<p>I’ll PM you, d101.</p>
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Well, you can count me in as a believer. ;)</p>
<p>The discussion about AP courses has been held before on PF. There are AP’s and there are AP’s. I’m not talking about the class title, corresponding to the standardized exam in May. I’m talking about the differences among school policies/practices. At some schools, strictly the course itself as taught, corresponding to the exam requirements provided by collegeboard. At other schools (I know my d’s is not the only one) much more than that is required for the <em>grade</em> in the class (as opposed to the exam score) by the individual AP teachers. Five minutes would never do it for such grades, no matter how efficient the mind. Sorry for the breathtakingly accurate clarification.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply, Epiph…</p>
<p>I do believe there are big difference in AP classes and in classes in general. Son’s experience has shown that all too well…Sophomore year AP class was a ton of work for him, and the teacher gave out zero A’s in the class. He worked his *** off, and so Sophomore year was tremendously difficult and time consuming… sometimes 8 hours a night on homework. Junior year, 4 AP (and a couple of honors level) classes, not one was difficult or time consuming. He had very very little homework. Still got a 5’s on his AP exams, but also got A’s in the class with little effort. Go figure…</p>
<p>My 3rd grader spends a good bit more than 5 minutes on each homework assignment per night, so I guess I just can’t fathom the idea of a rigorous high school which does not entail significantly more homework than that. Knowledge keeps expanding and history marches on, so students today will have even more to study and learn than we did. No one, no matter how brilliant or efficient, is born already knowing the entirety of an AP course curriculum. The Bible says that even Jesus himself had to grow in knowledge and wisdom, being human. The accounts on here are rather incredible. I want to believe them, but it’s tough.</p>
<p>and further, in some of the AP’s classes I’ve alluded to, A’s for the grade in the <em>class</em>work were handed out sparingly, & sometimes not at all (and that was a recent class). I recall my D telling me proudly she had earned the only B in one of the assignments in an AP class filled with very capable students. (The rest earned C’s.) I particularly respected the teachers’ assessment, as she is a veteran, tough, & extremely bright, accomplished individual in her field, unafraid of parent repercussions.</p>
<p>When a teacher is not as experienced at that – at assessing the worth of an effort – one encounters the slippery slope of subjective grading with no, or not much, in the way of quantifiable standards. (I posted much earlier on CC about my disgust with a middle teacher who handed out A’s like candy to about 85% of the class, when most of the classwork that I viewed was B and C material, with maybe 3-5 earned A’s.) This reflects a lack of supervision by the higher-up, which should be overseeing numerically valued rubrics for completion of assignments, until the teacher’s subjective judgment corresponds with these objective standards as set by the school.</p>
<p>(And it explains the “go figure” in post 124.)</p>
<p>In most AP classes at our high school too, only about 3-5 kids get A’s, though half can earn 5’s on the national test.</p>
<p>Working very hard, completing every assignment and studying regularly, S earned only a B- in the high school class of the second or engineering level of AP Physics (that two part course with Electricity and Magnetism and ?), but got 2 5’s on the AP test. His teacher was fond of saying that after taking his class, every other class they would ever have would be easy. In fact, students who went on to MIT for engineering would come back and tell him that his class was the hardest they had ever had.</p>
<p>Again GFG illustrates & confirms these differences between the test score and the class grade, & further reinforces earlier comments about preparation and “over”-preparation in h.s.</p>
<p>GFG - do you think that is appropriate (for an AP course to be more difficult than any course a student might take at a well-respected university)?</p>
<p>I teach an AP course, in which most students earn C grades. There are no prerequisites in my school, and nothing between AP and regular coursework (no “medium” honors level). The few students who earn an A probably spend 6-8 hours a week in preparation. But as I mentioned in an earlier post, we do not offer many AP classes, and most students only have two. I think our only “hard” AP courses are bio and calc, and my class (meaning the teachers of other APs really do not require much). I really feel confident that the depth and breadth of learning of my stronger hard-working students is equal to what they would get in a quality first-year survey course, but I don’t think it is harder. </p>
<p>I do get a fair amount of pressure from parents who expect their kids to get high grades. I tell them at the beginning of the year that most students tend to earn Cs, and that I think that is a reflection of their developmental readiness to do college level work as 16-year-olds. Frankly, I would say at least a third of them would be better served in a mid-level honors course, be we do not have one.</p>
<p>I’m the one who said in an earlier post that top students in our school often get some of their work done in other classes…but they know better than to try it in mine. I didn’t mean to recommend the tactic, it was just an observation about something that I know occurs.</p>
<p>ReneeV, I know you addressed your question to GFG, but I’ll respond additionally, because I think it’s a fair question to ask in general.</p>
<p>Yes, I think it’s appropriate. A couple of reasons for this:</p>
<p>(1) The original intent was to model a college course, as I said earlier. While an entire single college course might not be <em>as</em> difficult as a single highly challenging h.s. AP course such as GFG describes & such as I experienced, the scope of a demanding 4-yr college in general will include significant challenge; it’s just that the h.s. course telescopes that challenge into a shorter time frame – from 4 yrs. to 1 yr. </p>
<p>(2) The practicalities of higher education is that there’s a certain amount of initial competency/functional fluency that one needs to have handy, given greater volumes of info to digest at that level, than the volume presented in high school. To parallel this, on the elementary level, the most competent early readers are those who have been well-immersed, over-prepared if you will. I think there are other examples that will come to mind from your educational training & experience.</p>
<p>(3) We all have to remember that the brain continues to develop throughout h.s. & college, so that what one will be capable of in college (esp. if the cognitive seeds have taken root by then), will be experienced as more challenging at an earlier age. In a way that argues for, Why not wait? Well, because of the above 2 points! :)</p>
<p>My younger son just got a B+ in World History even though he got a 5 on the AP. Now I wish he was at one of those high schools that change your grade to an A if you get a 5 on the exam! I believe our AP courses fall somewhere in the middle as far as truly demanding vs. merely teaching to the test. The discussion and reading for the course was top notch, but I don’t think they wrote enough. They only had one long research paper for the whole year. But they did take it pretty seriously - a large contingent went into the city several times to use the resources of the New York Public Library. </p>
<p>I do want to make one point, while we would all like a great high school education for our kids, there is more to high school than just academics. I wanted my kids in a diverse community both economically and racially diverse. I also don’t think it’s particularly healthy to be going to a school where kids have no free time. I believe it’s a fallacy that the only way to be prepared for college is to go to a high school that is even more demanding than college. That’s the logic that got us giving homework to kindergarteners. For my older son at least, having spare time meant that he could teach himself computer programming at a level far beyond what any high school in the country (as far as I know) offers. I don’t think he missed out *that *much because he didn’t write as many research papers in AP US History as other schools make you do. (I think he had two biggish ones.)</p>
<p>To a degree, mathmom, I agree wtih you. And I certainly wasn’t advocating for every h.s. course to be as difficult as the one GFG describes, or as some I took. Perhaps some boarding schools do operate on that level. OTOH, there are students who really thrive in a healthy way on overall challenge, so I would argue for the opportunity both for what your son had, and for what others may wish. (Some are early, true scholars.) The fallacy comes where colleges begin to expect, because “challenge is provided” in the h.s., for every single student to have to meet the litmus test in maximum challenge in every subject before consideration of admission.</p>
<p>Btw, I think there are some misunderstandings in that regard. That’s a blanket policy statement on the part of admissions dep’ts. (“hardest courseload”) That’s what produces 10- and 12- AP-mania. Nevertheless, the applicant’s well defined & well articulated profile, in the coursework & in the application, is what cuts the mustard for admissions. Your son is a good example of someone who would be looked at for having pursued individual passion in his spare time. In my D’s case, the school wanted to showcase her & maximize her college admissions by pressuring her to take add’l AP math & science, beyond what she had taken – which already exceeded anything the Ivies recommend. She was a humanities emphasis student, despite her record in non-humanities subjects. She stuck to her guns & chose courses in her field in senior year. Her admissions results were better, i.m.o., than if she had posed as something else. Lots of other people on CC have posted similar histories.</p>
<p>As to the kindergarten example, it’s a poor example. 
No, the reason that homework has been given to K students is due to a poor understanding of the place & limits of homework, & the substitution of homework for excellent, thorough class instruction. (It’s not because of a belief that K should be more demanding than Grade One.) Zero homework is necessary at that stage. But again, reading preparation (at least in my state) is not what it was even 20 years ago, let alone earlier. So HW is being substituted for core teaching. (Part of that is due to teacher training, & there are add’l reasons, O/T.)</p>
<p>I remember my AP US History teacher, a septuagenarian Dr. So-and-so with History MA from UChicago and History BA from Oxy, declaring at the beginning of the year: “I will not assign take-home essays in this course. At this, basic stage, factual recall to build up the requisite foundation of knowledge is far more important than any so-called thinking skills you may or may not acquire. Most of you will eventually go on to MBA’s; to press upon you the rigours of in-applicable historiography is a futile exercise.” One particularly year, the entire class scored fives. </p>
<p>I largely concur with that sentiment. I don’t know what the scenario is largely at other institutions, but my school had certain unique beliefs: that organised sport invaluably built character and mental strength; that rugby, basketball, and rowing shall not be compromised by academic zealotry; and that the valedictorian be elected among the boys by secret ballot. School marks are independent of AP scores, and counselors have pushed back at parents (and boys) wanting over-rigorous senior year curricula. In short, if one places academics in its proper perspective, as an equal in the tripartite education of academics, athletics, and arts (as the headmaster does), one finds quickly that overly rigorous AP’s as described by the folks above me, are inoperative.</p>
<p>That no one has felt the need to test the school code by dying their hair blue, or mimicking counter-culture traits, or (forcefully) talking back at teachers, is testament to the health of those beliefs.</p>
<p>I guess my son would qualify as a “top student.” He graduated from MIT. So would my daughter, who graduated from Reed. They had and have full and active social lives.</p>
<p>What I saw as a parent and teacher is that the best students do NOT spend all their time studying. They don’t need to. School work comes easily to them. They have interests and passions and spend time on those, putting in enough time to make sure they understand all the work required of them.</p>
<p>I have a good friend who went from the Baltimore slums (his single mother worked as a waitress in a longshoremen’s bar) to a master’s in EECS from MIT. As an undergrad at MIT, he dated three women at the same time, spending enough time with all of them that they found the relationships rewarding. I never saw him study. NEVER. He did go to all his classes and attended study groups to get his problems sets done. Today he’s the CTO (Chief Technical Officer) at a major engineering company.</p>
<p>I do hope regional adcoms have a very good understanding of the climate in different high schools. For example, one thing some private schools in our area do that assists their students in developing good social relationships and EC involvement, is have a half academic day on Wednesdays. That afternoon each week is dedicated to club involvement. This way, every student has access to clubs with no worries about time, transportation, or scheduling conflicts with sports, etc… By contrast, in our high school all clubs meet after school. Thus, a varsity athlete really cannot participate in clubs because of a conflict with practice after school each day. In some schools, usually smaller ones, it is possible to be in both marching band and a fall sport. Due to the intensity of both at our school, it cannot be done. In general, athletic participation in larger schools is more competitive and demanding. A varsity athlete at one school is most definitely not the equivalent of a varsity athlete at another school. </p>
<p>So, with our tough AP classes and club system, my kid will be hard pressed to look as good on paper as a student from another school.</p>
<p>So, here is my question. If its inate, this natural ability, from birth it seems, that some students don’t have to study more than others to get the top grades, why are they then considered the “top” students?</p>
<p>What about the student who works hard, really has to stretch and push themselves, and gets Bs, beyond their “natural” born abilities.</p>
<p>Its interesting that those that are “born” smart are the “top” while those that have to really work at it and don’t get the “top” grades, are not considered when it comes to social life, work ethic, and the like. </p>
<p>So if you are lucky enough to not have to study, and it comes easy, why is that somehow more valued than if you are a student who has a 3.0 but works at it, as its not “natural”.</p>
<p>I personally have more respect for those that have a harder time but are truely putting all they have into it and get that lowly “b”. They may have to put in more hours, ask for more help, get more stressed out, becuase its not so “natural” as those that pull straight As.</p>
<p>Yes, I know that its work to get those straight As, but those kids are often no harder working, don’t have better work ethics, then the B students who study, volunteer, work, do sports, etc.</p>
<p>My younger daughter is a 3.0 student, by no means a “top” student, however, she pushes herself, is super invoived, would contribute alot to whatever college she goes to.</p>
<p>It like watching the natural athlete, with the long legs and woohooing when they win, while not cheering on the kid who may not come in the top ten, but who is working the bottom off.</p>
<p>Why is the former somehow more honored then the later?</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that some AP’s take a semester long college course and stretch it out over an entire year of high school. So kids who do Calculus AB as a yearlong course, or who only cover either the micro or macro sections of economics may indeed have a course that actually requires less work per night than the equivalent college course.</p>
<p>Epiphany, you may be right that Kindy homework makes up for poor teaching, but I’ve heard comments from both teachers and parents that they want more homework in the early grades to get kids used to doing homework.</p>
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<p>My kids’ schools have always loaded up on homework. No matter their grade, the explanation was always “to get them ready for the next grade/middle school/high school/college.”</p>
<p>We were told in kindergarten to expect 15 mins of assigned hw per week, plus reading every day. </p>
<p>After K, we were told to expect 15 mins per day per grade. 1st grade = 15 mins, 2nd grade = 30 mins, all the way up to 12th grade = 3 hours. And sure enough, so far, it’s turned out that way. Not exactly, not every day, but by and large, the average is 15 mins per day per grade.</p>
<p>Got to say that I’m surprised by the terms “homework” here. My D who just graduated from a school that does quite a good job with their students scoring well on APs rarely had “homework.” She had reading and papers. Somehow I never though of that as homework. I though of it as being a scholar.</p>
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<p>Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Whenever I go to the supermarket I don’t consider myself a grocery shopper. I’m actually a family nutrition procurement specialist.</p>