According to College Board, there are nearly 14,000 public high schools that offer Advanced Placement AP courses. These courses offer college-level classes to high school students. By taking AP classes, students have the opportunity to take a nationalized exam on different areas of study.Upon completing the exam, students are then graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest. Participating in AP classes can often times be very rigorous and time consuming, raising the question of are AP classes worth it? Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at Stanford University says, “It is true that students who take AP courses are more likely to succeed in college. But when you look deeper into the research, it’s really hard to establish causation.”

An issue with AP classes that arises is the workload that comes with taking it. From personal experience, you can have three hours of homework in one AP and then have three more hours of homework in all your other classes. This is equivalent to almost a full school day,  if you don’t include studying. One benefit to this, though, is that it will prepare you for future college workload. As stated by synonym.com, “The Teaching and Learning Center of the University of Oregon recommends that you spend at least two to three hours per course hour reading, studying or doing homework.” This means  if you have four classes in a day, the average time you will be studying or doing homework every day is eight hours. In conclusion, AP classes are meant to be beneficial, but have their downsides.