By Dylan Huber

I well remember each time I told someone my junior year schedule. The responses were always of this confused and strange amusement, questioning why I would ever take such an imprudent set of courses.

That response is understandable. I did not partake in the understood requirements that the college-bound student must always adhere to. Indeed, I did not take subjects like Math, Science, or Foreign Language. I only took subjects that interested me, mostly English, with History, Philosophy, and Music. Some of these bore the revered title Advanced Placement (AP), but all of them were interesting. That, to me, was most important.

At any university, this schedule would be banal. It would be nothing more than an uninteresting assortment of interests. So why, in an academic setting, would it be seen as anything different?
Taking high school courses is treated not as a matter of academic intrigue, but of opportunistic pragmatism. When looking through a course catalog, one first sees the “AP” course designation, and later the subject. After all, whether the subject is Math or English, the course still grants college credit, so the subject matters little. Anything without “AP” therefore means even less. This in mind, the college-bound student will always make one distinction when designing their schedules: there are AP courses, and there are courses that do not matter. What matters, all that matters, is the fabled college credit, the hallowed GPA, and the towering application.

The student is never at fault, however, as the problem is systemic, not individual. Universities now expect more than ever, and accordingly, so do parents. APs can garner interest from students based purely on their subjects and the student’s passion for such, but therein lies the rub: they are not treated as subjects to take based on interest, they are treated as courses to add to a list. Parents and colleges consider them as such, and accordingly, so do students. Put simply, the norm is to take AP courses, not AP subjects.

Students undeniably challenge themselves with AP, yes, but they do so without passion. They do so simply because they are expected to do so. They do so because it is normal for the college-bound student to do so.

High school, this thing meant to prepare this student for college, for all the academic freedom they will gain and all the academic challenges and passions they will have, is nothing more than this normalization of dispassionate challenge.