<p>Just curious, why would a high school care if a student took the AP exam or not? If a student did not plan on expemting the freshman courses anyway, why pay the money for the exam?</p>
<p>Because of the Newsweek high school ranking that comes out once a year, based on the (ridiculous) "Challenge Index" devised by Jay Mathews. The more students you have who take AP exams (regardless of outcome), the higher the school's ranking will be. </p>
<p>I'm sure some schools don't care about it, but many do. </p>
<p>My S's school requires that those taking AP courses take the corresponding exams, and has been paying for the exams. I think there's a lot to like about making a student take a corresponding AP exam, but I'm not a fan of the way the Newsweek ranking is done.</p>
<p>Wow, at AP Chinese Language. That's the most loltastic thing I've seen all day.</p>
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Makes one wonder what percent of students are readers -- by that, I mean how many read for pleasure on top of 3 or 4 AP classes, ECs, etc. Also, isn't Calc BC the second semester, not the second year?
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<p>Haha, I thought you meant AP readers (graders)...</p>
<p>Calc BC maybe is second-year for HS, but a slight combination of all three semesters at the college-level. I suppose it depends on how school structures the course. My bloody high school (it will take me a while to say "former") had AB structured over the whole year, grrr.</p>
<p>I haven't read many books for pleasure recently, but namely because reading online has become much more convenient. If we didn't like to read for pleasure I'd assure you it'd be way less easy to self-study for 16 AP courses and get 5's in all of them, because we'd have no background in the courses we were self-studying. ;)</p>
<p>As I understand it, AB calc is one semester of college calc, spread over one year. BC is two semesters, so it goes at the rapid college pace. Our HS offers multivariable as a next course for those who take AP calc as juniors and want to move on while in HS.</p>
<p>I can understand the reason a school wants all its students to take the AP exams, but it is not fair and deters students from attempting the course.</p>
<p>Plus why should you spend the money on the exam if you realize what you want to major in won't be helped by credit in that subject? If you end up being a computer science major, there is a limit to how many humanities credits will count towards your degree, yet you may be happy you took AP level histories instead of regular.</p>
<p>Another example-- my son's AP Chem teacher recommended you retake Chem in college if you are majoring in it, so you get their method of doing labs and so forth. So his recommendation was to think twice about paying for the AP exam.</p>