<p>I’m hearing that there has been a push for more and more students to be in AP classes. I’m also hearing that more and more of these students don’t really belong in the AP class. This would be a disservice, because such students don’t get as much from the class as they should, and the better students in the class get held back. I’ve also heard that this is the reason for all that summer homework that students now have.</p>
<p>What do you think? Has AP changed that much in the last 13 years? Are more people doing well on the AP exams because of better learning, grade inflation from the ETS, or teaching to the test? (The first reason is a good reason. The last one is the most disturbing.)</p>
<p>AP classes should only be taken by the students who want to be there and can comfortably handle the workload. There shouldn’t be a push to get everyone in the program just for the sake of the prestige. That would be like insisting that everyone be a varsity athlete, band player, orchestra player, student council member, yearbook editor, all-state-something, etc.</p>
<p>In our district some parents have exerted great pressure to increase the number of APs and the ease of access to them. While the entry system needed some attention and some good changes were made, the overall result has been a hardship for students and teachers I think. One of these has been that there are more (and larger) AP classes (which certainly can trend toward “teaching to the test”) and less room for more creative or innovative honors classes. But reversing the trend will be an uphill fight against a tide of anxious, sometimes litigious parents who are very easily convinced that APs are necessary or guarantee prestigious admissions.</p>
<p>I think this is definitely a YMMV situation. While some schools do a very good job teaching AP, our students use them to boost GPAs. An AP class is weighted 1.3, and the student doesn’t have to take, or isn’t even expected to take the exam. The material rarely covers what is needed to pass the AP exam with the exception of English and Calculus.</p>
<p>They are open enrollment. The pro is that students who do really want an AP class can get one. The con is that instead of letting those who can’t or won’t do the work drop below the bar, the bar just keeps getting lower and lower. I don’t think there should be extra credit in AP classes, if they are really going to model them after college classes.</p>
<p>We now have 21 AP classes, but I would say there are five to six that really operate anywhere near college level. Out of “hundreds” of students that take AP (the school is proud of that) we had only six AP scholars this year ( current seniors), up double from the year before. A typical college bound junior, however, took five to six APs. </p>
<p>I would say there is quite a bit of pressure to take AP at our school so your GPA stays afloat, but not pressure in the sense of harder work. I think if the classes were taught correctly, students would probably be able to handle up to three before being swamped.</p>
<p>One problem with the AP scholar program is that a student has to have completed 3 courses by the end of the junior year. I don’t think having a low number of AP scholars necessarily means a school’s AP program is bad. It could be that many more students are making the designation by the end of the senior year (CB does still recognize it and give out certificates. High schools may not bother to note it since the students have moved on and its too late for it to be noted on college applications). </p>
<p>I think the AP program works differently in different schools. I know that in our not so great public high school, students can pretty much get in if they want to. I think the best thing about AP is that it is a widely used national standard. There are more AP than IB programs in place. If a student is coming from a high school that an admissions rep has never heard of, but has some high AP scores under his belt, that piece of info can put the rest of an application into perspective. I know some very top prep schools don’t offer AP because they don’t want to be tied to that narrow curriculum, yet their students take and do well on AP exams. The teacher with the best AP scores in our school, I think, is very adept at prepping kids for the exam. I don’t believe that’s all bad. Kids are learning the material; it’s a bedrock course (in history, in this case) and there are opportunities in college to dig deeper. Not all public high school teachers are gifted or creative in their approach. If your school has a teacher who can deliver something better, there’s nothing to prevent those students from taking an AP exam on their own. I think in situations like ours it provides a minimum, higher standard than we would otherwise be getting. In our school, the AP courses are definitely harder and GPAs are weighted.</p>
<p>“One problem with the AP scholar program is that a student has to have completed 3 courses by the end of the junior year.”</p>
<p>Agreed, but in our school five to six by the end of junior year is norm, therfore three exams isn’t asking to much when our school pays for half the exam fee. Most kids will graduate with 10-12 APs taken–or attended I should say.</p>
<p>And it did help to have AP scores for the college application in the case of my sons, because they substantiated their grades. (Our school has terribly inflated grades)</p>
<p>Again, it depends on the school and the teacher. I’m sure there are wonderful AP classes out there. I know that our Calc AB/BC teacher gets most of her kids to take the exam and has an 86% pass rate. She’s one of the only teachers where a sizable portion of her class take the exam. We offer three AP science classes, and there have been six or seven total science exams attempted over the last five years.</p>
<p>Our district HS’s have held the line on limiting AP classes to those students capable of handling the work load, which is extensive. At our HS with about 1000 students, there are 25 seats for each AP class with the exception of USHistory and English L&C for which there are 50 seats available.</p>
<p>The classes have strict gateway requirments too. Seniors get first priority registering and juniors get second priority. Frosh may not enroll in AP courses and sophs may not enroll except in extraordinary circumstances which rarely occur.</p>
<p>Because the workload is much greater, students may enroll in no more than 3 AP courses per year. And prereq requirements are a A in the honors section or A+ in a regular section of a department prep course the year before.</p>
<p>And while AP classes are weighted, students don’t expect to be guaranteed a wgpa boost. The tests are tough and term papers/projects/etc must be excellent to merit an A grade. In my sons APCalcBC course of 23 students, only 4 received an A and 8 got a C. Our son eeked out a B and was happy. The reason I know this is because the school includes a grade distribution for all AP courses as a part of its HS profile submitted to colleges with the student applications. This allows the adcoms to better evaluate our student transcripts.</p>
<p>I think AP’s are treated different at each school just from reading the responses so far. Our school has strict standards and the majority of the kids do not take more then 2 or 3 AP’s since they are not offered until junior and senior year with the exception of APUSH, which will be offered for the first time this fall for sophomores. I don’t really think a junior could take 3 AP’s in our school because most have such prereq’s that it would be impossible. I used to think that it was a bad thing for our school not to allow or have so many AP’s but now I realize that for college app’s if it says on the students application that they are taking the most rigorous classes available then, that’s good enough. The top 10% can take classes for free at nearby participating Universities.</p>