Pretty much everyone these days is familiar with the concept of high school AP classes. With bigger workloads, more complicated topics, and weighted grades, they're a huge addition to your schedule and your GPA. Do well on the AP test in the spring and you could earn college credit for the class. They could also earn you a bucket-load of stress and anxiety. Here are some admissions from an overloaded AP student that you can probably relate to.
All the homework assigned in your Advanced Placement classes can become hard to keep track of. That's why sometimes, you find yourself the block before your class, trying to finish a homework packet that's being put in as a quiz grade (translation: not something you want to forget). Yes, sometimes you're gonna be turning assignments in late because the new season of American Horror Story just released on Netflix and you had to see if they included your favorite actress from last season. Hopefully, if you put in enough effort for the rest of your work in that class, your grade won't suffer too much. Luckily, we're very good at cramming homework into any period of time that we find available: the five-minute break in between classes, on the car ride to your vacation, at one a.m. We're also very good at cramming a huge amount of homework into the tiniest period of time possible. We can be very versatile.
Most kids in school groan at the thought of homework, not to mention extra work on top of that. Ask most people if they're going to voluntarily perform optional work in their free time, and you'll receive a scoff and a sarcastic "Yeah right." But chances are, if you're aiming for that over 4.0 GPA, you'll jump at the opportunity. Optional reading of a book, with annotations, with a three-page essay, all to be done over the summer as extra credit? Yes please!
Sometimes it can be surprising to remember not everyone has loaded themselves up with such crazy classes. And that some people actually have days when they come home and don't have any homework to do. The last time that happened to me, I was so shocked I fell off the back of my dinosaur. Also, shocking is the ability of others to skip school and be able to make it up with about an hour of work. I, however, miss a day and have to work for a week to make up for one class.
Copious amounts of stress are nothing new to those familiarly enrolled in AP classes. That's why it's not uncommon to find one of us maybe just blankly staring at a pile of binders and textbooks, all of which are full of yet-unfinished assignments. Or losing large amounts of sleep due to all-nighters for procrastinated projects. Or just crying.
