<p>If your college application is going to get a boost for “taking the most rigorous courses” I’d have to say yes, there is a point – disingenuous surely, given that the student declines to demonstrate rigorous study in that coursework.</p>
<p>Allmusic -</p>
<p>Sorry 'bout the cross-post. You said it better than I did.</p>
<p>At his new school, admittance to AP is based on : Grade of A in prerequisite course; results on norm-referenced (not criterion-referenced) testing; rank in class; teacher and department head approval; level of student interest. All students must take the AP test at the end of the course. </p>
<p>The new school considers academics the reason for its being (it publishes the honor roll, holds academic award ceremonies, etc.), whereas at the public school it seemed to be an afterthought, ranking behind athletics, community service and multiculti/diversity training.</p>
<p>At our S’s school, they teach the AP courses in preparation for the test and they really don’t go beyond that, or haven’t (according to him) stopped seriously short of all the material the class is intended to cover.</p>
<p>He struggled some (a C) in the US History course, yet managed to get a 3 on the test. Those results seem evenly matched.</p>
<p>At our public school students are not required to take the AP test. The reason supposedly is that the school will not pay for it and they cannot require the student to take it. Most do take the tests. However, some opt not to either due to money or sometimes because they want to take the intro course of some subject they will build on in college ie chem. Others do not take it because they feel they will not do well and the scores don’t come back until well after your college is decided anyway. (We have few APs offered for juniors)</p>
<p>A question maybe someone can answer. How do the colleges decide what they will take for credit? My son has friends that got tons of hours for 3’s on AP exams while his school required a 5 on most courses and at least a 4 on others and never gave more than one semester credit.</p>
<p>I’m sure it varies based on how closely the college feels mastery of the AP course material corresponds with passing the first-year classes which the student would skip upon receiving AP credit. Some schools offer no AP credit at all, preferring all freshmen to take the same set of first-year classes: Caltech comes to mind. (Good AP scores? Congratulations! Now take our intro courses. 
)</p>
<p>DD was asked to take the intro courses also, even though the school policy was to accept AP 4 and 5 scores for credit. She declined their offer and all has been fine.</p>
<p>From the perspective of my sons’ public high school, I have to agree with Allmusic.</p>
<p>It’s the middle-ability kids that get shortchanged in a public school (at least here in my little corner of suburban Los Angeles.) My advice to friends has been, if your child will be in the honors-AP level of classes, come to public school here. If not, look around. Find an alternative. The education will be way too uneven otherwise. </p>
<p>The nonhonors kids can have a fabulous, caring teacher for one class, and for another, let’s say, science, the guy who was hired to be the wrestling coach. That student will not get the quality of teaching in science that the honors/AP student gets because the wrestling coach does not get to teach the honors/AP level classes (at this high school anyway.) And frankly, the difference is night and day.</p>
<pre><code>Anyone can check out ratemyteachers.com and find out what kids say about the teachers at their high school. As one kid said about the popular English teacher/asst. football coach: He’s fun. He tells jokes all day. He gives us a worksheet and goes to work on his computer on whatever. Never get a coach for a teacher.
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<p>It is only my one-school observation, but my son’s teachers in public school in the honors/AP level have been on par with any private school. Those who were not, by and large, represented “education lite.”</p>
<p>mkm:</p>
<p>The policy on AP credit varies from college to college. Harvard at one end, accepts only 5s but is more generous than some of its peer institutions in what kind of AP tests it accepts. Princeton, Yale and others accept 4s and 5s but award different credit for different courses. For example, Princeton awards only 1/2 credit for AP US-History or AP Euro-History, but Harvard awards full credit. One college awards full credit for Bio and half credit for chemistry, and at another college it’s the other way around.
The colleges that award credit for 3s (equivalent to a C) are likely to be state universities and lower-tier private colleges.
There are as well private colleges that require students to spend all four years at the college and therefore do not award credit for APs.
However, all colleges will take into account the AP credits when making decisions about placement into specific courses.</p>
<p>Jazzymom:</p>
<p>Interesting about your public school. In ours, no teacher doubles as coach. This is, however, a standard practice in private shools. Teachers at the private boarding schools in MA are expected to do more than just be classroom teachers. A pair of math teachers we know taught at a famous private school for many years. The wife was the girls’ field hockey coach. She decided it was no longer fun when the school decided to become more competitive and to follow competition rules. This meant that only the stonger girls got to play. In our public high school, the sports coaches are hired to be coaches, not classroom teachers (we do have high public school expenditures).</p>
<p>Now I see that as a huge advantage of the private schools. The teacher who leads the discussion on Shakespeare in the morning is finetuning the soccer skills in the afternoon, and around for a chat at night. </p>
<p>It does mean that the school has to select teachers with specific skills in mind … including academic and athletic and advising abilities … but I think it benefits the students to work with the same person in different fields.</p>
<p>At our public hs in Ct, the lacrosse coach (former) was also the trig teacher. It kept the guys in line academically and was generally agreed to be a great thing. He was a good teacher too!</p>
<p>CNP- that is absolutely correct. One of the really neat things about ALL the private schools my kids have attended is that the teachers may also be coaches. In boarding school, they also serve as advisors and perhaps dorm parents. My son’s coach (a gifted coach and former collegiate runner) waa his advisor, mentor and AP Euro teacher. The man has been at the school 26 years, and is a truly gifted educator- in ALL areas. At the private boys’ prep school in our town, the reknowned soccer coach was also an outstanding (award-winning) math teacher. This doesn’t mean someone is coaching a sport with no idea what they are doing- they might serve as an asst. coach for a few years to learn some skills, but except for The School From Hell my son attended in Austin, TX for 2 years, the coaches are excellent as coaches and as teachers. The bad coaches at that school, by the way, were brought in just to coach and did NOT teach.</p>
<p>a very talented teacher- in English and history is also one of the states most successful track and soccer coaches in their division,
Incidentally he doesn’t have his education degree, but he has won teaching awards- at a private school of course- for public schools require the jumping through of the ed degree hoop.</p>
<p>However coaches at my daughters public high school, generally do not teach classes, although when I ws in high school several of the football and wrestling coaches did- but their heart was in their coaching.
She has had decent coaches in high school, although the team size is often much larger than in th eprivate school.
THe middle school coaches were also- um mediocre to good ( her soccer team went without a win for over a year until the coach was away at another game)
The best coach she has ever had- is the volunteer coach for her rec league soccer team.
He plays on at least two teams himself- has coached every year except when he got too busy with the city school board ( he is also a attorney- but is in school to get certification to be a principal)
He really should sell motivation tapes-
So I think it depends more on the person than whether they teach a class or not.</p>
<p>( I just realized her other fantastic coach that she had for many years in a rec league basketball team was also an attorney- she quit the sport when he retired- because he was the one who made it fun for her)</p>
<p>In our public system coaches are teachers also. The coaching stipend is really very small–highest paid is head football coach which is only $1800/yr more. Soccer pays only about $700. Therefore it is hard to find coaches who are also competent in the classroom. The school is forced to hire say math teacher who also wants to coach basketball even though more competent math teachers may have applied but aren’t interested in coaching.</p>
<p>I would prefer my son be coached in football or soccer or what have you by </p>
<p>a teacher that may be a lesser coach but whose career is invested in developing young men </p>
<p>as opposed to </p>
<p>the 30 year old high school graduate pumping gas for a living and reliving his glory days of high school by coaching ball.</p>
<p>Not all of your freelance high school coaches fit that profile … but some do. </p>
<p>Hiring teachers and coaches and teacher-coaches can’t be easy! Lots of hats to wear, and some big shoes to fill …</p>
<p>the football coaches at my daughter school have played/coached pro- but want to “give back to the community” ( they have already ramped up focus a great deal- they require all players to communicate with teachers twice a week re: grades & fulfill all necessary requirements to attend college)</p>
<p>The womens basketball coach- was the 2nd ( by about a week) female player with the Harlem Globetrotters.
BUt I also think it should be up to the school, I don’t see why someone who didn’t major in coaching in college- shouldn’t be able to be a good coach if he/she knows the game and is a good role model working with the kids</p>
<p>Private schools charging what, $15,000, $20,000 a year tuition can be very choosy about who they hire and they can find brilliant teachers who are also good coaches. Public schools (okay, my district’s schools) are not that choosy and often are under a lot of pressure to fill coaching positions; and once they’re hired, they quickly get tenure and believe me, as long as that team is winning, that teacher could hand out coloring books in the classroom and nothing would dislodge him/her from that job. </p>
<p>That’s one of the differences between public and private; in some ways you do “get what you pay for.” </p>
<p>As a parent on a district curriculum committee, I was once on a tour of one of our high schools. We were in a government class (not honors or AP) and the teacher happened to be the baseball coach. When our group entered the classroom, he was at his desk computer and the class was reading from a textbook, although about a third of the class had their heads down in nap mode. He got up when we came in and to rouse the class said, “Hey, come on guys, I know this stuff is boring (grins) but let’s try to get through this chapter.” I know that’s just one instance and had I walked into another classroom, I might have found a coach/teacher really engaging the class.</p>
<pre><code>But the conventional wisdom among parents at my sons’ high school is to take the honors and AP classes because they are taught by the best teachers and for the regular classes, try not to get the teachers that are coaches. (A caveat: that’s a parent rant. The students often like coach teachers because they consider them easy and fun.)
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<p>NOw that I think about it- there are a couple teachers at my D school that also coach- the swimming coach-I think also is the journalism instructor- and there may be other teams that have teacher/coaches that I am just not familiar with.
THe teacher that runs the district wide Mountaineering program- which easily takes as much time as coaching is a pretty good environmental science teacher</p>
<p>But when I was in high school- it was pretty easy to get out of doing work in the teacher/coach classes, all we had to do was get them talking about the football team- which they were always eager to do</p>
<p>To the OP:</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you were asking about private HS or college but I think you are considering a private HS for your child. In our family, the parents were happily and successfully educated in public schools. Neverthless, we sent our son to private schools from preschool through 12th grade, primarily due to the poor public schools in our area and the excellent private schools. There is no doubt our son received an excellent education at a highly regarded private prep school (for which we paid an arm and a leg), that he ended up with great SAT/GPA/APs (that were in part due to his school and primarily to his own efforts), and that he was admitted to top-tier schools when he applied to colege. Thus, our experience with private schools was good.</p>
<p>On the downside, his best friend was an A student at the same private school and his college admissions process was not as easy. I was surprised because it seemed harder for our son’t friend to gain admission to college than it was for the public school students we know who had lower SATs/GPAs and fewer APS. For one thing, private schools are usually non-ranking and that put our son’s friend in a more competitive pool of applicants. Further, our son’s HS was very supportive of the top students who applied to Ivy League colleges but less helpful to the other students who weren’t going to Ivy League schools. </p>
<p>In fact, our son’s friend was told to revise his expectations downward rather than hope for admission to our state’s top public university. That was sobering to consider. As a result, I would definitely talk to the private school about exactly what they will do to help their juniors/seniors with college admissions.</p>