Are You Smart If You Don’t Take APs?

At Bancroft, this answer can easily be thought no. People here can make you feel like your smartness is determined by the classes you take. In the real world, that is not the truth. 

“Stats is your only math class…. pfft I take AB Calc + Stats soo… ” 

“You got an 86, that’s um… good!”

“You’re not in Honors PreCalc, you wouldn’t understand.”

All things that have been said to me. Me, a student at Bancroft who will be finishing off her senior year with 5 APs and 2 honors classes under my belt. I wouldn’t consider that dumb, but people make me feel like it. You don’t have to even have taken these classes to be smart, that’s the thing. We all have different levels of intelligence and one person is most certainly not dumber than the other because of the classes they take. One’s math class doesn’t dictate one’s overall brightness because they may be in the highest level of computer science there is and you may not. Everyone has their strong suits, and they don’t have to be at the top of every subject to be considered smart. Some people can’t handle a lot of coursework, some can, some have a job outside of school, some don’t.

There are many factors to what goes into someone’s intelligence and the route they take in school; therefore, they mustn’t be judged. It can even be a journey. Those who strive to gain more knowledge and climb the academic ladder to AP or honors classes are able to do so because of a growth mindset. One is not stuck with the marbles they are given and if they so choose, they can once again take their own route to their own determined success. 

One thing I believe needs to change at Bancroft is the hierarchy between super smart people, not-so-smart people, the people working hard to make it to the top, and all those in between. We are all here in this rigorous school just making it through. Be kind to one another, don’t judge one’s course load, and help others. Don’t put others down for getting anything below an 80 or taking a standard class as opposed to an advanced one because guess what… once you make it out of here no one will care about your grade in AP Chem that’s for sure.