By Elora Brow
Staff Writer
At a recent Manhattan Beach Unified School District board meeting, a proposal has been made for limiting the number of advanced placement classes a student can take each year. Having a limit on AP courses will only benefit the students because it limits them with the amount of workload and competition amongst students, while still not lowering their appeal to college admissions officers.
This new proposal is a part of Mira Costa’s stress reducing plan. As of now, the proposal has suggested limiting students to take no more than four AP’s per year. Currently at Costa, there are a total of 14 students who take more than four AP classes at once.
According to Principal Dr. Ben Dale, adding a cap on the number of AP’s students can take is a positive change as it would limit the amount of competition students would have against each other for college purposes. This would be the most beneficial part of adding a limit because now more students would hopefully take AP’s because they are thoroughing interested in that course, instead of just wanting to get ahead of their peers.
With this new system, colleges will see that Costa has a cap, so when they see that students from Costa only took four Ap’s one year when another student from another school had 6, for instance, this will not hurt the Costa student because the admission officer knows that Costa did not provide that option. As a result, students will ideally be able to feel less pressure and will be given more of an opportunity to enjoy their high school career, rather than constantly worrying about the next four years
The only downside of having a limit of four AP classes per year is that some students may have more than four classes that they are interested in taking. As a result some students may feel as though they have less of an opportunity to explore their interests. However, according to Dr. Dale, reducing student’s stress is one of the school’s top priorities, so if that means that students must select just a few courses to pursue, then it should be worth it. Dale makes a valid point as students should worry about their own health rather than what colleges might want to see.
Although this proposal has not been approved or put into action yet, Mira Costa limiting AP classes would positively impact all students lives in many ways. It would help reduce their stress throughout the year with the amount of workload the students would have, and it would also benefit the students when it comes time to apply for colleges because competition would be lessened.
Leave a Reply