As students prepare their schedules for the upcoming years, many of them take effort to pack in the largest amount of AP classes they can in order to attain the highest GPA and rise to become one of the smartest students in their grade. However this means that some students are taking seven AP classes which can be extremely stressful and demanding. Many students around them are doing the same, only justifying their actions as they feed into the stress of each other. There should be a limit on the amount of AP classes an individual can take due to the potential long-term negative effects.

AP classes are extremely rigorous and demanding in nature, resulting in a large amount of stress. This stress of the class can interfere heavily with a student’s social life and ability to truly enjoy other activities and sports. Stress has been proven to be harmful and can result in a long-term drain on the body as well as both tension-type headache and migraine headache (American Psychological Association). A well-rounded education includes not just academic performance but also personal development and total well-being. Schools may guarantee that students have a suitable workload and enough time for other important elements of their lives by limiting the number of AP classes they can take.

Another major problem with an infinite number of AP classes is the possible loss of in-depth learning. Taking multiple AP classes concurrently may result in superficial information acquisition, since students are sometimes pressed to learn enormous volumes of subject in a short amount of time. A restricted number of AP classes would allow students to concentrate on each topic more intensely, creating a better comprehension of the content and promoting critical thinking abilities. This technique assures that students are truly receiving and internalizing the content offered, rather than just amassing a checklist of AP credits.

However, allowing students to take an infinite amount of AP classes can allow students to attain a large amount of college credit, offer students a challenging environment, and teach students to balance work. Despite these positives, the potential negative long-term learning and health effects can result in less valuable educational experience and can be extremely detrimental to a student’s life.