Advanced Placement classes have become increasingly common amongst high schoolers. In 2021, 34.9% of United States high school students took an AP exam compared to 28.6% in 2011, according to College Board. However, AP classes have limited slots, causing some students to be left out, despite the San Mateo Union High School District’s open enrollment policy.
Open enrollment is a policy and philosophy mandating that students should be admitted to the advanced courses they request, as long as they meet the prerequisites of that course. SMUHSD Board Policy Regulation 6141.5 states that “All Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, Honors and Advanced Standing classes will be open to all students who have made an informed decision and understand the course expectations.” In practice, this policy has mainly applied to courses that are graduation requirements, not including advanced electives.
“Students have to understand that the students who signed up first and met the requirements get priority”
As the demand for AP classes rises, Aragon has adapted by increasing the number of available spaces in these classes by hiring more teachers or offering additional sections.
“I’ve been teaching this course for about ten years and it’s slowly grown over time,” said AP Psychology teacher Carlo Corti. “The first year I taught it, there was one section. [Now it has expanded to] four sections.”
However, as the SMUHSD only allocates a certain number of sections to Aragon each year, some courses may not always be able to expand, leaving some students unable to take a course once it fills up.
“Unfortunately, we may have a class in science that is over by 12 students, but we don’t have the funding to offer an additional course for 35 students,” Sanguinetti said. “Students have to understand that the students who signed up first and met the requirements get priority, or sometimes a grade level gets priority … We don’t allow students to take double science or double math for that reason, because we cannot accommodate everybody who would like to do that.”
When an AP class fills up, students who meet the prerequisites are put into a lottery system which randomizes their number on the waiting list each day. This is done in order to give each student an equal opportunity at getting into the course if a student were to drop the class. Therefore, though not every student is able to get into a course due to capacity limitations, each student meeting the requirements should have an equal opportunity to get into the course they requested.
“We always tell [students] to put down several alternatives, and then we put that in a system”
However, the limited spots in popular classes like AP Psychology may cause frustration for students who are not first priority, such as junior Arden Salotti, who plans to major in psychology.
“It was really important to get it this year, so I could finish [the] class and put [it on] my resume when I’m applying for universities,” Salotti said. “I am applying out of country, so application dates are different. It would be interesting if [counselors] could weave [in] who needs [the class] … by [how] crucial it is for [a student’s] future.”
Nevertheless, creating a solution that allows everyone to take every class they want is tricky.
“If we try to meet the demands we would probably need another full time teacher who taught AP Psychology all day, [and] we would need four more classes in order to meet the demands,” said academic counselor Josephine Ho. “So it’s really difficult. We always tell [students] to put down several alternatives, and then we put that in a system. So if they don’t get their first choice, then we go into the alternates.”
It may be upsetting when students do not get placed into the classes they were hoping for. Junior Kyle Ko felt this way after he was unable to transfer into Engineering Technology and AP Physics 1, both classes he had originally signed up for.
“[My counselor] said that he didn’t think transferring was an option,” Ko said. “But because I had initial hopes of becoming an engineer, [which] Engineering Technology and AP Physics 1 are crucial toward, [it] was really discouraging.”
“High school is a time to try out classes”
It is difficult to give every applicant the course they want since the number of applicants may not be easily divisible among the allocated class periods.
“We might [have] 40 [students] signed up [for one class],” Ho said. “But the chances of … five students dropping and switching out of that class is very high, because what we learned is that students are very fickle. They like to change their minds. We bank [the number of classes] on … a few students dropping.”
Freshmen transitioning into sophomore year are also faced with difficult course decisions. After taking biology in freshman year, the next science course available is chemistry. Some students opt to take chemistry over the summer so they can take an AP science class, such as AP Biology or AP Chemistry, in their sophomore year.
“I had an interest in biology since [freshman year] but I really wanted to go more in-depth,” said sophomore AP Biology student Luuk Nicolas. “High school is a time to try out classes. Even if I don’t like [biology], I still have two more years to find what I do like.”
Acceleration can lead to issues regarding the open enrollment policy, as despite the fact that the science prerequisites are fulfilled, the master schedule might not allow for more students to take these AP courses.
“We have students who have tried to accelerate over the summer, and then they show up on the first week of school wanting to change classes, get into a higher level math, or maybe a different type of science,” Sanguinetti said. “That’s where we see problems arise, because we have already created a schedule based on the course pickings that the students did in the spring of the year prior.”
“What [students] have to remember is [they are] considering a year’s worth of a course into six to eight weeks and that’s not preparing [them] for the next level”
Counselors watching students accelerate through the curriculum offer some advice and considerations, warning against taking summer courses to try to get ahead.
“What’s the rush?” Sanguinetti said. “What [students] have to remember is [they are] condensing a year’s worth of a course into six to eight weeks and that’s not preparing [them] for that next level.”
It is likely that students will continue to accelerate, requiring Aragon’s class sections to reflect the shifting interests of the student body.
