1. AP English Language and Composition
2. AP World History (Modern)
3. AP United States History
4. AP European History*
5. AP Comparative Government and Politics*
6. AP 2-D Art and Design (& all AP arts)
7. [AP Chemistry]
8. [AP Biology]
9. AP English Literature and Composition
10. [AP Spanish Language and Culture]
11. AP Statistics
12. AP Human Geography*
13. AP Psychology*
14. AP United States Government and Politics
15. [AP Calc AB]
16. [AP Physics (all)]
17. [AP Environmental Science]

A class in brackets indicates a class I have not taken and has instead been ranked based on opinions of other Madison students. An asterisk indicates a class I have taken as a self study, with the exception of AP Psych these classes are not offered at Madison.

Looking at this list it seems like Madison offers a good number of Advanced Placement (AP) classes, especially given this isn’t all of them–there’s AP Pre Calculus and AP Seminar and AP Computer Science and on and on. But, when you start to look at other schools’ AP offerings, the Madison list begins to look a bit sparse. Fairfax County is known for its academic rigor, and part of that is the number of AP courses it offers, but is Madison up to par?

CollegeBoard boasts a roster of 40 AP courses, 39 of which are offered by at least one of the 17 FCPS high schools with AP curriculum (AP Italian, for some reason, has been forgotten in all FCPS course lists). Of these 39, Madison has 30, significantly less than Chantilly’s 35 or Fairfax’s 37. While Madison offers the “basic” APs offered by most FCPS AP high schools–AP Lang, APUSH etc.–it fails to offer the “exciting” APs, such as European History or German.

For students (such as myself) who want to take these classes there are some work-arounds; online courses are available, or you can “self study” a course (my personal modus operandi), but it’s not the same as taking the actual class. When asked if she felt Madison offered a good range of AP courses, senior Nina Howell expressed similar sentiments.

“Not really, especially in the history department, I was hoping that I could do, like, other options, like AP [European History], AP [Comparative Government], but Madison doesn’t have those options,” said Nina Howell (’24).

Of course, Fairfax County has a way for students to take classes not offered at their own school: academies. While Madison doesn’t offer nursing or American Sign Language or Junior Firefighters, Madison students can attend classes through other schools or outside programs. This is true of AP courses as well–while, almost all FCPS schools offer AP Chinese, almost none have it on campus, instead, it’s an academy. This is an option for other APs as well; Lake Braddock students can take AP Human Geography as an academy, and almost all students taking AP Spanish Literature are taking it outside their home campus, including Madison students. Yet, Chinese is the only AP academy Madison offers, despite falling short of the FCPS AP Offering average.

FCPS offers far more APs than most counties across the country, but Madison may be struggling to keep up. There’s an easy solution to this, so maybe they should take it.