i’m getting two responses. One is it is the fault of CB, that CB won’t allow them to provide a challenge test because the school doesn’t offer these courses (which I do not believe). They were going to call CB yesterday afternoon to get more info, and I’m waiting for the school to call me back today. But secondly, they yesterday sheepishly admitted this specific issue has never come up before. Reading between the lines it appears they don’t have a specific written policy for or against, because it’s never come up before. They’ve not brought up any financial issues.
I’ve been trying for a week now to get a face to face meeting with someone of consequence, and try to sort these possibilities out. We have dealt favorably with the Superintendent on an unrelated issue last year, if we can’t get some clarity we may have to go that route.
I don’t know, but I literally brought that up to my son last night. Our local university is a small 4 year, but it does offer physics C mechanics and elect/magnet and a number of math courses he’s interested in (topology, linear algebra and others that I can’t remember, lol), so we now are going to explore that further. ty
good luck!! I hope it works out and you don’t have to drive all over the place! I wish CB made it easier. I live in an urban area and I know it can be hard for people here, sometimes, too. Public schools definitely do NOT make it easy for homeschoolers, for instance, to join in and take APs on site.
Seems like CB has changed rules over the last ten years, which I guess isn’t surprising. My child challenged an AP exam for a subject not offered at our high school and the school agreed to get someone to proctor her as she took the exam. It was such a novelty that some people peeped in as she took the exam, which she said was more amusing than annoying.
Is this perhaps an issue of your school being unable or unwilling to get a proctor?
so I regret putting in the actual number because it might detract from my overall question, I should have just said several. I’ll just quickly add two points, these are his decisions, not mine but it’s part of a strategy he has to get into a university with an excellent math program so I try to help him facilitate this. Secondly, last year as a sophomore, he took seven AP classes of mostly science and math and scored a five on all of them.
Would one or two extra AP exams for courses not offered at his high school really move the needle for admission to the math major at UT Austin or some other top-end math program?
Great question and I have no idea. As I say I let my kids make their decisions on this college stuff. As an aside we make several trips to Austin annually for math related conferences and they seem to have a great program, but I’m kind of clueless to all this.
Your son is no doubt going to get into a great school based on the student you are describing. He wants the APs and you are supportive. If you can afford a top school, assuming his gpa, test and out of school activities line up, he’s in great shape.
He’s already overloaded and another is not going to impact admissions was the point being made. Taking a test without taking the class may get you credit but is also unlikely to impact admissions.
My fear is some of these kids move ahead because of the test but no class - and then will stumble at that next level.
When you take 4 or 5 APs, it’s a lot. 9 at once is beyond unnecessary for even a top school and may be dangerous when they start too advanced in college. Why ? Because many stumble.
An AP test doesn’t replace the near year long class. And even those who get through successfully like my son, still stumble. It’s why some recommend repeating classes core to one’s major in college vs taking credit.
I hope you find your test. But your son should have zero worry if you don’t.
And most importantly, I hope he’s got a life outside of studying.
I did get a call back from the school just now and they seem to now give more than tacit agreement to letting my son take these tests at his school, yea! They said they’d go ahead and order the tests, and proctoring if a problem could be done by someone in the ISD administrative offices if no teacher was available. The funny thing is I don’t think they actually ever made contact with CB, at least not yet. The main person in charge stated their reticence was a) breaking a CB rule, thus getting “penalized”, and b) in her 8 years of this title she had never had this issue before.
I hope this is now resolved, and want to thank everyone for being so generous with their expertise and advice. Now if I can just get him to eat a vegetable, lol.
Thank you for this. I feel like it could possibly be this simple. Hopefully we can get more information today.