<p>Mathmom:</p>
<p>The AP-Bio course was the target of the biggest criticism by the National Research Council because it focused too much on “old-fashioned biology.” I think that is why AP-Bio is not currently used for placing out at Harvard, no matter what your husband’s experience was 20 years ago!</p>
<p>I also talked to a Bio prof a few years ago when S was thinking of taking Intro Bio (owing to scheduling conflict, he could not ake AP-Bio). The prof claimed that students who had taken AP-Bio were not necessarily good at critical thinking, their class having focused too much on memorization. I don’t know whether that is a valid criticism or not; the Intro Bio class used the same textbook as the AP-Bio class.</p>