By Katie Budinger
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Andover High School offers nearly twice the number of STEM AP classes as it does AP classes that fall under the umbrella of English and history. Do me a favor and think about that for a moment.
The ratio is 5:9, with English and history APs making up the lower figure and a combination of math and science contributing to the other. The science department alone offers six different AP classes, which is more than English and history combined. Unless you are an upperclassman who has a passion for the humanities, you might not have even noticed this disparity; I had to go through next year’s course catalogue in order to obtain the numbers to support such a statement.
One of the things that makes AHS great is that we have so many classes available to us; there is something for everyone! This becomes especially apparent when it comes time for course selections, especially to rising juniors and seniors who are delving into the world of APs and other upperclassmen courses that open up as requirements loosen their hold.
“There are all sorts of interesting courses that we offer,” said guidance counselor Heather Dwyer. “You don’t necessarily have to have an AP designation for the course to be rigorous and really interesting.”
The real problem arises when you find what you love and want to completely submerge yourself in one particular field.
“I’ve always been a reader, and I’ve always been a writer, and that’s just where my interests lie. I just find history and language a lot more interesting than equations and numbers and atoms,” said one junior, who is currently going through the process of selecting courses for their Senior year. They have an interest in taking AP Literature & Composition, Senior Capstone, and Multiple Identities in Text, all of which are classes with English credits attached, thus meaning that they would receive three English credits towards their graduation requirements. “I’m fulfilling all my requirements, so I feel like that shouldn’t be a problem. I feel like I should be able to pursue that if that is an available option…. There’s no such thing as too many humanities!”
Meanwhile, Senior Erin Currie is living a very similar route by taking three, full-year classes in the sciences. Much more comfortable with the S in STEM—“TEM kind of scares me,” she admits—Currie opted to take Marine Biology, Anatomy and Physiology, and Forensic Science her senior year.
When asked about the process of fitting all three courses into her schedule, Currie said, “I was talking to my guidance counselor about this and she was telling me, ‘Don’t expect to get them all. List alternatives. There’s like an 80% chance,’ she said, ‘of getting two, a very low chance of getting all three,’ so she told me to prepare to not get all three.” Currie knew her chances were slim, but decided to try her luck with the system, which her guidance counselor had no issue with. “I did get all three…. It was a funky process.”
However, the Junior currently deep in the selection process has had a very different experience. “[My guidance counselor] literally said that I might not be able to take that many English classes,” they said.
Now, perhaps my own judgement is a bit clouded, since I had the exact same experience as this Junior. When I tried to take three English courses, I was told that it was, without a doubt, impossible. Why is it, then, that in a different department Currie is able to take the same amount of science courses? Perhaps her guidance counselor was more open to the idea than some, or less worried about what college might think.
“Over my years of being a guidance counselor– which is going on seventeen– we have a lot of communication with college admissions officers and representatives… and really the consistent message is that they don’t want a student really ‘majoring’ in a particular subject in high school,” Dwyer said. She encourages students who want to pursue an academic niche to find ways outside of the classroom, such as clubs.
Senior Olivia Ventre, who plans to major in English in college, has found a different way to further explore her love of English. Her Senior Capstone project focuses on women and diversity in literature, but she hasn’t taken nearly as many humanities classes as she might have liked. “I’ve never really had room on my schedule,” Ventre admitted. “It never really seemed like an option for me. It wasn’t that my guidance counselor was like, ‘No!’”
You might be wondering what any of this has to do with the numbers I threw out early on, but it all boils down to the same problem. It’s the elephant that no one seems willing to acknowledge, and yet it’s in the room. It’s the reason that we have more STEM APs than humanities, and that one student can take three classes while the other’s request is refused. The superiority of STEM in our society has bled over into the AHS system, leaving the Humanities at a disadvantage.
When asked if students tended toward one discipline or the other, Dwyer observed, “Year to year we have a bit of everything, but within my last five to six years I’ve seen a lot of students focusing on STEM.”
This disparity is evident in the fact that the College Board only offers two English APs (both of which AHS offers). However, there are a total of nine history APs available, only three of which will be available next year, compared to the twelve math and science APs, of which we offer nine. If enough students came forwards and vehemently expressed interest in these courses, Dwyer seemed to believe that it would be possible to add more APs as long as they did not overburden teachers. She also emphasized that AP courses are not the be all and end all, but they do very clearly show how our society tends toward STEM and leaves the humanities in the lurch.
If you disagree, then chalk up this column as the rant of a bitter Senior who wanted to spend her senior year writing and reading as much as possible before going to college to do the same thing: write and read. All I ask is that you don’t dismiss me as a complete conspiracy theorist and go forth into the academic world with your eyes wide open.
