At the beginning of each school year, it is common for students to encounter problems with changes made to their preferred schedules but it is unlikely for more than half the students to drop out of a single course by second semester.

Students with multiple Advanced Placement (AP) courses in their schedule usually face problems with scheduling because many of their AP courses’ periods overlap. Students with internships (single or double period) have an even harder time scheduling their classes. As a result, this year, many students with the AP Statistics and an internship are forced to drop out of their Statistics class or quit their internship.
“I chose my afternoon internship over AP Stat because I love my internship. I feel that the experience and subject of matter will better prepare me for my major rather than Statistics. I don’t care that I have to drop AP Statistics after half a year because that class is unnecessary and I don’t plan on taking the AP exam anyways,” an anonymous senior said.

After taking a full semester of Statistics, students are unable to continue the course while fulfilling their internship responsibilities. Half a credit of an AP course does not look good on a transcript. Many students enroll in AP classes to take the AP exam at the end of the school year in hopes of earning college credit. Some students have dropped the course, but they are still allowed to sign up and take the AP exam at the end of the year. Although this option is available for any Springbrook student, it is extra time and work that a student needs to independently prepare for.

“I do not have an internship but I feel that having our class of 16 drop down to 8 is a huge indicator that internships are interfering with the student’s schedule when they shouldn’t be,” senior James Rivenbark said.

Certain courses at Springbrook have limited periods available depending on the maximum capacity a classroom can hold (usually 25-30 students), the student’s schedule, availability of classrooms, and the teacher’s availability.

“I started my year in AP Statistics but my counselor didn’t take into account that I have an internship and said that we would figure out later so I currently don’t have a second semester. Recently hearing that the class is moved to 7th period means that I can’t take that class so I just wasted an entire semester and having it affect my GPA,” senior Anna Tsao said.

Counselors declined to comment.

At the end of the school year, students have a one on one meeting with their Counselor to talk about their schedule for the upcoming school year. During the first week of school, students are given a schedule with classes for the entire year (including both semesters) to figure out their schedule for the entire year. Prior to the school year, students were not aware of this issue occurring.

Overall, students from the AP Statistics course with and without an internship feel that the mix up was a avoidable situation.