Many students at South have taken at least one AP class. After all, who doesn’t want college credit? However, many students this year are taking more than one, which brings up the question: Is it worth it?

The exact data for 2025 hasn’t quite emerged yet, but national polls show that there’s been a 7% growth in students participating in AP courses and exams internationally since 2024, with the most popular turning out to be AP World History, AP Government, AP Pre-Calculus, and AP Biology.

College and A+ Counselor Leigh Klawiter said she has noticed the uptick in AP students this school year. 

“It’s definitely grown a lot. I came from Parkway West Middle, which didn’t have AP, but there were a lot of students planning to take AP when they got to high school,” she said.

Klawiter transitioned to South High after Robin Seuc left last year, taking charge as the College and A+ Counselor.

“The original goal of the AP exams were to predict which students would succeed in college and which wouldn’t. And their main competitor is the ACT, so what’s happening is another business, which offers the Advanced Placement courses is supposed to provide a more ‘affordable’ way for students to earn college credits. Public schools are looking for ways to help their students achieve more,” Klawiter said.

Often times, colleges can cost a lot, especially if you’re going for a high ranked school like Harvard or even Washington University in St. Louis. AP classes are supposed to offer the opportunity to earn college credit to more low-income students and families. And with the rise in college costs increasing at least 36.8% (0.92%  per year adjusting for inflation) since 2010, students having access to affordable college courses is more important than ever.

“So now we have lots of juniors and seniors taking college curriculum, instead of high school curriculum. And you can’t help but wonder if it’s increasing anxiety levels with the amount of work being put on students. And because of so many AP exams, many colleges are just not accepting the credit as college credit anymore. So even if you’re taking the exam, you might just be wasting money. They just use it to gauge if you’ve taken a “rigorous” high school course,” Klawiter said. 

Imagine, putting all that hard work into your AP class, just for it to not even count and to just be used to gauge if you’re a hard worker?

“And now there’s ninth graders taking college courses when they’ve got no clue when or IF they’re even going to college, or if the credit is even useful. They’re even coming up with Pre-AP courses for middle schoolers. Instead of a local curriculum, it’s to prepare for future  pre-ap or future AP courses,” Klawiter said.

Last year, out of the 1542 students enrolled at South, an estimated 429 students were enrolled in one or more AP classes, with a reported 726 AP exams taken, due to some students taking more than one. This year, that number has grown significantly, with a large amount being the seniors.

The class of 2026 principal, Eric Wilhelm, expresses his thoughts on the matter.

“Most of the time, students taking AP classes are taking more than just one. Mostly seniors. There’s a balance students should strike when deciding how many AP classes they should take,” he said.

There’s no denying, there’s always too much homework in high school, whichever grade you’re in. But how much can one student handle, when balancing multiple college-level classes of homework on top of normal classes?

Senior Dean Kases is taking five AP courses this year, and is part of the South High theatre department and a National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist. How does he balance it all? 

“So with the addition of these five, that will come out to a grand total of nine AP classes overall. Because I took one freshman year, one sophomore,  two in junior year and then five right now,” Kases said. 

Nine AP classes over the course of high school, depending on how much you scored on the AP tests, would be an equivalent of 27 college credits. You’d need 30-60 to earn a Master’s Degree in college (depending on what you’re majoring in.)

“I feel like the most difficult part now is I have some friends who are in college now, right? And the most difficult part is that you have this college workload, but without a college schedule. And while I do think in some regards, it’s easier because your teachers will tell you exactly what you need to read and how you need to be. Whereas in college you’re not going to do that. But it does come with that added downside of my school day starting earlier and typically ends later than the school day of all the friends I have in college,” Kases said. 

Without a doubt, these past years at South have made huge impacts on students’ lives. With last year’s class of 2025 going off to bigger, better adventures, it was difficult getting used to their absence at the start of this school year for the sophomores, juniors and this year’s seniors.

“Furthermore, because I have things to do, like getting into college, I have to do volunteering, extracurriculars, you get the gist. Most days, in fact, I don’t come home until six, which by then my friends have already been home for multiple hours,” Kases said.

But just how much work is too much work?

“AP is a college level class, so trying to manage 6-7 of those is the equivalent of 21-25 hours of college credit. The average college student gets 12-15 hours of college credit per semester. The amount of work students do now is more than they would do in college itself, along with balancing non-AP classes,” said Wilhelm. 

Furthermore, Wilhelm said he wonders sometimes if taking AP classes is always a good choice for everyone. 

“I think students are overextending themselves so much it creates a bad environment for themselves and creates a lot of stress and anxiety. Some of those classes won’t even transfer to certain universities,” Wilhelm said.

As for Kases, his method of getting tasks done seems to be working for him.

“It’s sometimes difficult when you have those college workloads and those college expectations, while also having to juggle the fact that you have other things that need to be done and classes that take up more of your time,” Kases said.

Kases also talked about how he values his time at home.

“I’ve found that I kind of get a lot of tasks done at school. And while school can be pretty draining, a lot of studies have shown that while you’re at school, you are more productive than you would be at home. Home is the place of relaxation. That’s kind of why it’s hard to get homework done at home because we’re not really getting homework when we’re kids,” he said.  

With the lack of given homework in elementary and middle school, it can be difficult to adjust to the workload given to high schoolers, especially with higher-level classes. 

“So in your brain, home is usually the place you go when you relax. It’s more difficult for your brain to kind of process the fact that, oh, yeah, I need to be working. I need to be doing this. Whereas school is a place that you explicitly and exclusively go to do work. Well, I mean, not completely exclusively that, You know, there’s also social stuff. But mainly you’re there to do the work,” Kases said. 

Kases said he usually uses his ac. lab, study hall, and even lunch times to get work done.

“And because of that, when you’re at school, your brain is working more efficiently. So what I have at least found is that using clients like Ac-labs or study halls or even lunch has made me more productive than I would be if I tried to do that homework at home. Whenever I’m in theatre, and this was a big thing during Exit the Body last year, where I had a lot of breaks in between my times on stage. Whenever I had to go in, I was able to spend that time while I was there at rehearsal, but not actually doing anything to get work done as well. And since I’m still in that school environment, I was still able to be in that mindset,” he said.