At the end of quiz bowl practice, on Friday, the non-seniors are pulled aside by the coach, with Jim’s turn coming first. And then comes Olivia’s turn.

  “Now that you’re on track to get straight As this quarter, and possibly at year-end as well, access to AP courses is assured for you. However, know that you can only take at most four AP courses per year, and the workload is much more intense than the regular courses’” Flo warns Olivia about AP courses. “The temptation is great to pick AP courses based on quiz bowl considerations! But I say, please book an appointment with guidance!”

  “What do you mean, I could be tempted to pick AP courses based on what I want out of quiz bowl?” Olivia asks.

  “Olivia, you realize by now that you have gaps in knowledge. Some of our quiz bowl opponents, faced with the same bind, would want to take, say, AP World History if they were weak in history, while other opponents at your academic level might feel compelled to do the same because taking it could look to colleges!”

  If other cheerleaders took AP courses, they never discussed that during practices. I’m sure a handful of non-freshmen in cheer took one or two of these. Lexie might have, since she’s the cheerleader I feel strongest about intellectually, Olivia reflects on the other cheerleaders’ academic prowess. On the other hand, quiz bowlers sometimes discuss and do homework during practices. That’s how I know my quiz bowl teammates all take at least one AP each.

  “Jim, I have a question for you: has quiz bowl made APs more manageable for you? I plan to take a few APs myself next year…” Olivia trembles upon asking this question.

  “Your question is perfectly normal. Don’t forget that the APs available to you next year aren’t the hardest by any stretch. You’re smart enough to pull your weight on this team, and not just in a hail Mary kind of way, so the discipline you gained here should help you get through a couple of APs”

  While Flo discuss the need to schedule next year with the middle schoolers, Olivia first writes to ask for an appointment at guidance, feeling like the earlier, the better. And then starts discussing future courses with her parents upon returning home.

  “The time has come to choose courses for next year. I should take a couple APs, first AP US Government and then AP US History, possibly AP Bio as well”

  “You might be smarter than I gave you credit for, but that’s a lot on your plate, especially with cheer and quiz bowl!” Olivia’s mom warns her.

  “I get it, our quiz bowl opponents, especially out-of-state ones, fill their schedules to the brim. Thank God for the Rule of Two!” Olivia’s dad comments.

  “Just because you’re the same intellectually as them doesn’t mean you must act the same! You were able to make cheer and quiz bowl work this year because your academic schedule isn’t nearly as brutal as the one you plan on taking!” her mom follows up.

  “But now that I know that I can withstand the intellectual intensity of quiz bowl, I feel like I can take APs, especially when, earlier this week, my team in social studies got the green light to take APs in social studies!”

  “You start to behave like your quiz bowl opponents… just make sure you understand what the workload is for this before you sign up for even this many APs!” her dad warns her. “However, better do well in one or two APs than do poorly in three or four!”

  “But, on the flip side, you’ll know whether you can succeed in college, as early as sophomore year!” her mom adds. “And, of course, save on college tuition. If you do well on the corresponding AP test of course!”

  Olivia then looks at a notification on her phone. “If you may excuse me, guidance just answered my request for an appointment! Tuesday after school…”

  She then asks her friends on social media to start thinking about course choice for next year before she starts doing her homework. And book their appointments with guidance.

  Then, late at night, after finishing her homework, Monika calls her, out of concern for Olivia. I feel like Olivia may put herself at risk if she’s careless.

  “Hi Olivia, it’s Monika. Although I’m graduating this year, I’m the one who’s responsible for you even playing quiz bowl in the first place!”

  “You’re calling me to tell your cautionary tale, I guess?” a startled Olivia asks Monika in a dubious tone.

  “You’re a quiz bowler; you were able to play well enough to meaningfully contribute to us winning State! I urge you not to bite more than you can chew, since I’m a good example of what happens when you do!”

  “Monika, I get it, quiz bowl isn’t school, and brains don’t shield you against overworking yourself…”

  “For years, I took AP after AP, the max number allowed in any given year, playing as the special topics player of the then-B-team. I did theater as well, but never given the big parts because APs and quiz bowl ate up my time like crazy! I had nausea all the time because I was so worked up over how I performed as a quiz bowler, and whether my application was good enough for college!” Monika starts crying in front of her phone. “I was, for years, made to feel like everything I did just wasn’t enough! Even more so in quiz bowl!”

  “Taking so many APs meant you took APs all over the place! Since you mentioned college applications, what does that imply for college apps later down the road?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Might be easier to hide taking APs all over the place to the eyes of colleges if you’re a quiz bowler because colleges understand quiz bowl is an all-subject activity… Can’t complain since I’m still satisfied with Vassar. But being smart enough to play at the HSNCT and also take APs doesn’t mean squat if you don’t take some time off to take care of yourself! I was a train wreck because of the relentless grind, I don’t want that to happen to you!”

  “Speaking of the HSNCT, you desperately wanted to prove that you had what it takes to play there, to play in the big leagues!”

  “The big break I was hoping for ended up being my undoing. This is where my mental health took a turn for the worse. Yes, you may say that my best two games were Hathaway and Kherson number thirty-four, but just don’t tie your self-worth to how you perform at the HSNCT! Remember that we lost not only Oleg, but also the guy I replaced there, as well as two underclassmen afterward!”

  Monika then texts Olivia an article about high achievers at risk and another one about taking care of oneself as such.

  She starts questioning herself after reading the two psychology articles. How did I, in two months, go from being a blonde cheerleader who might have gotten As, but not necessarily all the time, to being a high achiever at risk? Did quiz bowl do that to me, and even more so scoring the winning tossup at State? Did I become a victim of my own successes?

  This lingering question makes her sleep a little uncomfortable, and as such, she rolls in her bed, wondering whether she would take any course in this combination she told her parents about were it not of quiz bowling.

  On Monday, before class, her friends meet with her, asking what they plan to take next year.

  “What do you all plan to take next year?” Ned asks her, while Becky is within earshot of the couple.

  “AP US Government, US History and maybe AP Bio!” Olivia answers her boyfriend. “What about you?”

  “Maybe I should give AP US Government a shot, too. But AP Bio is perhaps the hardest of the gang!”

  “Ned, if you want to take APs independent of whether I take them, go ahead. Just don’t take courses solely to be with me in class!” And she turns to Becky. “And the same holds for you…”

  “The cold, hard truth is that there just aren’t a lot of APs you can take as a sophomore!” Becky tells the couple. “You plan to take three of them! You might be smart enough to take on that sort of schedule, but keep in mind it's not for everyone!”

  “You can count on me not to laugh at others for being unable to handle heavy courseloads!” Olivia replies to her basketball-playing friend.

  “You should be good to go in AP US Government, Ned…”

  I ought to tell the football coach about whether I can take APs and remain on the team next year! Some of our opponents cut playing time, or even cut players outright, over taking AP courses; I just want to cover my bases, Ned starts thinking about what would that imply for his athletic involvement going forward. Also, there’s the whole question of whether I can keep my grades up in whichever APs I could then pick.

  Speaking of AP courses, today’s morning announcement is about new APs being offered, starting next year:

  “Good morning. It has come to our attention that these three courses were requested for years, but the parish office finally gave us the green light to offer them. Starting next academic year, three new AP courses are offered: AP English Language and Composition, which requires an A in tenth-grade English, AP Calculus AB, which requires an A in pre-calculus, as with BC, and finally, AP Psychology, which requires an A in ninth-grade English, or a B in later years” Norman announces the new courses on offer starting next year.

  When the appointment for guidance comes, a week after Ivy Day, Olivia is left wondering about her course selection for the following year. If everything I heard about that from other players, here and at our opponents, is correct, choose your courses poorly, and it can carry consequences for years. But now that APs are available for me to take…

  Tamara, the underclassmen’s counselor, and herself a black VA alumna, brings up Olivia’s records, both academic and extracurricular, in hopes that a schedule can be built for the following year.

  “First things first: I want to keep doing cheer as well as quiz bowl. Would that have an impact on which courses I could take next year?” Olivia asks the counselor.

  “You mentioned wanting to take AP US Government next year. I advise you to take it in the winter!” Tamara advises her.

  “I get it, cheer and quiz bowl put together is a lot of work, and cheer plays only part of winter. I can live with that”

  “Especially since the other APs you mentioned in your email last the whole year! By this point, you’ll have a better idea of what APs are really like. However, it makes sense to take AP US Government and US History concurrently; the material overlaps some, so it would be more manageable. I have my reservations about adding AP Bio, though!”

  “AP Psych then?”

  “From my experience of intro psych in college, the workload is about the same as AP US Government. But if you take all four courses you mentioned, I hope you’re comfortable with having little to no social life outside of group projects, cheer and quiz bowl!”

  This statement gives Olivia pause. I know some of our opponents at the HSNCT have schedules that heavy, but no more than that. I might be a straight-A student right now, but add in three or four college-level courses and the jump might be a pretty big jump.

  “The question is: does quiz bowl really smooth out the transition from normal courses to AP ones?”

  “I never played quiz bowl myself, but even during my time here, it seemed like quiz bowlers were readily able to juggle multiple APs. One more thing I didn’t mention: because, in both cheer and quiz bowl, you might be more comfortable with interacting with other people across grades. Then the social aspect of taking APs won’t come to as big a shock to you as it might have others”

  “I’m concerned about the academic aspect. In quiz bowl, I needed to learn large volumes of information fast!”

  “This comes in handy, but you do realize it’s not everything in AP courses…”

  “Do we have any idea of who teaches what?”

  To this, Tamara draws a blank. Fingers crossed that whoever teaches AP Psych is any good, since our only options to teach it was either one of the parish’s school psychologists or one of the therapists servicing the area, Tamara is nervous about AP Psych, since the teacher and class are new at VA.

  “Anna is the one most likely to teach AP Psych. While she might be the go-to therapist in southwest Louisiana for gifted youth, she works as such at night…” Tamara then tells her about the instructors for the other APs she plans to sign up for.

  As Tamara checks on the progress reports, especially those from the third quarter, she drafts a tentative schedule to send to Olivia’s parents, along with concerns.

  Meanwhile, Olivia texts Ned about what she recommends him to take.

  Olivia: Ned, I think AP Psych is beneficial to you, and, if you take AP US Government, please do so in the winter

  Ned: I feel two APs as a sophomore is already a lot to me

  Just before Tamara sends the email to Olivia’s parents, she makes one last remark:

  “If you want to take either version of AP Calculus senior year, be prepared to take Geometry over the summer, with Annette…”

  This remark sends a shiver down Olivia’s spine. That’s going to change my entire summer… but the decision isn’t final yet.