<p>vienna man many elite universities are decreasing the amount of credit they give for APs. MIT gives very little, Stanford is significantly decreasing the amount they give and I’m sure many more are doing the same.</p>
<p>Universities can decide what sort of credit that they grant transfer students. Someone who has two years at an accredited small college, and is transferring to NYU for instance, may find that only half of her classes are allowed for credit, although the other half may place her into an upper level class- * dependent on approval of dept head and instructor*.
Depending on her major, and what NYU knows of her college, they may barely take any of her courses, or place them in the “elective” category. ( and these would be courses from an accreditted college- not AP courses)</p>
<p>( I am just using NYU as an example-
but look at it this way- her degree is going to say NYU, not small college that no one has heard of- the more credits that they allow her to apply, will be fewer credits that she actually earns at NYU- so less tuition money to pay to NYU and less hands on knowledge of what their graduates degrees actually consist of.</p>
<p>If I was a school, like my daughters school Reed for instance- I would probably do what they do.
Few AP credits are allowed towards graduation, you can place into upper division language courses by taking a test and talking with the prof, but for things like Calculus, it is recommended that you take it at Reed * by the students who have been there, not just the school*, because there is a certain body of knowledge that you need to have, and an AP lit class taught by a public high school teacher to a class of 16 year olds, will be a different animal than a humanties class taught by a college professor to students who have had to prove that they could benefit from the rigor of the college.</p>
<p>And why would you want to give up the chance to take a class from a prof like Wally?</p>
<p>( from one of the CC students Whitneylm- who ended up @ Reed)
*Reed is an academic heaven for me. I love my classes. I love my professors. I ended up getting paired up with Wally Englert as my advisor (he’s also my Greek teacher) and have come to the conclusion that he’s the most amazing man in the entire universe (and the nicest). One of the funniest things was coming to Reed worried about finding a major (in the lettre Reed had me write to my advisor I think I talked about that being the part of college that frightened me the most) and ended up deciding after the first week of classes that I was most definitely a Classics major. *</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone is dissing AP classes, while my older daughter didn’t have any at her school, she does wonder if having exposure to the breadth of material in an AP class could have been helpful to prepare for college.</p>
<p>Her sister has taken one AP class last year as a sophomore, and another class that would qualify as a college course in some schools, but the instructors didn’t like the way the AP course was spelled out, so it is an honors course not AP. BUt I wont suggest to her that she use any of her upper division courses as replacement for courses required for college graduation, because I don’t want her to miss out on the full experience.</p>
<p>what about being just a number at huge privates like nyu and bu, that will be approaching $50,000 per year, when you could go to your large state school?</p>
<p>A few of the very best state universities, such as UVa, UNC-Chapel Hill, and the top California schools, are comparable in quality to the big privates such as NYU and BU.</p>
<p>But if personalized attention is a student’s top priority, and if the student does not intend to major in one of the specialized subjects only offered at the larger universities, LACs are a better choice than either of these groups of schools, I think. </p>
<p>It all depends on what a particular student is looking for.</p>
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<p>Viennaman, you’ve changed the subject. Now you’re talking about something else. Now you’re talking about the expense of college. But as has been expressed by others on this thread, not everybody worries about the expense.</p>
<p>For example, I know people who go to top schools on need-based full rides. So honestly, what do they care about the expense? They’re not paying anyway. I see that you also talk about how the need-based financial aid system will collapse if the AP system isn’t fixed. I highly doubt that is a serious concern for the top schools. For example, I know people who went to Harvard on full (need-based) rides. Given Harvard’s $26 billion endowment, I highly highly doubt that Harvard is going to collapse in our lifetimes. The need-based rides that Harvard provides is nothing more than a rounding error. The same happens with need-based rides at other rich schools such as Stanford, Yale, MIT, Princeton, Columbia, etc. All of these schools have more money than God. Even many of the LAC’s such as Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Wellesley have well over a billion dollars in endowment, and thus have gigantic endowments on a per-capita basis. </p>
<p>Hence, vienna man, what you actually mean to say is that those particular schools who are poor might potentially collapse. But that’s a far cry from saying that the system as a whole will collapse. There are a LOT of extraordinarily wealthy schools out there who are in no danger of collapse. </p>
<p>Secondly, not all aid is need-based. A lot of it is still merit-based. My brother, for example, got a full merit ride, plus stipend, from Caltech. The truth is, he was (and still is) a star at math, and Caltech wanted him to matriculate there as opposed to elsewhere. Think of it this way. My brother could have probably gone to a state school like Berkeley that would have taken his AP’s. He probably could have graduated in 3 years, maybe 2.5. But Berkeley didn’t offer him any significant merit aid. And since we aren’t poor, he didn’t get any need-based aid either. So his choice was to go to Berkeley and pay for 3 years. Or go to Caltech for 4 years, and actually GET PAID. It was a complete no-brainer. </p>
<p>I also know people who have gone to Stanford on full athletic scholarships. Again, if you’re not paying a cent anyway, then what do you care about the cost? </p>
<p>The point is, you are harping on the cost of college, when the fact is, plenty of college students don’t pay a cent for college, and of those that do pay, some of them are so rich that they don’t care anyway. If you’re one of the Kennedy’s, you’re so rich that you don’t care how much Harvard costs.</p>
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<p>See, once again, you seem to be harping on the costs of private schools in relation to AP’s. However, what you haven’t factored in is that the top private schools are sometimes CHEAPER than public schools once financial aid is factored in. That’s because private schools tend to be far more aggressive when it comes to granting aid. For example, I know 2 people who are California state residents who got into both Berkeley and Harvard, and found out that Harvard was cheaper once financial aid was factored in. Basically, Harvard gave them full-rides in the form of grants, whereas Berkeley actually wanted them to take out loans. What would you rather do - go to Berkeley and have to go into debt, or go to Harvard for free? I will always remember one of them acidly saying that he had always dreamed of going to Berkeley, but he couldn’t afford it, so now he has ‘no choice’ but to go to Harvard.</p>
<p>Secondly, you talk about the relatively ‘low’ yields of the private schools. My question is, why are you picking on those particular private schools? Look at the yields of the top Ivies. Look at MIT. Look at Stanford. These schools all have yields well above 60% - far higher than the public schools. In fact, if anything, it’s actually the PUBLIC schools that often times find themselves ■■■■■■■■ for students. Berkeley is arguably the best public school in the country, yet it’s yield is only 40%. </p>
<p>Now, I know what you are going to say, you are probably going to go back to your point about how the LAC’s don’t offer grad/professional courses. However, I would once again point out that many universities don’t exactly offer these courses to their undergrads either. For example, Princeton has no professional courses at all. Harvard tightly restricts access to its professional courses to undergrads (again, I have never seen a Harvard undergrad in an HBS class). Many public schools are simply undergrad institutions with few if any grad or professional courses. </p>
<p>And besides, as I said before, many of the students at the LAC’s come from rich families - so rich that they don’t care how much it costs. Go visit the campus of Wellesley, or Amherst, or Williams, and you will note all of the Benz’s, Beamers, and Lexus’s parked in the student lots. Notice all of the students wearing Prada and Boss. Let’s face it. That’s a pretty wealthy demographic that these schools are serving. I don’t think these students’ families really care about how much the school costs. Hence, I don’t see any ‘admissions collapse’ on the horizon for these schools. </p>
<p>The point is, I really don’t see why the LAC’s are drawing your ire. Many of the problems you are citing are actually GENERAL problems that afflict a wide variety of schools.</p>
<p>Remember why LACs refuse to accept AP credit in the first place. It’s not to keep people behind. It’s because college classes are of a much higher caliber than high school classes. A high AP score does not equal a full understanding of the subject–the AP curriculum is limited. It’s made for high schoolers. Important advanced concepts are left out. I remember reading on these boards a while back about a study done at Harvard–students who had passed the AP science exams did no better in intro science college classes than their AP-less peers (link: <a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=511595[/url]”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=511595</a>)
The article shows that APs are no match for college classes. Is getting a masters in 5 years worth getting a diluted second-class education? I’d prefer to stay in college and actually get educated.</p>
<p>vm</p>
<p>the first sentence of post #17 is unclear to me. Please elaborate.</p>
<p>Also, its ironic that you should mention Emory in the same sentence as value prop. Emory is known as a school with good merit aid, i.e., big tuition discount for top stat kids. As sakky might say, why do they care if the cost is even $60k, as long as to them it is essentially free. And, regardless of college ranking, free = GREAT value prop, at least to me.</p>
<p>Your analogy to the housing bubble…while on the surface appears to make sense, you are ignoring the legions of foreign students who can and will pay full freight to HYPSM’s et al, to take a spot from an US student who chooses his/her state Uni instead.</p>
<p>I admit- we didn’t really condsider the admission rate as a criteria for a desirable school, or the yield rate, or even the graduation rate.</p>
<p>The college that D decided on only has a mere handful of graduate students-who are enrolled in the MALS program ( master of arts in liberal studies)</p>
<p>She was going for an undergrad degree, we were taking one step at a time.
Some of her friends after graduation have gone on to grad school, in Phd programs, you don’t necessarily have to get a masters first, that right there will save time & money if that is a concern.</p>
<p>I could draw some lurkers out by mentioning that by * percentage - not total #s of graduates * LACs are represented to a greater extent among those who have acheived a Ph.d,than graduates from universities, including Ivy schools.</p>
<p>Some schools like Caltech ( which is #1 in all disciplines in % of students who receive Phd) do have a graduate school but #2 Harvey Mudd, does not.</p>
<p>I dont think you need to attend a college that offers graduate school coursework to get a strong undergrad education, and I also dont think that you need to have even taken AP tests to be prepared for college ( providing you have taken a college prep curriculum)</p>
<p>Reading about the process of getting a kid into & through college and looking back on it now that my oldest has graduated, reminds me of reading a ton of books on child care, and then finding that what sounds like it makes sense, doesn’t play out that way in real life.</p>
<p>“Some schools like Caltech ( which is #1 in all disciplines in % of students who receive Phd) do have a graduate school but #2 Harvey Mudd, does not.”</p>
<p>Actually, HMC has the highest % in chemistry and the physical sciences.</p>
<p>Some LACs (Colgate, Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Wesleyan etc) have excellent professional placement rates.</p>
<p>The quality of AP classes was never an issue until the last few years when a critical mass of students began to make a real dent in the treasuries of colleges. The institutional hustle to denigrate AP is a very recent development. In England with the rigorous A-levels the first college degree is a three year experience for students en masse. For our best and birightest its should be a three year expereince here too. </p>
<p>What our best colleges are doing now is immoral in that, purely for fiscal reasons, we as a society have lose a full year of research potential for a Ph.D. or full year of practice for a lawyer or doctor, or full year of writing for a journalist. Society needs its best and brightest sooner and needs them to be exposed to advanced work as soon as possible. Tuition servitude, is the new slavery of the 2000s and it is amazing how docile everyone is in accepting the new paradign “that AP cannot match an introductory college level course” merely because the institutional apparatus of high prestige tuition hungry colleges proclaims it to be so.</p>
<p>One thing that is common and encouraged at LACs is independent study, which allows students with advanced standing to study a field/topic in depth, usually receiving closer attention from her advisor than one would from a professor at a graduate-level course.</p>
<p>Many top colleges offer students the opportunity to graduate in 3 years with AP credits, but most students still choose not to. If you look at schools like HYP, probably over 90% of students could graduate early, under those schools’ AP credit policies, if they chose to do so. Yet almost no one at HYP chooses to graduate early. Given this fact, it seems unlikely that top LACs (like Amherst) offering AP credit would lead to any change in student behavior. If top students forgo AP credit when it is a possibility, the opportunity to receive AP credit probably will not affect where they choose to go to school.</p>
<p>*“Some schools like Caltech ( which is #1 in all disciplines in % of students who receive Phd) do have a graduate school but #2 Harvey Mudd, does not.”</p>
<p>Actually, HMC has the highest % in chemistry and the physical sciences.*</p>
<p>I meant that when taking all the majors ** together** Caltech has the highest percentage who recieve their Phd in the slightly outdated numbers I was looking at. Harvey Mudd indeed does have the highest percentage of chemistry graduates and the highest number of graduates in the physical sciences who go on to receive their Phd ( or- you might say, of those students who bothered to reply back their info)
(While Reed * is *in the top 10 in every area noted, there are also other schools mentioned that you might want to look closer at- University of Hawaii at Hilo , in linguistics for example)
<a href=“http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html[/url]”>http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a></p>
<p>Society needs its best and brightest sooner and needs them to be exposed to advanced work as soon as possible.
Um What?
You mean like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Neither has even a BA :)</p>
<p>In * my opinion*?
What society * needs* are thinkers outside the box, those who can see and work across disciplines and who have a sense of history as well as responsibilty to those who come after.</p>
<p>I don’t think a holistic vision comes from piling on narrowly focused classes.
Are we so desperate for doctors and lawyers that we need to push as many of them through graduate school as quickly as possible?
Not in my neck of the woods.</p>
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<p>See, Vienna Man, there you go again in conflating a number of separate issues. </p>
<p>First off, I highly highly doubt that the top schools are doing what they are doing solely for the sake of gaining extra tuition. I mean really - the top schools tend to have more money than God. Take Harvard’s $26 billion endowment. Do you honestly think that Harvard really cares about picking up some extra tuition here and there? Whatever they might get is just a rounding error compared to just the INTEREST on what Harvard makes from its endowment. </p>
<p>Furthermore, if the goal was for these schools to just get extra tuition, there are far easier ways to do it. Just open up more open-enrollment summer classes or tuition classes. For example, Harvard Summer School is open to all. Plenty of people take classes there just to be able to say that they “studied” at Harvard (even if it’s just the Summer School). This is a far easier way for the top schools to make extra tuition if that really was their goal. After all, nobody “needs” to go to summer school. So the people who want to pay to do so are making a free-market choice. </p>
<p>Furthermore, in some cases, not allowing somebody to accelerate actually COSTS schools money. That’s right, it COSTS money. I’m talking about those students who are getting full rides either because of merit or because of need. I knew some students who were on full-rides at Harvard. Harvard clearly lost money on these students for every year that they were there, so you would think that Harvard would have had the incentive to graduate them as quickly as possible and get them off the books. Nope - they were allowed to stay the full four years, all on Harvard’s dime. </p>
<p>I also strongly dispute your contention of ‘tuition serviture’ supposedly being the new slavery. How is that? Like I said, if you’re poor, you pay nothing. And if you’re good (whether rich or poor), you can surely get a full merit ride from somewhere. That’s what my brother did - got a full merit ride at Caltech. The point is, nobody is forcing you into “tuition servitude”. If you can’t afford a school then don’t go there. If you’re not good enough to get a full merit ride somewhere, then that’s not really the fault of the school. </p>
<p>Personally, I think you are harping on such a small problem in the grand scheme of things. You talk about how society is losing a full year’s worth of Phd research potential or lawyer/doctor’s work. Well, if that’s what you’re really worried about, you have far far bigger fish to fry out there. For example, at even the top schools, there are some students who are basically not interested in studying and are more interested in partying and lounging around. George Bush, for example, has freely admitted that he was just a lazy fratboy at Yale who more interested in partying and goofing off than in studying. I’m not trying to be partisan, as John Kerry got even lower grades at Yale than Bush did and has admitted that he was more interested in learning how to fly airplanes than he was in his classes. Al Gore and the Kennedy’s were also rather mediocre students at Harvard, with Ted Kennedy actually having been caught cheating on a test. Yet Bush, Kerry, Gore, and the Kennedy’s all graduated anyway.</p>
<p>Nor is this sort of thing peculiar only to politicians who were students decades ago. I knew a guy who took a class at Berkeley for which he never showed up to class, never did any of the reading, and basically did nothing at all for the class. All he did was, for the 2 course papers he had to hand in, instead of actually reading the assigned books, he would simply go to Amazon.com and read the user reviews of those books, and then reword those reviews into a paper. He got an A- in the class, and the only reason he didn’t get a full A was because he never went to class, and part of the grading was based on class participation. I will always remember him laughing and how “proud” he felt that he was able to get such a good grade for doing basically no work. </p>
<p>I know another guy who took a class for which almost all of the grading was based on a report based on a set of books he was supposed to read. The paper was due on a Friday. He didn’t start reading the books until Sunday. No, not the Sunday before the due date. I’m talking about the Sunday AFTER the paper was due. Basically, the guy didn’t do ANYTHING for the class for the entire semester and just spent the whole semester drinking and hanging out with his girlfriend. Yet he was able to plead for an extension on his paper, and banged together something by the following Wednesday that was good enough for him to earn an A- in the class. I don’t even want to start talking about the scandals associated with student-athletes. </p>
<p>The problem is twofold. #1 - a lot of college students are, frankly, quite lazy and uninterested in actually learning anything. And, #2, there really are classes at even the best schools where you really can get high grades for doing very little work. </p>
<p>The point is, if you really want to talk about social optimality and about wasted tuition, what about all those students who just take their parent’s money and just lounge around and do nothing, not trying to learning anything? And what about all those schools that provide college degrees to people who really haven’t learned much of anything at all? If anything, I would argue that these problems are far more important and socially suboptimal than anything to do with whether a school confers AP credit or not.</p>
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<p>I think that svalbardlutefisk has hit the nail right on the head. Most students simply aren’t interested in graduating early. The issue extends beyond college. After all, most of the top students in the US could have probably easily graduated from high school early if they really wanted to. Most of them choose not to. </p>
<p>My take on the situation is simple. I think that the US system is pretty good because it offers a wide variety of choices. Some schools offer AP credit and thus a way to graduate early. Others don’t. If you don’t like those kinds of schools, fine, don’t go to them. Nobody has a gun to your head. Go to a school that fits you. But if other people want to go to that school, then they should be allowed to do so unmolested. But schools should be free to offer a variety of educational choices.</p>
<p>In my opinion, AP courses in some subjects, particularly the sciences, have ALWAYS been inferior to courses at top colleges in the same subjects.</p>
<p>I base this opinion mostly on a rather unusual personal experience.</p>
<p>When I was in high school, I took AP Biology. Halfway through the year, there was a serious fire in the high school building, which completely destroyed the AP Biology classroom and all the materials for the course. My class was unable to complete the AP curriculum.</p>
<p>So when I got to college (Cornell, as I mentioned in an earlier post), I took introductory biology. I expected that about half of the year-long course (the half in which the course focused on topics that my AP Biology class had covered before the fire) would be a breeze. Boy, was I wrong. Even when the Cornell course was covering topics that I had covered in the AP course, the breadth and depth of the material covered were much greater, the pace of the course was faster, the examinations were more difficult, and the laboratory work was far more extensive and sophisticated. I had to work hard in that course even when I was “repeating” a topic – and even harder when we were studying the topics that I had missed because of the fire.</p>
<p>Why were there few complaints about AP courses being inferior to college courses until recently? I think there are two likely explanations. First, back when only a small number of students took AP courses, their lesser preparation might have been overlooked. It might take many years for professors to realize that students who placed out of an introductory course because of AP credit were more likely than others to struggle in second-level courses. Second, back when only a small number of students took AP courses, the kids who did take them tended to be outstanding students. Because of their general competence, they would be better able to make up for deficiencies in their preparation than less-qualified students might be.</p>
<p>vienna man:</p>
<p>The vast majority of med schools will not accept AP credits in lieu of actual college work. If an applicant APs’ out of intro Bio, for example, s/he’ll need to take an advanced Bio course to demonstrate mastery of the material.</p>
<p>To further sakky’s point…if H did go to a 3 year curriculum, it would still be full of kids. They could just expand by another 1,500 kids, and volia, still have 6,000 students.</p>