<p>Eagle… first of all my school lets as many students into AP as are recommended and sign up, they just keep making new classes to keep the sizes down for each individual class. But if it were that only a certain number of students could get into the classes here is how I think my school would do things:</p>
<p>Scenario A: Student B would get the spot b/c we sign a pretty clear contract that says you take the class, you take the exam. Student A broke the contract so they wouldn’t get into the class.</p>
<p>Scenario B: This one comes down to the teacher’s thoughts on the students. For our classes you get recommended for APs by the teacher you had all year. So whichever student the teacher saw as being more qualified would get the spot.</p>
<p>Scenario C: This one also comes down to what the teacher thinks. But since student B has done a very good job on the exam and has obviously learned a lot by himself, I would give the spot to student B. He obviously is a strong and independent learner which are two important qualities of an AP student.</p>
<p>I guess my point is that you can try to establish a certain criterea but there will always be an exception, i.e. Marite’s son in Physics.</p>
<p>For the purposes of this discussion what I was really trying to get at is whether you take the AP student who got a B in the class but a 5 on the test over the student who got an A in the class and a 4 on the test. Which should take precedence? And why?</p>
<p>Point taken on the PLAN participants. I would look to conversion tables for those students who would like to come over to “the dark side”. Given that both students are qualified but you only had one slot available in the class, which student gets the slot?</p>
<p>At our school, you would take both students and you would try to accommodate both. There would be a hue and cry if some students were kept out of AP classes (especially if those students were minority and/or lower-income kids). As I’ve noted in a different post, it is not too difficult to estimate the number of students that will be taking the AP courses by calculating the number of students in the prerequired course. My older S had an AP class with only 5 students but the school would not have wanted to eliminate that class even though there were noises about eliminating classes with fewer than 15 kids signed up.</p>
<p>I completely agree with the whole exception thing. I guess it would really depend on who the students were as students (if that makes any sense). There are plenty of students that just do assignments and get A’s just as a grade, but when you look at them at the end of a class they still haven’t really learned anything. But others earn B’s or sometimes C’s and they are really the smartest ones b/c they earn the grades through hard work and such. You probably know people liek that too so I would guess you understand what I mean. I think it takes different students to be the AP students, its not the ones that are there for the show of an AP class that are great, its the ones that are willing to work their butts off to learn about the subject that are worth having.</p>
<p>For the sake of your argument, I would take the student that got the five on the exam. It doesn’t take too much to get an A, but for msot AP exams you actually have to know what you are talking about and obviously the student with the 5 really learned something.</p>
<p>That would be ideal but in many school districts and some private schools the enrollment is limited. I was proposing the scenarios because some posters were commenting about criterea for entry. I was trying to understand you others prioritize with limited resources.</p>
<p>I understand. I also know that my district is one of the highest-spending in the nation. My point is that it is also highly responsive to pressure from parents, both the middle-class professional parents who take it for granted that their children will have access to APs and to lower-income parents who would be able to cry discrimination if their children were kept out. In fact, there has been a policy of encouraging as many students as possible to enroll in AP classes. </p>
<p>The only restriction I know of is based on seniority. If a class is at the limit (30), the teacher will favor seniors over juniors. But this happens to other classes as well. I guess we have not encountered the situation where there are too many seniors wanting to take AP classes. When my S took AP-Chem, there were 30 students wanting to take the class. They could have all been in a single class, since they were just at the limit. But they had so many scheduling conflicts the the school ran two sections of AP. One had 12, the other had 18 students. This allowed my S to take it as a freshman. </p>
<p>If I had to choose, however, I might go for the exam grade. There are too many variables going into a class grade, such as neat presentation, turning in work on time, being well-behaved, not being absent more than the accepted number of times, etc… which say very little about a student’s degree of preparedness.</p>
<p>don’t mean to be difficult, but unless the class has 40+ students already, I’d still put them both in the class. But, if I had to choose, I’d pick the grade over the AP score…since the grade represents a full year’s worth of work, whereas the AP score only represents the knowledge a kid can regurgitate in 3.5 hours. (Assumes no prior knowledge of extenuating circumstances…)</p>
<p>Sometimes, you just stare at a dbq and say 'huh? where others grasp the issue immediately and can write away. (For us oldtimers, its called senior moment.) Don’t forget, a four is a really fine score (top ~40% nationally), and gives full college credit at most colleges below the HYPSM-level.</p>
<p>Further, I can’t tell from the chart but it looks like Pricenton may award credit for SAT 2 scores in foreign language. They list both AP scores and SAT 2 scores but do not say either or both are required.</p>
<p>40 students in a class? In our district, high school classes are capped at 30 by union contract, and parents grumble about too-large classes. Forty students would make for two classes.</p>
<p>Jlauer, regarding the “canned” course: School districts must pay for the course and pay for training for their teachers. Schools cannot call a course an “AP” course unless the teacher has been to the summer training classes and the school has paid for the curriculum. It is very ‘organized’ and doesn’t allow for teacher’s teaching style or creativity. (Teachers I know really don’t like teaching AP classes because of this. ) However, student may take the AP test without having taken the ‘canned’ course, which is what my school had done until recently when parents pressured the school to offer more AP classes, so that colleges would think more of the school. Guess the feeling was that AP classes are impressive and, by teaching lots of AP classes, the school is considered to be high quality. As I mentioned earlier, the teachers had done a great job of teaching the material without the AP curriculum, evidenced by their students regularly earning scores of 4 and 5.</p>
<p>So if there are all these restrictions, are parents who home-school forbidden from teaching an AP class since they may not have gone to the summer prep class? Or are they exempt? </p>
<p>I am surprised to learn about all of this… I know that there are guidelines but I didn’t know it is so controlled.</p>
<p>40 students in a class? In our district, high school classes are capped at 30 by union contract, and parents grumble about too-large classes. Forty students would make for two classes.
We used to have 42 students in a class- the teachers allowed it, if there was difficulty in scheduling. The school was fined for each student over union contract and the teacher was paid the extra.
However, the union has made a really big fuss, and even though the teachers still would allow to have extra AP students, (who are pretty focused and not disruptive), in the class, the classes are now solidly capped at 32- so when my daughter mistakenly was changed from her original AP teacher, into another class, she was not able to get back to her original AP class, and so has a different teacher.</p>
<p>Even if the teachers had allowed 42 students into their classes, the parents would have rebelled. But then, our taxes are pretty high and per pupil expenditures are, too.</p>
<p>Regarding homeschoolers, perhaps if there is homeschooler’s association that purchases curricula in your area, a parent might be trained. However, I doubt an individual can purchase the program. I’m certainly an expert, you might check the CB web site.</p>
<p>contracts in our 'hood are typically capped at 33-35, or an average or 180 students per day (if block schedule). However, the average means that some classes may have 15, but the teacher’s other classes may have more than 35 up to ~180. It’s the only way to justify starting salaries in the $40’s, with senior faculty in the $70’s and higher. But, more importantly, it means that kids aren’t “arbitrarily” kept out of AP classes as in Eagle’s scenarios. (“arbitrarily” is my word)</p>
<p>Panhandlegal,
Some homeschooling groups are publicly chartered & funded. A part of that funding pays for student access to formal AP courses through various sources, but that would not include training a parent to oversee the course. (At least not so far, that I know of.) The AP course is provided by an approved, recognized agency (such as UC, which offers a number of resources & courses for high school students, more than many people realize). And the agency would be assigned to proctor the exam.</p>
<p>the parents didn’t rebel because they wanted their kids in that class.
If there was only room for 32 kids & 42 kids wanted to take the class- but there was only one teacher who agreed to overenroll- then 10 kids would be assigned to a ( horrors) regular or honors class instead.
We have high per pupil expenditures in the state ( but not compared to other states), but much of that is because we have a higher free and reduced lunch rate, higher SPED rate and many students who are ESL, so we have greater students with need.
The school has more AP classes than any other public school, but they still encourage anyone who wants to do the work to try.
Next year however, my daughter is planning on taking honors English-history & chem instead of any AP courses, because with a pretty dense schedule, we decided the amount of out of class time in honors was enough, along with her school sport activities.
I really don’t see how the students who are taking several APs, play in the orchestra and play sports do it- but I hear stories from their parents about staying up till 3 doing homework.
I really don’t think that is appropriate, certainly not on a regular basis.</p>
<p>SO much depends on the student & the teachers. My son is currently taking 5 APs (7 if you count econ as 2 & physics c as 2) + marching band. He has had a fine senior year & does NOT stay up until all hours doing homework or classwork. In fact, his workload seems much the same as it always has been & he’s happy. The kid needs to know himself/herself & take what the student will be challenged by & comfortable with, which can vary considerably.</p>
<p>Does your school give summer homework to AP students? I wish our school would give more summer homework for these students so that the workload/reading load would be a bit lighter during the school year. </p>
<p>Last summer, my son received no AP Bio homework and only one assignment for AP Euro – reading “Frankenstein” which we still can’t figure out why that was assigned – no test was given or anything. BUT, s did like the book! S did have A LOT of AP Euro homework this year and would have liked to have gotten an “early start” on it last summer.</p>