To take or not to take AP Chemistry as a sophomore

By Jessica Nguyen, Staff Writer & Justin Hsieh, News Editor

Every year, some ambitious freshmen sign up for school-approved chemistry classes offered during the summer with the goal of advancing into the AP Chemistry class their sophomore year. This option appeals to many students, but is often taken on by students who underestimate the rigor of the summer and year course.

The process

• A grade of C or higher in the Accelerated Biology class allows students to take Chemistry the next year. Students can take AP Chemistry after passing Chemistry with a teacher recommendation.
• Some freshmen who excel in Accelerated Biology opt for a fast-paced chemistry class over the summer and then take AP Chemistry their sophomore year.
• There are special prerequisites that students must meet to be eligible for the summer chemistry course:
  • The student must have approval from both their current Accelerated Biology teacher and their guidance counselor before they enroll in a summer chemistry course.
  • Once the student receives approval to take chemistry over the summer, they must speak with FVHS Science Department Coordinator Lehua Werdel and choose from a list of approved chemistry courses taught at different high schools or community colleges, sign up for a class on their own and pay any required textbook, material and course fees.
    • Schools that teach approved chemistry courses over the summer typically include Orange Coast College, Golden West College, Santa Ana College, Irvine Valley College, Fairmont Preparatory Academy and Mater Dei High School.
    • High school students may be waitlisted. Chemistry courses taught at community colleges have a limited amount of space and give priority to college students who are taking the class for credit or remediation.
  • A student needs to pass with an A in both semesters of their summer chemistry course to be enrolled in AP Chemistry as an incoming sophomore. 
  • Students taking AP Chemistry must complete a summer assignment before the school year begins. 
  • Students need to either have received an A in Algebra II or be concurrently enrolled in Algebra II/Trig or higher to be enrolled in AP Chemistry. 

This is not a decision to be made lightly.

While meeting the above requirements will allow a student to enroll in the AP Chemistry class as a sophomore, there are several important factors for the student should consider before making a decision.

1. The summer course is too short.
   A summer chemistry course attempts to teach the content of a full school year of chemistry in just two months. This compression of material means that summer chemistry students are automatically less prepared for AP Chemistry in comparison to students who follow the regular science track.
   1. Class Time
      At FVHS, Chemistry is a full-year course, with around 180 days of class and 55 minutes in every class session (approximately 165 hours of instruction). Summer chemistry classes are anywhere from 18 to 28 days of total class and around three to four hours of class each day (48-112 hours of instruction). This means that a summer chemistry course needs to cover over two hours’ worth of material from a normal chemistry class every hour to offer equivalent instruction. Summer chemistry classes are taught at an extremely fast pace.
      
      
   2. Homework Time
      The above calculation, however, does not even consider homework time. If a regular chemistry student at FVHS has an average of 30 minutes to an hour of homework every school day, a student in a 7-week regular chemistry class would need to do anywhere from two to four hours of homework every day (including weekends) to complete an equivalent amount of work.
      
      
   3. Learning Time
      Students do not have as much time to absorb and internalize the information as they would in a normal chemistry class even if a student can complete the amount of work necessary to cover an equivalent amount and depth of material as in a normal chemistry class. This often results in a shakier understanding of the material. They have less time to practice important skills, meaning that they are less likely to be comfortable with them in AP Chemistry.
      
      
   4. Less Material Covered
      It is a practical impossibility for summer courses to cover all the same topics to the same extent as a normal chemistry class, even with longer hours, faster paces and more intense workloads. Students who take chemistry over the summer will inevitably have knowledge gaps from material that summer teachers are forced to skip to meet tight course timelines.
      
      
   5. Lab Experience
      Summer courses do not conduct as many labs as the chemistry classes in school, meaning that students will be less familiar with basic lab techniques and procedures that are crucial to AP Chemistry.
      
      
2. There is a summer assignment.
   The AP Chemistry summer assignment includes 6 different topics of memorization and 8 different topics of practice problems (with an average of 20 problems per topic) that rely on an understanding of chemistry concepts, meaning that students taking summer chemistry cannot start working on the assignment until after they cover that material in their summer class. Students will have to catch up to the AP Chemistry summer assignment in addition to their already rigorous summer course load.
   
   
3. Reasons (1) and (2) mean work all summer.
   The aforementioned time, pace and workload pressures of a summer course all amount to tremendous amounts of time and energy invested in the class over the summer. To do well in a summer class, a student needs to essentially spend the majority of every day going to class, studying and doing homework – and even if they do so dutifully, they will likely still be under-prepared for AP Chemistry (as explained previously).
   This is an unhealthy way to spend a summer, when students are expected to be relaxing and taking a break from the normal burdens of schoolwork so they can come back refreshed in the fall. Students who take chemistry over the summer will be going into the school year exhausted from already working extremely hard and are at a higher risk of burning out.
   
   
4. AP Chemistry itself is extremely rigorous.
   1. College-Level Content
      AP Chemistry is a college-level chemistry course. It moves at a fast pace, covers difficult topics in great detail and requires a lot of work outside of class to keep up and do well.
      
      
   2. Labs
      AP Chemistry requires biweekly/monthly labs outside of school, which are usually performed either on Friday evenings or Saturday mornings. Labs can last anywhere from three to five hours.
      
      
   3. AP Experience
      Sophomores who have not had as much experience with AP courses and high school workloads may not have the educational maturity to be able to handle the rigor of the AP course itself. Even the brightest students will be at an experience deficit, and having to adjust to the rigor of the course in addition to staying on top of the workload and catching up with missed content is a very demanding task.

For an overwhelming majority of students, including honors and accelerated students, fast-tracking a year of content over the summer and then immediately jumping into a rigorous college-level course will be unmanageable.

Some students may have the exceptional academic talent and work ethic to be able to perform well in AP Chemistry, but the number of those students every year is small. AP Chemistry teachers Michael Olsberg and Mark Orme estimate that a student would have to be in the top 1-2% of their class to earn an A in AP Chemistry as a sophomore, an estimate that would be equivalent to 9-18 students in a typical class of 900. 

Taking chemistry over the summer and taking AP Chemistry as a sophomore should not be a light decision for anyone. Even students who are capable of performing well in both summer chemistry and AP Chemistry will have to work extremely hard and make significant sacrifices to achieve their goals like spending most of their summer studying.

Any student hoping to take AP Chemistry as a sophomore should consult their guidance counselor and Accelerated Biology teacher. Counselors and teachers will know if a student is capable of taking on the burdens of summer chemistry and AP Chemistry, and will be able to ground that decision in their experience with hundreds of other students they have worked with in past years.