@QuantMech: For the most part, I gave a full thumbs-up to your post at #779.
To extrapolate the degree to which colleges “should” consider the different ways in which students arrive at that final (same) place:
“In my opinion, the transcripts are misleading, if they give no indication that one student has had formal outside instruction in the material of the course, and another student has not–even if their grades are identical or even if the student who has not been “pre-taught” actually scores higher.”
Such differentiated consideration does not take place now, as you know. Where students who score the highest possible in one sitting of the SAT have no different standing in the eyes of the admissions committees than those students who superscore across three tests to get the same score, some parents would balk.
I might be one of those, but it would embarrass my kids, so I don’t.
@TheGFG - yes, 6x80 over two weeks. There are options for 8 classes and one additional meeting time block. It sounds like your AP science classes occupy something like “two classes” worth of time? Or are all classes like that with the 7.5 per week?
ETA - @QuantMech - in principle I think that repeating classes is a waste of time and resources, and should probably be disclosed. In practice, remember we worked out that the Chem class that was thought to be a prerequisite, was actually not (it was Organic Chem), and it seems to have been a correlation but not causation that those kids also breezed quickly through independent Gen Chem material coverage without needing as much class time on it.
Also in practice, at our school, there is a “transcript addendum” that reveals all summer and evening classwork. My kids’ Hebrew school classes appeared on this, for example. A tutor would not show up on the addendum unless specially listed (which seems unlikely as it would not be flattering).
Repeating a class during the school year (assuming the student understood the material first time round) seems to me not only a colossal waste of time and resources, but sends absolutely the wrong message about the point of learning, that it is all about the grade, the college acceptances, the gold stars society hands out for meeting certain goals.
I understand the cycle. I just don’t understand how to break it.
I am really okay with the obsessed kids wanting to do their own thing 16 hours a day, as long as what they are doing is positive rather than negative. I like those kids. Do they need to eventually do a few other things? Sure. And sometimes they get there when they grow up a bit more. And if they don’t, there isn’t a whole lot we can do about it. Supporting their interests is the best we can do. imho.
^ (780) Actually, colleges that require reporting of ALL test sittings (or all sittings on the one test submitted, be it SAT or ACT) do differentiate between those who took the test 2-3 times and those who took the test more often, and with those took the test only once. The most highly selective colleges use tests as a gauge but never as a reason to admit - curriculum rigor (within limits), grades, and EC’s are more important in most cases.
As long as colleges reward the cycle-- and they do-- the arms race will continue. If elite colleges just took all the students who were “good enough” (where good enough was very good) and chose among them using a lottery, then the arms race would stop.
Taking a class or tutoring over the summer, then taking the academic class in the fall for academic credit, is not an example of an intellectually gifted student challenging themselves with advanced material. It’s grade grubbing. This is not the same as a student re-taking calculus as a college freshman, either because they didn’t truly understand it the first time, or because the college version emphasizes proofs and concepts whereas the high school version was about computation. The calculus re-taker is diving deeper into the subject. The AP chemistry re-taker is merely burnishing their GPA.
What do you think about a summer class offered by our district to be taken during the summer after 8th grade, whose stated purpose is to prepare the advanced track kids to take the freshman honors level of English or social studies? It also is not an OFFICIAL prerequisite (like that summer chem wasn’t) but it does cover material not included in the supposedly official prerequisite course (eg.advanced 8th grade English) but that would be necessary to doing well at the next level. I was told it was designed to bridge the gaps the administration knew existed between the middle school curriculum and the high school expectations. They decided to offer the course due to many complaints from the high school teachers that the honors freshmen weren’t well-prepared, as well as the same complaints from the kids’ parents. A friend sent me this partial description from that sort of class her D actually took: “Preparation for Honors English I…The purpose of this course is to foster students’ transition to honors and build the skills necessary to be successful in the honors program. Assignments will mirror the Honors curriculum. Prerequisite: Recommendation for Honors English 1.” Note, the students need to meet the official middle school pre-reqs, without which one is not recommended for that high school placement.
As it turns out, my district now offers summer classes entitled “Preparation for…” AP Bio, AP Calc, AP Physics. These are new. I think they had used that organic chem class for the same purpose, but then decided to actually develop a prep class. Clearly, they could give a leg up to students who parents want to pay the $800. Their stated goal is “to ensure a smooth transition” into the AP level.
I don’t think it’s hard to imagine how if enough kids take these to sharpen their skills and gain new ones, that the teacher may start to adjust the early weeks of AP classes accordingly.
@TheGFG - Chem II at D’s HS (same as AP but a little freer curriculum, taken after a year of regular or “pre AP” Chem), was 1.5 periods a day. She had an 8 period day, each one was 50 minutes I think.
How many students do you think are disadvantaged by not taking these summer prep courses? What on earth are they doing to prep kids for honors English or social studies? Do they not learn adequate writing skills in middle school? Is this remedial work of some kind? How many students registered for Honors English are not ready to do the work? What skills are they teaching?
We paid for lots of academic summer programs, but I would not have paid for this program on principle. I would have talked to the HS and found out what they were expecting the kids to know. If my kids didn’t have that knowledge, I would have made sure they acquired it one way or another but I would never have paid $800 for a prep course. Of course, I probably had way more access to enrichment opportunities for my kids than most parents. OTOH - I think you can purchase AP prep books at Barnes and Noble and some home schoolers I knew self-studied and earned 5s on the exams. I really never understood the AP exams to be all that difficult. I do understand that some classes don’t prepare the students for the exams. The AP bio teacher at my kids’ school told us in September at parents night that he couldn’t possibly be expected to cover all the material that would be on the AP exam and it would be useless for students to take the exam. This was one of the classes that had untold hours of arts and crafts type homework projects. He was not an excellent teacher. When my kids took AP classes that actually covered all the material, they had required summer reading lists before classes began. It was my understanding that was really the only way to cover it all within the allotted class time. I wonder if these AP prep classes serve the same purpose as summer reading? If so, it is a really expensive alternative. imho.
I think the school needs to make sure that the kids are adequately prepared for the next course in sequence, no matter what level they are starting at. So honors 8th grade English should prepare those students for honors 9th grade English and regular 8th grade English should prepare the kids for regular 9th grade English at the very least. Essentially, my district is admitting that they aren’t doing a good job of that, and that they know this has caused the honors kids to struggle as freshmen. I think it’s appalling that their solution is an expensive summer class, rather than fixing the deficiencies at the middle school level. Similarly, Honors Biology 1 and Honors Chem 1 need to adequately prepare the students for the next level, which is AP. That is why I was upset when the AP Chem teacher told me D’s Chem 1 prep was inadequate and asked me who her teacher was! He recognized it was not D’s fault, saying he knew she was smart and motivated.
Looking at a couple of NJ high performing districts here.
^ Millburn. Also requires a certain grade in the previous course AND a test to get into AP classes.That seems excessive but the 8-AP limit seems reasonable.
Montgomery offers summer “preview” courses (@$550-ish) for pre-calc and all 3 sciences, though it s=doesn’t state it’s for AP specifically, it does seem designed for kids to get ahead.
I certainly agree that if an 8th grade student is recommended for 9th grade Honors English, a summer prep course should be unnecessary. Did you understand the instruction in these classes (like Chem 1) was inadequate at the time? Did any of the parents understand that?
This will probably not go over well. I was a troublemaker and had my kids removed from classes where the instruction was inadequate. I could never get any other parents to complain. The administration wanted to remove a teacher and asked me to gather parental support for that removal after my kid left the class. I couldn’t get any other parents interested in the problem. The teacher gave a whole lot of As. This was a different teacher than the AP biology teacher who didn’t teach AP biology.
My kids had all the excellent teachers at their school. At one point the administration said, “shush, please don’t tell, or everyone will be wanting the good teachers.” no exaggeration, close to exact quote. The excellent teachers liked me a lot. One hugged me the first time we met and said she knew me already by reputation.
I did not think the Chem I instruction was inadequate at the time. DH has a chem background and he considered her class to be rigorous. As best as I can determine, there’s too big of a jump from one level to the next, and it seems to me our AP’s skip a lot of material (the foundational stuff and early chapters) yet go well beyond the required CB curriculum.
Oddly, my district did start publicizing (though not offering) some online prep courses ahead of one or two of the APs. None of my own children has taken them. I always thought they were sort of a waste of money, as @alh says, no better than some reading. (Assuming your child is someone who can learn from reading.)
TheGFG said that her daughter (who later went to Stanford) had enrolled in AP Chem, but did not take the “Organic Chemistry” course over the summer. As I recall, the daughter had an A in the prerequisite high school chemistry course. The daughter was described by the AP Chem teacher as lacking the background to succeed in the AP course, fairly early on in the year.
QMP took AP Chem, and organic chemistry was only a tiny component of the content. I surmise that the summer “Organic Chemistry” course covered part of the AP curriculum that was not organic chemistry, and that the teacher was relying on, in teaching the AP course. Alternatively, the teacher had for some unknown reason decided to teach “Further Organic Chemistry” under the AP Chem title.
My first guess might be incorrect, but it would put together everything I have read about the situation so far and everything I know about the official AP Chem official curriculum.
So it sounds like this is the opposite of the AP biology class at my kids’ school that didn’t teach biology.
An AP chemistry class that covers more than AP chemistry is definitely outside the range of my experience. But I have no trouble believing in it.
Elite private schools in my area had advanced chemistry courses instead of AP. Their students took AP exams and made 5s. They had studied chemistry well beyond what was in the AP curriculum. Because they were paying top dollar already, they weren’t expected to pay extra for summer school instruction to stay in the normal progression of courses. So this sounds maybe like a community wanting the same sort of opportunities in a public school and needing to pay for outside, out of term, instruction to get there.
I think an addendum is an excellent idea, but in our district a great deal of the advancement happens before high school due to such early tracking. So I agree with the suggestion that colleges should ask how any significant acceleration was achieved.
At my kids HS all the AP classes ran about 4.3 hours per week total. There were 7 periods per day. No classes were longer than any others. There were not any AP preview classes. There were no tests to get into any classes and there were no limits on the number of AP classes you could take. Taking College Boards AP tests did not seem to be a high priority for most of the AP teachers