I've always wondered: Why can't some schools boast large AP programs as other schools do?

twoinanddone
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 04:23:54 +0000

The first high school I attended in the early 70’s had none. I’d never heard of them even though it was a fairly large high school for our state. On the other hand, there was a college just down the street, so if you wanted to take a course that was ‘just like college’ you could go down the street and it actually WAS college. Even today, this school offers just 5 or 6 AP courses, and they are the basics - APUSH, Lit, Lang -because that college is just down the street. Most students who want to take calc or an advanced science class just go to the college and take it.

The school I transferred to was one of the biggest and highest ranked in the country. It probably offered 10 or more AP’s back then, and now probably offers all of them. It has a choice of 5-6 foreign languages and I’m sure the AP course for each is offered, all the science and math, all the social sciences. I can’t think of one that isn’t offered, and if it isn’t they would arrange for that student to take it at another school in the district. There is also dual enrollment at several community colleges. This is a big school still, 3500 students, in a big district that has the money to support all these classes. It’s in a high income area, so the parents expect the top educational experience (because there are plenty of private schools that will provide it).

My own kids only took a few AP classes, and only if the class wasn’t offered as an honors class. One took AP environmental only because there wasn’t another science class of interest to her, not because she needed a bigger challenge. The other took AP Spanish because that’s the level, not because she needed a challenge in Spanish.