Junior Irmina Clarke sits at home debating what courses she should sign up for, since registration for next year’s classes on Naviance is almost here. It is a tough decision for her because this will be her last year at Smoky. Furthermore, she cannot take all the classes she wants to.

“I would like to take eight classes,” Clarke states. “…I think five AP classes.”

The five AP classes Clarke is considering taking as a senior includes AP Biology, AP Psychology, and AP French Five. Clarke is now an AP student, but she dropped IB the second semester of her sophomore year in part because she felt like it did not offer the classes she needed to become a doctor. She understands the workloads of both programs and disagrees with the difference in scheduling.

“I feel that it’s not fair because both IB and AP students work very hard, and also I believe that AP students should be able to have a full schedule [like IB students can have] so that they can succeed in their careers,” Clarke describes.

Currently, each non-IB student at Smoky can only enroll in six courses per semester unless the student either needs more classes in order to graduate on time or is in a sixth subject class such as Band which allows someone to take a seventh class. Students like Irmina Clarke dislike the situation because they feel like it hinders the quality of their education.
“I think counselors and other school officials should have a meeting and try to fix this problem so that they can be fair to students,” elaborates Clarke.