Dublin schools limit AP and honors classes, citing student mental health

By Katie Nielsen

One East Bay school district is putting a limit on the number of AP and honors classes high school students can take, saying they’re trying to protect kids’ mental health.

Dublin Unified introduced a new policy limiting students to 4 AP or honors classes per academic year or 11 advanced classes over the 4 years of high school.

Many students and their parents worry it could hurt their chances of college admission, but college consultants say that’s simply not the case.

Aadi Chawla and his friends are all freshmen at Dublin High School, and they were all planning to start taking AP classes next year.

“The regular classes I’m in right now. I feel like they aren’t enough of a challenge. They don’t get me ready for college,” says Chawla. He says he understands why the district felt the need to prioritize students’ mental health, but says students should be able to decide for themselves what’s best.

“There definitely is some pressure from all aspects of your life, like your parents, you see online, kids are getting into these good schools. You want to do that too. There’s pressure, but I feel like everyone should know what their limit is,” Chawla says. 

Ian Chung is a junior at Dublin High and is currently taking 3 AP classes.  He says he is fine with the workload and worries if he isn’t allowed to take the same number of AP classes next semester, he might not be as competitive when it comes to getting into colleges when compared to students in another district.

“The policy makes us worse off and less appealing toward those colleges because their academic record and the rigor in other high schools is higher than us. I think it’s really a disadvantage,” says Chung.

“The easiest way to say hey, my child is prepared for the future is more APs, higher GPA, at all costs, but colleges are not obsessed with this number. They don’t care. They just want to see oh, you’re smart. You have a bunch of As in top classes, you have a strong GPA among classes that are available to you, but what else are you doing with your time?” says Jonathan Ginsberg. He is the president and co-founder of Beyond Education Consulting and has worked with close to a thousand families to set their kids up to get admitted to the top colleges in the country.

Ginsberg says college admissions officers are looking for well-rounded students, because the majority applying to the top schools are succeeding academically. “How are you performing with impact to your community? What can you do with all of your intelligence, all of your energy outside the classroom and that’s how you start to get evaluated with essays and extracurriculars and recommendation letters,” says Ginsberg.

That’s why Superintendent of Dublin Schools Chris Funk said he introduced the idea in the first place. “Thinking that you have to take every single possible class in order to get to your college of choice creates unnecessary stress in the system and unnecessary stress on individual students,” says Funk.

The Dublin School Board unanimously approved a resolution limiting AP and honors classes a few weeks ago, stating it was to promote student wellbeing, balance and healthy school culture.

The new policy goes into effect next school year, which is the 2026/2026 academic year. There is an appeal process where students can ask for exceptions. The district has already received those requests from some students.