<p>"We just had someone accepted with a 3.2 a few weeks ago with no alumni connections. So it’s happened. "
But my point is, that is not the norm. </p>
<p>Hotchkiss’s AP econ class covers both Macro and Micro in one course (while almost every other school that offers AP cover them in 2 courses). The AP Physics C class covers both mechanics and E&M within one course (same thing).
Most other AP classes basically cover the AP curriculum for the first half of the course and go beyond the AP level for the next half. For instance, the AP calc AB class (which is supposedly the easier one) was doing multivariable calculus towards the end of the school year.</p>
<p>Also, a lot of schools that offer AP cover the same curriculum and help their students acheive a passing grade (3 or 4 depending on how easy/hard the school is), and the top kids go above and beyond and get perfect scores. As most people are aware (and I am sure the same applies to IB too), you dont need to know everything in full depth to simply get a satisfactory score on the test.</p>
<p>Hotchkiss teachers basically cover much more in depth so everyone gets a 5. Some of the exams by the end of the semester was basically a past AP test. Let’s say the threshold for a 5 is a 60%, the passing grade (C) for the exam would be 60%. To get an A, you need to score 90% on that test, which is 30% into the 5 range.
90% of the kids who take an AP test gets a 5. That is another factor that makes the classes hard.</p>
<p>One thing, if you havn’t noticed, I took **Honors Chem (not AP, just honors), got a B+ in the class, took the AP test without much more preparation, and got a 5 on the AP chem test. ** Did the same thing with Honors Physics and took AP Physics B, and got 5 too. That should speak to the difficulty and depth of the curriculum.</p>