Princess'Dad

Token,
Many of the top prep schools are cutting back on the number of AP courses they offer. The feeling is that once again, they are teaching for a test instead of the material.

The AP course may be the best at your high school, I won't argue that. But, from an academic prospect, it may not be the best educational offering. If it is the best, by all means take the test. But, for example, Deerfield Academy does not offer AP English now, but about 30 different English classes which are more in depth. The same for history, etc.

The object being do you want the kids to learn or get kudos to look good for admissions staff.

As I noted, the debate is between the admissions staff who currently have "no better" way of looking at students than the AP courses and the academic staff who think APs should be eliminated. There is alot of online data and discussions on this. The intern'l bacc may be the replacement.

tokenadult

Plainly the former in my case, and I suspect in the case of most families whose children may be making an application to Stanford in the next few years. I'm not sure the brand name labels of high school courses are always the best guide when looking for that, whether the brand name is the name of an external testing program (e.g., AP or IB) or the brand name of a particular high school (public, private day, or private boarding). But, yes, everyone should be looking for a good secondary education, and all we can do is trust the higher education admission committees to figure out which applicants have been doing that.

tokenadult

Here's the link, by the way, to Stanford's current policies:

Advanced Placement

Here is the link to some other college's policies, for comparison:

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~advising...anding0708.pdf

Princeton University | Advanced Placement Credits

MIT Admissions: Advanced Placement & International Exams

Princess'Dad

Note the following:

Welcome to Excellence without AP

The top two prep schools (st pauls and phillips exeter) have dropped all AP courses. with a list of more.

Also, as presented at the american association advancement science:
survey of 18,000 college students enrolled in introductory biology, chemistry, and physics has found little evidence that high school Advanced Placement (AP) courses significantly boost college performance in the sciences. The study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of Virginia (UVA) found the best predictors of success in college science courses to be high school classes that foster mathematical fluency, value depth over breadth, and feature certain types of laboratory work.

Philip M. Sadler of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics presented the findings Feb. 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis.

"Our survey, the largest ever of its type, suggests that AP courses do not contribute substantially to student success in college," says Sadler, the Frances W. Wright Senior Lecturer in the Department of Astronomy. "Even a score of 5 on an AP test is no guarantee of a college grade of A in the same subject."

mercruz

True, but it does help expose students to the material earlier, wouldn't you agree?

tokenadult

I would agree that mathematical fluency is the most crucial element for further success in studying science.

Thanks for the link to the group of high schools not (or no longer) offering AP-designated courses. I just searched some of the school sites for their statements about AP tests and searched Andover's site for comparison.

Another interpretation is possible for that group of schools declining to offer AP-designated courses.