<p>Mathyone, my views on the advisability of taking 10+ AP courses actually have little to do with what is or isn’t available to my own children. I do what I think is in their best interests and assume you do the same. However, my decision to place my own children in high school environments that do not offer the “branded” AP classes, clearly illustrates my view that I see more value in the the academic freedom offered by honors courses. Do they sit for some AP tests? Yes, but that is a necessity dictated by what will be expected on a college application. </p>
<p>If you are in a school district where your only options are AP classes, then you are not going to agree with my view of things. And from a practical standpoint I understand completely where you are coming from. But bridging the achievement gap in school districts is really not the purpose of the AP program. And the federal and state funds used to finance the AP program could be redirected to help bring the whole district up to a level that might actually satisfy parents and students. But those issues are board and complicated and don’t really address the practical concerns I have with my own children taking a plethora of AP exams.</p>
<p>My biggest issue with the AP program is the rigid curriculum that covers vast amounts of material at a rapid pace. But it does so in a very surface and pre-prescribed manner. Where is intellectual curiosity in all of this? What about the students who have a passion for the subject and want to delve a bit deeper when a topic of interest is covered? There really isn’t any time for that and if it’s not on the AP syllabus, well it is not being covered. That is going to be an issue with any course that teaches to a standardized test. And I could start a whole other thread on the issue of whether the AP classes are actually the equivalent to that same course in a competitive college. And another thread on the increased number of students who sit for AP exams without ever having taken the course. Do I blame them? No, but it speaks to the quality of the system.</p>
<p>The general expectation is that a good score on an AP test will get you college credit for that course and perhaps even allow you to graduate early saving tuition dollars. But the statistics show that it doesn’t usually play out that way. Colleges are all over the board in the way they treat AP credit and very, very few students graduate early. As another poster pointed out, many private colleges are very wary of allowing AP credits to mess with their introductory course sequence. In fact, many students actually opt to take the course again once enrolled in college. So what are we actually gaining here? </p>
<p>One of the best sources on this issue that I have come across is the study coming out of Stanford led by Denise Pope. It is an interesting read and certainly a bit more unbiased than John Tierneys all out indictment of the system in The Atlantic Monthly. </p>
<p>Not necessarily. S and D have taken the same AP Gov course. It includes a “fantasy congress” game where they choose winners and play it out over a few weeks (to the point of gerrymandering their districts and making congressional trading cards), a Society Project in conjunction with their AP English course in which a small group creates a society and writes a constitution, laws, etc for it (past examples range from Crayon People to Communism to Reality Show world) then presents a written and oral version to everyone. Just a couple of examples. </p>
<p>AP Gov may be somewhat unique in that it is a year long course that is meant to cover a college semester course, so there is more time for projects and exploration of ideas beyond the AP curriculum. And they certainly spend time on FRQs and MC tests.</p>
<p>This HS also chooses to offer Chem 2 and Physics 2 instead of either AP, though the kids do in general take the AP exams for those.</p>
<p>“If you are in a school district where your only options are AP classes,”
I think there are very few high schools which offer advanced classes other than AP and perhaps a few dual with some local cc.</p>
<p>Many of the AP classes are survey classes, yes, but many of them are also not that different from a college intro class, which also tends to be a survey. And, personally, I don’t have a problem with surveys. I think it’s good to get that kind of overview before you delve more deeply into a topic. I also think if it’s the only class you ever get on a topic (eg World History), then it’s better to get a survey than a narrowly focused topic. My high school didn’t like surveys so much, and instead of AP World (not sure if it existed back then) I got a semester, or maybe it was a whole year, on ancient Chinese and Japanese art. I really wish I’d gotten a survey instead. I wasn’t <em>that</em> interested in the art.</p>
<p>“But bridging the achievement gap in school districts is really not the purpose of the AP program.” No, it’s not. Which is why I don’t think it’s a good idea to push unprepared kids into a program that isn’t designed for students at their level.</p>
<p>“And the federal and state funds used to finance the AP program could be redirected to help bring the whole district up to a level that might actually satisfy parents and students.” What federal and state funds? I don’t believe we are getting any special funding for offering AP. The school doesn’t pay for the exams, the parents do. As far as I know, our AP teachers are paid the same as other teachers. And most of our AP class sizes are well above average for our school, which means that the AP classes are actually money-savers. Are you talking about fee waivers for students on free lunch? I am sure the $89 or whatever might be spent for those is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what is already being spent to close achievement gaps etc. And those students may really benefit from having to pay for fewer college credits to earn a degree.</p>
<p>I’m a cynic who generally takes everything an adcom says with a grain of salt. Think about it: adcoms at public Unis must be sensitive to instate high schools which may not offer any AP’s. Thus, it is important to provide the spin of fairness across the state in principle – regardless of whether such fairness exists in fact. In other words, just because they don’t’ care about “more than 5” doesn’t necessarily mean that the students with 10-5’s are being rejected right and left. </p>
<p>Wrt to HYPSM, I have no doubt that they don’t care much for 5+ AP’s, because I would guess that most of their applicants have that many. Thus, it really is not much of a differentiator. Kinda like a 700+ test score is a given to be competitive.</p>
<p>Many (probably most) AP courses cover a semester’s worth of college material over a year in high school (often called “AP lite” courses), meaning that the pace is slower than in college (the opposite of “rapid pace”). In such a course, a good motivated teacher teaching good motivated students can easily enhance the course. Of course, that may not happen in many schools, if the teacher and/or students are not good motivated ones.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is easy, from the point of view of one who has access to an academically elite high school, to criticize “AP lite” courses taught in a mediocre manner at many non-elite high schools. But if you did not have access to an elite high school, would you want your student to take the regular courses at the non-elite high school where AP courses were the most rigorous options available?</p>
<p>No question about it, there are plenty of things wrong with the AP program, and other things wrong with how it is used (the “mission creep” of defining a rigorous high school curriculum that most high schools would not offer in the absence of AP). But that does not mean that, for most high ability and motivation students (i.e. those without access to an academically elite high school), that AP courses are not worth choosing over typical regular courses at a typical non-elite high school.</p>
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<p>Few graduate early, but entering college with some AP credit can be a buffer against graduating late due to being a few credits short. For some students, the cost of a ninth semester may be greater than the savings of needing only seven semesters, because scholarships and financial aid may end or become less generous after eight semesters.</p>
<p>Not really unique. The following are commonly year long high school AP courses that give subject credit for at most one semester of college course:</p>
<p>calculus AB
chemistry
comparative government
computer science A
economics - macro
economics - micro
environmental science
human geography
physics C mechanics
physics C E&M
physics 1
physics 2
psychology
statistics
studio art (any)
US government</p>
<p>Interesting. D took AP Euro as a sophomore - the only AP sophomores are allowed to take at her school - and that one was a year long course for a college year long course. Not nearly as many interesting projects, as I recall…a lot of memorizing and learning how to write an FRQ.</p>
<p>At our kids’ HS, there was a 1 year Econ class that covered BOTH macro and micro. The students from that class generally win the national Econ contest. </p>
<p>There is a one year course that covers all of Physics C and another one year course that covers physics 1 & 2. </p>
<p>S took statistics in a summer college course, so he didn’t take AP statistics. They didn’t take any particular course prior to taking the AP English Lit and other AP English course.</p>
<p>The two CS AP tests were one semester apiece; S mostly self-studied for the 2nd one.</p>
<p>Our S could have graduated one term or one year early from engineering because he entered his U with the maximum 60 credits due to all the many AP exams he took and scored 5s (with 2 4s) on, plus one college stats course. We encouraged him to take some FUN courses, so he took some courses in geology, sailing, now to build a transmitter, and other courses of interest, while he did research and was president of his rock climbing club. </p>
<p>His APs did give him a very solid base for his engineering coursework and were generally well taught. I think APs are excellent for the kids who are ready for them and enjoy them, especially if they are well taught. </p>
<p>Taking them just for the sake of taking them or padding the resume seems a questionable use of resources.</p>
<p>College students are probably only taking 4 or 5 classes–of course they can move faster than in high school, where students are taking 7 or 8 classes. A yearlong AP class should be equivalent to a semester-long college class.</p>
<p>We planned my daughter’s classes to allow her to pursue her interests to the greatest extent possible while in high school, and to give her the chance to be in challenging classes. It wasn’t a matter of what would “look good” to colleges. We don’t know how much use those credits will be to her. It’s possible they may allow her to study abroad, which can be difficult for engineers. They could also be helpful in the event of illness, to allow her to graduate on time. Her sister has different interests, and will be racking up far fewer APs, because we are planning her high school program to support her interests. What a concept. </p>
<p>What “resources”? The $95.00 for the test, (which in our public schools system, the parents pay for). Otherwise, our AP classes are just as full (35:1 ratio) than the regular classes. (Actually, our AP classes typically have a higher ratio since the AP teachers accepts those that desire to be the class.)</p>
<p>My point is that one teacher makes the same salary whether s/he is teaching AP Chem or College Prep Chem. No extra “resources” required, outside of perhaps the texts which may be a little more expensive than a HS level text.</p>
<p>The AP Program does get a lot of federal and state funding, although on the state level it varies in amount from state to state. In the last 5 years alone the Federal Government committed in excess of $275 million to promote the program and to subsidize fees for lower income students. The state level funding covers the training of teachers to teach the AP class (which is mandatory in some states), summer workshops for teacher development and the cost of books and equipment for the AP classes. New York was just awarded $17 million in federal funds to launch a virtual learning program for AP classes.</p>
<p>A lot of college courses are like this, too. The students are given a very detailed syllabus at the beginning of the semester. They know in August what they’ll be reading and discussing during a specific week in November. </p>
<p>@HarvestMoon " Through these awards, states provide students from low-income backgrounds with exam fee subsidies and offer teachers from low-income districts funding for professional development. "</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with the government trying to improve the quality of teaching and educational opportunity in low income communities. It’s hardly an excessive amount of money they are spending. As far as the virtual NY program, there are already virtual APs and comparable courses available. Throwing money on reinventing the wheel seems like a waste to me. Teachers often do professional development training at considerable cost to the school system. I have some idea the teachers are even being paid to attend the training. I don’t see why AP should be any different than any other type of specialized teacher training. And the money is going to low income districts and students so it is addressing achievement gap issues.</p>
<p>And $275 million over 5 years–that’s 55 million per year, divide that by 50 states and you get a whopping 1.1 million per state. Give all of our state’s share to our not-very-large school district and you could pay the staff of two of our middle schools who are devoted exclusively to LD/disadvantaged students. It’s ridiculous to suggest that this kind of money if spent on a program that isn’t AP would be having a significant impact on solving the achievement gap.</p>
<p>AP is all but gone in our school and, to some degree, all of MN. It is being replaced by PSEO and College Now. IMO far better programs because they offer college level experience without the high stakes test. </p>
<p>It saddens me to see articles like this that assume AP is some gold standard or the only college study program. In MN students can graduate HS with associate degrees, all free of charge to the student. It doesnt cost the taxpayer anything and the none of the money goes to collegeboard. </p>
<p>mathyone, I agree that it is not a “whopping” amount of $, but was simply responding to the idea that no additional money is being spent on AP. And in my view any amount of $, no matter how small, dedicated to improving educational standards in our public system would be dollars well spent.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t cost the taxpayer anything” Really? “The state of Minnesota pays the cost of tuition and required textbooks.” I suppose if you’re a taxpayer who doesn’t live in Minnesota, it doesn’t cost you anything. But then you can’t enroll your kid in the program either.</p>
<p>I’ve read that AP courses are taught drastically differently in different schools, and some schools take them sort of like test prep and hand out grades based on students’ performance in the AP exams (e.g. if student gets a 5 in the AP exam, then they automatically get an A for the class). If that’s the case, I don’t think it’s a reliable way to judge a school’s academic rigor by just looking at how many AP courses offered. As for the academically rigorous private schools without or with limited number of AP courses, I don’t think alleviating students’ stress level was ever a factor in the decisions regarding AP courses. As a matter of fact, high level of stress is a “hallmark” of these schools as overall even the non-honor classes are pretty demanding. While not many such schools use weighted GPA, to stand out or be competitive in college application, students, those with no big hooks in particular would voluntarily take on mostly AP level or post-AP courses by junior year… So IMO, getting rid of AP courses, in these schools at least, is not making it any easier for students. </p>
<p>Taking actual college courses also gives the student a better idea of what the expectations are in college – i.e. much less handholding, and students are expected to be self-motivated. Some otherwise well prepared (in terms of knowledge of college-prep and perhaps AP level material) students struggle in their first semester due to failing to adjust to the different expectations in college compared to high school. Even when a high school AP course covers the same breadth and depth of material in the college course, the student experience in this respect differs.</p>
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<p>In actual college courses, tests are often higher stakes than in high school courses, because there are fewer of them per semester, and other things like homework are counted less or none at all. In this respect, AP tests do resemble college more than high school (exceptions would be for courses like English composition that evaluate primarily on essays or projects rather than tests).</p>
<p>In Minnesota, do these programs include getting high schools and colleges to coordinate scheduling to make it convenient for high school students to take college courses from a scheduling and commuting standpoint?</p>