As soon as the second semester begins, high school students from all grade levels either have dropped classes or leveled out to easier classes. In Aliso Niguel High School, many students switch their schedules by dropping out of hard classes.
The most common reason is because classes are too difficult, or students don’t want to do the amount of work required for the class.
Most of the classes that students switch out of are AP and honors classes. Some of the common classes include AP Euro, Honors Chemistry and Honors Algebra 2 Trig.
Students drop classes by talking to their counselors and having their schedule switched. Most students switch classes at the beginning of the first semester after determining whether they like the class or not.
A large issue with students dropping out of classes that they are not doing well in is the fact that their grade point average (GPA) is still affected by the classes that they have dropped. A lot of students have dropped classes because they are too hard, but most students will try their best to get their grades up, and switch out for the second semester.
“I get a lot of level downs from AP chemistry because I teach all honors classes.” says Mrs. Riddle, an Honors Chemistry teacher.
The difference between leveling down and dropping a class is that leveling down means you are still in the main subject, just a different difficulty level. For example, switching from an AP to an honors class is called leveling down. An example of dropping are freshmen starting out in AP human geography and then deciding to drop the class off of their schedule entirely.
Students will often try to level out to a different level before they try to drop a class entirely. The main difference between AP, honors and regular classes is the work load that teachers will hand out.
While AP classes require students to do lots of work in class and out of class, honors tends to give students a lot of homework while simplifying topics in the class. Regular classes will often give out little to no homework, and teach everything inside of the class itself.
“The main issue with students trying to drop classes is that there is no room in other classes for them to go to,” says Mrs. Iftikhar, a Chemistry and Conceptual Physics teacher at Aliso Niguel.
A large number of students try to drop classes at the start of the year, but sometimes there is not enough room for them in other classes. Most regular classes have an average of around 30 to35 students regularly. So the numbers tend to increase too much when too many students try to level down.
Most students have to wait until close to the second semester to drop classes because there isn’t any available space for them.
Mrs. Riddle also emphasized that most students have the capabilities of being able to stay in the higher classes, they just need to give it time so that they get used to the work load.
Most of the dropping and leveling of classes happens in the first semester, but a lot of it still occurs at the beginning of second semester.
