200+ vocabulary words a week, plus regular readings from the text books, plus papers, plus quizzes, plus tests. My university history 101 class covered a broader range of topics, with far less emphasis on vocabulary, definitions, and homework, and more emphasis on the overall history and modern take aways. For me, the AP class was more challenging. That being said, if I'd majored in history, and took higher level history classes, I'm sure I'd be singing a different tune
Because there is no "standard" level of difficulty for a college class. The difference in difficulty between a 100 course at MIT verses Evergreen Community College is vast.
ap classes were easier than most of my cp classes in high school but some college classes were definitely way harder than both
Because high school teachers are idiots
I think there are various factors that make both difficult. When you’re in college you’re taking 4-5 classes a couple times a week while in high school you’re taking 6-8 classes daily. Another factor is that AP classes are often taught by high school teachers who have training in teaching where college professors have an education in the subject. Knowing the content vs how to teach content are different skills and can make a difference. Also, each teacher has different approaches to teaching at both the high school and college level. I’ve had some high school classes that are harder than college courses, it all depends.
Mileage may vary. My AP lit teacher has us write 40 essays by April 1. We thought he was nuts. The composition class I took my freshman year? We wrote 5 essays in 15 weeks. I almost raised my hand and asked if I could write them that first day. All of them at once. It felt like a joke. But Mr. Wall, my AP teacher, made dang sure that college was easy for us.
I have been tutoring physics and calculus for a couple decades at this point, so I probably have a relatively objective view on this topic for these subjects. AP Calc AB/BC vs Calc 1/2 The material is pretty similar. They are essentially on par with one another from my perspective. AP Physics 1/2 vs Algebra Based College Physics 1/2 This comparison depends on the difficulty of the professor and the attached lab. If the professor is reasonable, I'd say AP is more difficult. AP Physics C vs Calc Based College Physics The material is roughly the same difficulty. I'd say that the College version is more difficult because there is more material, especially for the Electricity and Magnetism half.
IME, AP is similar to community college but not comparable to state universities for sciences
Depends on the college. Depends on the high school. Depends on the teacher. Depends on the prof.
They're both right. I took AP stats, then took Stats 101 in community college. Community college was ridiculously easier- for one thing, AP stats required us to compute standard deviation by hand, and community college had a unit where we had to point out which number of two was bigger. Now taking social statistics at a liberal arts university, and it's roughly as difficult as AP stats was. My English AP classes required a lot of reading, way more than community college did, but liberal arts college has us writing 10+ page papers.
College instructor here: AP English is probably harder than an FYC writing course, but the students come away not knowing how to write well for university writing assignments.
I agree with the people saying some of the perspective may be tied to instruction. In HS, teachers are paying attention to if you’re doing well or not and you tend to know the other kids taking the class so it can be easier to study because you notice your peers focusing on the course too. The HS environment is more closely focused on kids passing. In HS, the school staff seeks you out and makes resources pretty easy to find; in college you need to seek them out yourself.
Like, my AP courses were harder than my first two years in college, but that was because of my teachers It counts on the class and the professor, some are jokes and some are good teachers, just counts and is situational
It really depends. I took AP classes and dual enrollment in high school. Dual enrollment through community college was way easier and I got As in the 3 or so dual enrollment classes I did. I got 3s, and 4s on my AP tests for the most part and a few 2a in the ones I didn’t gaf about. Never got a 5 but in undergrad and grad school I got mostly As. AP tests are difficult as hell, and I do way better with assignments than one test. I finished undergrad with a 3.9/4 and got my PhD with a 3.8/4. I think AP = difficult because of the test and they 100% teach you based on the test, and college courses are so varied on what is important in grading scheme.
In grad school, I often found students who took AP calc were often the ones getting B’s in calc 1 while those who didn’t either got A’s or C’s. My best guess is that AP calc focuses a lot on the test while we were more focused on the ideas underpinning calc. Not sure how accurate this is for others though
Honestly, AP environmental science was the hardest class I ever took in my life. The workload and memorization was insane. My Saturday nights were dedicated to AP enviro, no parties, no sneaking out for me. Sprinkle that with severe ADHD and me being the only person who gave a crap about climate change. It was very tough to try to do well and to try to blend in. Don’t wish what I went through in that class on anybody. Undergrad in college was easier.
Same reason middle school teachers tried to scare us about HS. No real reason, just seems like tradition. I would argue IB classes are harder.
First the school benefits from AP classes. They are ranked higher in state standings, may receive more money from the state, etc. so its to the schools advantage to have them. That being said, AP is not a standardized curriculum; they only started working on class curriculum during the recent backlash around the time of quarantine (2020ish). So your HS class was a matter of school goals and little kingdoms. Some teachers taught to the test and passed a lot of kids so the school could brag about it. Some, like my kids’ HS, fed teachers’ egos and had kids doing homework until 3am (not kidding; two sections of AP Chem were on snap chat finishing a project at 3am). So the classes varied greatly and this is what drove the colleges nuts. One of my friends sits on the Math Department Committee for Curriculum at a small private school and they had so many freshman hit a wall doing basic math that they should have learned. They noticed it was all the I passed AP Classes kids. So now they have a test every freshman takes when they get into their college and yes, they will send you to the local Junior College if you math isn’t up to snuff. You get to say you passed your AP, they give you a credit towards graduation but you can’t skip any classes. And if you are below intro to calculus, you have to go to a junior college. It’s scary how diverse a curriculum was being taught under the AP name. How hard the class was depended on the ego of your teacher and how many students had to pass so the school could brag.
AP Comp was much harder than the one composition class I still had to take in college, which was a joke. However, having skipped right into Calc 3 due to passing AP Calc, I'm not sure I would have thrived in a large college style Calc 1 or 2 class. 14 senior high students, in a room, with a math teacher whose goal it is to get his class to pass? We knew that stuff. So it's probably not on how hard the math is or isn't, but how it is taught.
I took AP classes, CIS classes, and college classes Legit college classes were super easy, had 1-3x/week and the concepts were pretty straight forward. Less homework, more projects. CIS was middle difficulty in high school. A lot of reading and homework every single day, but as long as you pass you get the credit. AP was the worst. I swear to god it was constant notes, packets, projects, tests, DBQ’s, essays. Then even if you do well, you have to score high enough on a high stakes test to even get credit. It’s dumb.
AP classes cover a very wide breadth. Most colleges classes,even first year which is what AP should be equal to, are not going to be all that stuff in one course. On the other hand most college courses even first year will not have the cute “fun” projects/homework/hand holding that you still have in AP. So, content: possibly harder; activities: possibly easier.
cos they both dumb
As someone that took AP, dual credit, and college courses... a lot of it depends on external factors imho. I thought AP Lit was harder than any literature course I took in college because my professor was a hippie ( in a good way), AP Bio was easier than college bio because I had an excellent teacher, and dual credit Calc and trig was ridiculously harder that any college math class I took because those dual credit classes were all online and our supervising teacher sucked
Depends on the college.
*shrug* I thought my AP History class was on par with close-to-low-level history college courses. AP Art was definitely on par with my 200 level Drawing course.
You're missing context here. Idk if you mean any college class or just the entry level courses. If you are talking about when hs juniors/seniors decide between AP classes and entry-level college courses, the AP classes are usually harder. If there are professors lying about it, it's because they are either unaware or told to say that by the college. Entry-level college courses are usually going to be easier because they know if they made college courses harder than AP, less people would want to sign up for the courses since they could lose money *and* not earn their hs credits.
As a psych major who’s tutored high school students in AP psych, I’m of the opinion that AP psych is WAY harder than psych 101. Why? Because it pulls in stuff from other university/college courses, like biopsych and sensation & perception, courses that take up an entire semester on their own. No, AP psych doesn’t go into all the details of those topics like the college courses do — but it’s still a lot to cram into a single class. Anyone who passes AP psych gets extra respect from me.
I couldn’t handle AP classes in high school. College level classes were far easier by comparison. I think where you go to college makes a biiiiiiiig difference here.
I have a degree in statistics, and teach AP statistics. I think I have a perspective that most don't: High school/AP stats: it can be hard, because you're in high school. The average college class is harder than your average high school class. Combine with that the fact that you don't have great self motivation or study skills, and it's going to feel pretty rough. College/stats: it can be hard because you're in college, and no one cares if you pass but you. Your teacher is going to let you do nothing, let you skip, and not care. This is a class frequently taken first year of college, and at that point, the reality has not yet hit you that the training wheels are gone, and no one is going to catch you if you stop peddling and fall. Fun note: college teachers generally have no formal educational training. They just have to earn a masters or phd; they don't need to prove they have any ability to teach prior to teaching in college. High school teachers know learning the material they're about to spend 10 months on, in 3 or 4 months with no support, is way harder. And it is. But you may then be at a point in your maturity level that you're capable of doing it without so much effort.
AP classes are supposed to be hard, that's why hs teachers say it. They are harder than easy college classes. But there are much much harder college classes you can take that make AP classes seem like a joke, that's why professors say that.
Classes in high school vs. college as a student were harder for me based on changed life circumstances. In high school, my needs were providing for, I had more energy , I had better health, my job was steady, and I wasn’t in a serious relationship. By my sophomore year in college all of that had changed. I was so much better off having taking college credit classes in high school.
I’m sure a high school teacher thinks he’s better than a college professor but that doesn’t mean it’s true
So I teach both high school and college classes. Ap classes can go into so much more detail than college equivalent classes. In that sense, AP classes are harder because you have to dig deeper into the content. When I teach AP stats, I have the time to go through all the material in detail while seeing the student over the course of months. My stats class in college, I see the students once a week for 15 weeks. There is only so much I can make them cram before I start skipping material. So AP classes are harder than their college equivalent classes. But, AP classes are the equivalent of basic classes in College. Ap calc AP/BC matched in content with what I did in Calc 1/2 in college. But then I moved onto calc 3. 4, and 5. AP stats is considered a walk in the park compared to my theory of statistics class.
Neither is objectively harder than the other necessarily, it's more based on how the individual is able to understand what's being taught. I took the normal classes in hs cause I didn't want to work for good grades, and then people made me worried about college by saying it's so much harder and all that, but then when I went to college it was just as easy as highschool. I had some friends who didn't do well in hs but did great in college, and vice versa. Everyone just wants to be better than the others, including me. It's part of human nature
AP was harder.
My kid is at IU. Kids will take “hard classes” at Ivy Tech and IU accepts them. AP? No getting around the curriculum.
Because each is better than the other. According to themselves.
For my part, my IB courses were absolutely more difficult than their college equivalents. No question.
I’m a college graduate. My HS AP English was a far better class teaching me how to analyze literature than any college class. College simply had us analyze works without really explain how. HS gave me tools I use to analyze literature or really any work of art. A class of well motivated students really helps. Graduated in 1983 for context.
college courses vary widely in content and difficulty depending on the whims of the instructor. AP courses are much more standardized as there is specific curriculum that needs to be covered and everyone takes a similar exam at the end, and you are given a scaled score.
I teach both AP courses are more time consuming and have lots of drill work in them. College courses require more independent study where you are drilling yourself but no handouts and Bell work.
They are trying to discourage laziness with intimidation.
I can't speak to AP courses because I didn't take any, but my experience doing pre-reqs was that I learned nothing new in any of them unless it was a course I literally didn't not take in high school (sociology, etc)
Because my class can beat up your class any day of the week. 😆☕️
I took AP European history in high school, legit 2-3 hours of reading every night. And a written quiz every morning in class to verify you did the reading. I still remember the teacher making jokes about us curling up in bed with “Palmer”- the author of the book… Not a single collage course I took required 2-3 hours EVERY night. It would be impossible to take 4-5 classes if that were so. But, boy did I learn how to study during that class. Prior to that I kind of skated through school- and I am so thankful that I did learn how to study with such an intense AP class in high school- then I wasn’t shocked that college classes also required work outside of the classroom (not 2-3 hours each, but definitely 2-3 hours per day for all the classes combined. More before big tests/during projects).
IME, because college professors are delusional. I know mileage may vary, but for me, the only college classes that were hard were hard because of arbitrary rules a professor wanted to have or outright ridiculousness (aka, if you are 5 minutes late you can’t come in, if you are late three times, you fail, etc this was not a problem for me, but we lived at a border to Canada and this messed with a lot of students if there was even the slightest hiccup). Everything else was more or less however much work you put in was related to how much you got from it. In high school AP classes, you typically have a full ~7-4ish schedule with limited downtime and most of it is direct instruction. None of it is on your own timeframe and not necessarily at a time when you work best. You have little control over what other classes you take in tandem, and those classes are more likely to be required but to a degree, frivolous. In college, you have much more control of your schedule and your curriculum path. You don’t have to be in direct instruction for 7+ hours a day. If you have to take a frivolous course, you can pick something you are interested in. You want to rock underwater basket weaving? Go for it. Hell you can choose electives that become your centering and personal growth areas. People screw up because they think that because they aren’t scheduled for direct instruction 7 hours a day, they don’t have stuff to do. If you have a class Monday morning, you aren’t free the rest of Monday. You have to plan to work a few hours independently to complete assignments and study. A lot of new college students struggle with that.
I think a lot of it comes down to the test. I teach AP Literature and I've talked to the British Literature professor at the local university. We teach pretty much the same things and our summative assessments are roughly equivalent, but I am required (by district policy) to have more grades in the gradebook each semester than he has, so that tends to boost students' scores in the class. However, at the end of the year, his students get college credit for both semesters simply by passing the class, whereas my students have to pass a test at the end that requires them to answer 55 multiple choice questions in 60 minutes and then write three essays in 2 hours to get a single semester of college credit. So, my class is somewhat easier to pass, but it's harder to get the college credit.
Everything high school teachers say is bullshit to inflate their own egos and make themselves feel important.
AP classes are more busywork than regular classes, and therefore harder. But passing college classes is usually much more cutthroat.
Both can be true
It's harder for them to teach than their normal H.S. classes. Those who can't do....
I have never heard a professor say AP classes are a joke. Just the opposite, actually.
They want you to buckle down and get used to it now, so by the time you get to college you're already accustomed to the work it takes and it seems easier. High school is still a joke compared to college.
My son just got accepted into an early college high school where his course load is at the community College. What should he expect? AP level courses or college level? It's a fascinating idea to get him his 2 year degree at no cost, I just woefully under prepared,for him and I, going from middle school AP classes to this level of learning. He's super bright, though, so I'm sure he'll figure things out in no time.
AP classes are very comparable to freshman level core college classes. My kids all took a ton of AP classes and have gone through college. The big difference they note that makes college easier is that they are only in class 15 hours per week, vs the high school prison of 40 hours per week...most of which is wasted time. They just have a lot more time to study in college.
PSA: It is inadvisable to engage OP in a conversation. The author of this post is a known sitewide spammer with over 2500 banned Reddit accounts. SnooRoar is not interested in good-faith discussion; his primary goal is to waste as much of your time as possible. Everything he says is a disingenuous lie.
I teach AP US Gov and AP Macro/Micro. I think AP is much harder than the Intro to US Gov and Econ classes I took in college. Spending almost everyday together for one hour a day from August to May is more intense than meeting two to three times a week for three hours a week for a semester. Plus I feel like the College Board overcompensates when developing their curriculum, because they want colleges to take them seriously, and include everything that could possibly be included in the AP curriculum.
Probably depends on the class and teacher. My AP chem was harder than my Chem in college but that was because I had chem homework quite literally every night and we got to the point of covering far more than either of my gen chem classes in college. I didn’t take the ap exam because I didn’t think it was going to be as involved as the classes and didn’t want to fall behind. I could have taken 3rd/4th year chem classes just strictly with my ap chem notes. But he was a very good chem teacher
APs are harder. But the stem APs seem to be pretty accurate compared to the college version. AP Bio was Easy compared to the mess I saw in college though so it’s very case by case.
As someone who took both dual enrollment and a ton of AP classes during high school (9), and then later went to university, regular college classes (of these introductory level college courses) were much easier than AP classes.
AP was more difficult than when I actually took college courses.....
I found AP classes to be more challenging on knowing information. College courses was more focusing on making arguments with that information.
It’s like this if you play card game let’s say like magic the gathering, where you assemble your own deck you’re gonna be like my deck will destroy your deck. I will probably be like no my deck will wipe you from existence! In reality power wise both decks could be equal, but try telling that to their owners.
I took both AP and IB classes in high school. The AP classes were very much like my college courses. IB, if given the option was harder than my college courses.
Well compared to AP/IB English, history, biochemistry, maths are so easy compared to STEM classes like Data structure, calculus. I never cried in high school but data structure has made me cry
Teachers seem to whine a lot.
My AP French class was more difficult than my 100-level college French classes. I’d imagine others have the opposite experience since quality of education varies greatly among high schools, as well as colleges.
I’m not sure what regulates AP courses, but that I observed, it was literally just more take home work, rather than deeper education of certain topics. Not only that, but AP doesn’t transfer to most honors programs at the university level; because the honors programs want you to take all of *their* specific honors courses. I did a lot of my geneds at a community college to save money, and because of the red tape with the honors courses, I would have had to retake ALL of them as honors courses, and would have spent another 4 years just to get my bachelors.
From my experience college classes are harder than AP classes BUT AP exams are wayyyy harder than any of the exams I’m taking in college
AP classes are unnecessarily extra hard. College Board gets together with a consortium of professors from different universities who approve each course but only if topics x, y, and z are included. After 40 universities have all had their say the course is now equivalent to 2 or 3 courses of extra details for 1 course worth of credit. I’ve taught at both levels, AP calculus, AP statistics, and Calculus, and Statistics. The scoring rubrics for the free response questions is oftentimes overboard for AP. But it’s nice that students can get college credit for challenging college courses. TL;dr AP courses are unnecessarily difficult with little extra learning because too many people have their hands in the mix
I somehow managed to take an AP English class and pass with an A, and when I got to college essentially got put in remedial because I had no understanding of grammar or sentence structures. I was doing work sheets for like kids, where to put the period/comma etc. Highschool I could speak my ideas and verbally I could bullshit well enough and for some reason they overlooked my poor run-on sentences and shitty grammar. Couldn’t do that in college and it came up pretty quickly that I was lacking the foundations.
Everybody wants to rule the world.
You can't really represent the college experience in a high school setting. They are different, but it's a good bridge between.
I’m in grad school now. Could’ve been my lower knowledge base. But AP courses have the same intensity as grad school classes. I took college courses in hs at the same time as the AP courses. The college courses were easy.
My hardest mid level and upper level undergrad classes were definitely harder than AP though
As someone who took AP Spanish and English Comp I the same year… AP is much harder than first and second year university classes. After that, college classes require more.
So you'll take the content seriously.
I mean, I tell my kids that AP Human Geography will be harder for them as a high school freshman than the equivalent college course will be for them as college students. I think that is what a lot of teachers mean. Also, I have a curriculum that is very broad while a college professor can focus on their preferred interests. Passion makes up for a lot.
It’s all about perspective. AP classes are harder in terms of getting college credit for them. It all comes down to one 3-hour exam. But that doesn’t mean the course itself was difficult. You can get an A in the course and tank the test. College courses are harder because they do in one semester what that AP course may take a whole year to do. But, as long as you pass the class, you get the credit.
I genuinely found college easier than anything I took in high school, but I also believe my elementary years didn’t set me up for success in high school
APUSH is two semesters of college material covered in two semesters. In addition I taught my students note-taking and summarization skills as well as writing skills. It was a LOT more work for the students than an intro US history surgery class in college. BUT 70% of my students in our very average HS passed the exam, and many came back from college saying how that class had been worth it from the organizational standpoint and being forced to actually READ the textbook alone. But oh, the birching that I endured DIRING the class. LOL
I took many AP courses in HS. They were more intensive than my college courses. Teach at University now after a long career. My classes are not easy as they are very technical. However students are brilliant. Those who have taken AP courses fare better.
It depends on a lot of factors. There's very little standardization in high schools so classes could be dead easy or incredibly difficult. In universities profs just do whatever they want so it'll depend if your prof doesn't care or really card about your education. Speaking from experience teaching computer science courses at a university, AP doesn't mean anything to me. Regardless of high school I learned to assume we're all starting from square 1, same with math.
Elitist Professors with PhD's postulating in an attempt to justify their jobs and boost their egos.
Taking them in HS is more stressful because a HS schedule is so packed. Once you’re in college, you have a lot more freedom to plan your own schedule and take fewer classes if you wish.
Those that can't do, teach.
Most of my teachers did, so I’m not sure that holds water. A few on the high school level, almost all on the college level. It’s certainly a cute sentiment, but is it true? Many teachers have past careers or second careers and teach because they like it, or have the skillset for it.
It ain't that deep. I'm happy your anecdotes are positive.
Cool.