<p>Cobrat, why not simply post a link to Stuyvesant? There has been no problem in identifying the school in discussions about organized cheating (recently) and in the distant past about how Princeton’s guru of admissions shunned the school. </p>
<p>The school is hardly comparable to many high schools, and accordingly, the curriculum and progression of students is not more relevant to general discussions than it would be to discuss what classes juniors take at Deerfield or Exeter.</p>
<p>Here’s a reality. There are multiple pathways to success in applications at selective schools. For some, that path includes attending a high school that places its eggs in the AP basket and offers “obscene” numbers of the TCB boondoggle. For others, that path includes serving large helpings of the IB Koolaid. Those first are mostly the domain of the public high schools, and especially their magnet version. And then, you have schools who do not preclude students to dig deep in the AP well, but are not endorsing the programs to the extent it strangles its superior core of advanced and honors classes. That is mostly the domain of highly selective (and often pricey) private schools. And, last but not least, you have schools that do not share the “luster” of magnet schools nor the prestige of pricey private schools and offer a limited version of some programs. At such schools, there is a natural progression that makes AP an afterthought until junior or even senior year.</p>
<p>Peel multiple layers of the successful applications, and you will find that all categories are well represented — which supports the notion that the average numbers APs for enrolled students at the best schools is much lower than the silly dozen or more that are accumulated by some for a number of misguided factors.</p>
<p>xiggi–our kids go to a lowly public school and kids start taking AP in 9th grade here too. Sophomore year when most kids take biology they can at AP Bio, Honors Bio, Biology or Intro to Biology, same junior year with Chem and Physics senior year (among other choices). It’s pretty much standard for the districts around here for college bound kids to take a full load of AP’s junior and senior year and have 1-2 AP’s freshman year and 2 or 3 sophomore year.</p>
<p>I do not doubt it, but it does not make it any less ridiculous. </p>
<p>Over the past, I have written about high schools that could not crack an average 500 on any of the SAT subjects but offered an extensive AP program, or adopted the new “darling” on the block, namely the IB. Mediocre high schools have been especially attracted to an expanded AP/IB programs as it satisfies the desire of many parents and the faculty to create “schools within a school” and keep solid divisions for the better students and better teachers. What a system! </p>
<p>The desire and ability of students to take AP classes in the ninth grade speaks volumes about how the earlier noble intentions of a program has hopelessly spun out of control over the years. Give it time and we might see four years of AP Lite in middle school!</p>
<p>Our high school advanced track science students start in 8th grade with this sequence: Regents Bio, Regents Chem (honors), AP Physics B, and then AP Bio, and then AP Chem or AP Physics C, or AP Environmental Sci. </p>
<p>This means they are taking their first AP as sophomores, but since it’s a physics course that doesn’t require calculus and isn’t given credit by many colleges I’d say it’s a super light AP. The SAT average for our high school isn’t much above 500 - the SAT average for the cohort taking the advanced classes, however, is much higher.</p>
<p>Many students take Regents Earth Science which fulfils the physical science requirement and the Regent Living Environment (Bio) course.</p>
<p>Xiggi: “Peel multiple layers of the successful applications, and you will find that all categories are well represented — which supports the notion that the average numbers APs for enrolled students at the best schools is much lower than the silly dozen or more that are accumulated by some for a number of misguided factors.”</p>
<p>Exeter doesn’t even offer AP courses, feeling their own standard courses are more rigorous. Students may take AP tests but there will be no courses designated as AP on their transcripts. My guess is that they also want to avoid the hyper AP race you see at some high schools, with kids taking courses in which they have no real interest simply because they’ll get the extra AP boost for their GPAs.</p>
<p>I should also say that I took two AP tests in high school and received a 4 and 5 despite never having taken the AP classes. I went to a strong high school but in no way were my senior year classes as rigorous as my college courses. The whole notion that APs indicate that one is doing college level work is in my mind a fallacy for all but the weakest of colleges.</p>
<p>xiggi–well, our average SAT score at our high school is 1390 M/CR and our average ACT score is 25.1…with about 80% of the students taking the ACT and about 40% taking the SAT…does that meet muster with you? We had 652 AP scholars or better out of a junior/senior class of about 1000 this past year too, considering most senior take very few AP tests because most of the schools they attend don’t take AP credits, that’s a pretty respectable number I think, but maybe I am wrong.</p>
<p>First of all, you exaggerate that teachers are either wholly competent or incompetent. Some are selectively incompetent or biased (like the geometry teacher), others are just authoritarians who have never had their methods successfully questioned. It’s a lot easier to get administrative support when your kid is at or near the top of his class with 99th percentile standardized test scores which the school is reluctant to lose (the schools are rated on these stats).</p>
<p>Second, why do you assume we kept them there? We experimented with a number of alternatives to try to find a reasonable fit: My first son’s lottery magnet school was great, but they started him in 2nd (at kindergarten age) and still needed to grade skip him at mid-year; they advised us that they probably would have needed to grade-skip him almost every year to give him something new to learn. We thought that too disruptive so we tried a small free-form private school but essentially ended up paying for the privilege of having my son teach his classmates most of the time. So we moved to homeschooling, which was not a problem for us since I was self-employed working from home and my spouse was a certified K-9 teacher. The second son was painfully shy as a child so we homeschooled him first, then tested him into the public gifted school of his choice and eventually moved him to a public charter school with online learning 4 days a week.</p>
<p>Both attended a nearby high school that understood our unusual situation and was willing to work with us. The school was, in large part, a neighborhood school with a small selective magnet program. The magnet program attracted superb experienced teachers from elsewhere, who really wanted to teach rather than babysit; usually you found them teaching AP classes and a few select honors classes. Most of the teachers I wrote about were gone within two years, so the principal obviously had some clout and was working hard to raise the quality of his staff, but this takes time. For every “bad apple” I mentioned there were several others who were really exceptional, going well above and beyond their duties because they truly cared.</p>
<p>Steve,
The only school in MA with scores that high is not exactly a standard public school. I won’t be more specific because I don’t want to disclose where I think your kids could go to school, but my point is that I think you’re comparing your apples to Xiggi’s oranges. Either that or you have the numbers wrong.</p>
<p>Or…I don’t live in MA :D. My numbers are from our high school profile, they are most certainly right and it’s just a regular old public school where kids and families care about getting an education-no applications or magnet status.</p>
<p>Indeed, and that is why I mentioned the “comparison” with Stuyvesant in the post you quoted, as well as “And then, you have schools who do not preclude students to dig deep in the AP well, but are not endorsing the programs to the extent it strangles its superior core of advanced and honors classes.”</p>
<p>The hyper race for grabbing as many AP badges as possible is far less important at selective schools than at the public high schools.</p>
<p>Uh-huh. Did you attend suburban public schools? Where do you think the best teachers end up teaching? The hierarchy of teachers’ choices pretty much runs: elite private school, suburban school in affluent suburb, suburban school in less affluent suburb, magnet urban school, neighborhood urban school, inner city urban school. The reasons are obvious: better prepared, less disruptive students; slightly smaller class sizes; less unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses; parent volunteers who help in classroom or organizing tasks; and similar or better pay than the alternatives.</p>
<p>Steve, your education world seems a lot more blessed than in the Texas I know. Lowly high schools in the “West” do not get close to 1400 M/CR. Heck they’d be happy with 1300, 1200, 1100, 1000, or even 900. </p>
<p>We may have different definitions of what is lowly. :)</p>
<p>Cobrat: “Only a minority of kids at my HS did it that way. If one was going to go AP, the common tendency was to substitute AP courses for one or more of the non-AP equivalents from 9th grade on.”</p>
<p>I should have said that the track I showed was the standard advanced track. In general, AP courses were not encouraged for freshmen. The first AP option really comes with World History, in sophomore year, I believe.</p>
<p>Xiggi- yup, I was agreeing with you. Exacerbating the problem are the ratings that rank high schools by the number of APs taken regardless of whether those APs result in any college credit.</p>
<p>^ Oh yes, I realized you agreed. It so happens that schools such as Exeter can resist the pressures of parents and other parties who might become enamored with advanced programs. Also they do not have to adorn AP/IB “badges of honor” to their faculty’s lapels, nor do they have to honor the WaPo/Newsweek luminary and his moronic HS ranking.</p>
<p>Naturally. The Ivy-League-feeder schools are already well-known for their quality education. How else does a lessor school get on the radar with top colleges if they only send students there once in a blue moon? AP test scores, like SAT/ACT scores, can provide national benchmarks that help students in lessor-known high schools compete with those who could afford to attend the more prestigious ones.</p>
<p>Physics is not now nor has ever been a requirement for an advanced regents diploma. An advanced regents diploma requires 2 regents based sciences along with passing the associated labs and regents exams. A student can pass living environment and earth science (at my D’s middle school were both given and student rec’d high school credit) and still have fulfilled the requirements for an advanced regents diploma.</p>
<p>In addition, there are schools that give non regents based physics.</p>
<p>Even at a magnet school (I attended one of the big 3 also and also worked at one) 4 years of science is not required for a NYS advanced regents diploma. </p>
<p>The big 3 will give out a “Tech” “Stuy” “Bx Science” diploma, which they may require 4 years including physics, but the student can choose not to take it. </p>
<p>The student will still receive an advanced regents diploma (as long as they now have 3 math and 2 science regents along with 3 years of foreign language and the Lote) , the school must still graduate the student as a code 47 (or code 62 if it is an advanced regents diploma with honors.</p>
<p>The number of years you cited might have been my extrapolating from my own HS’s graduation requirements.
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<p>Again, this is not true and I probably graduated from my specialized high school, before you got out of elementary school.</p>
<p>The requirements for a advanced regents diploma just changed with the graduating class of 2010 (when the 3 course math sequence became a requirement), then again with the last administration of the Foreign language regents exam in June 2011 (it is now called the LOTE). otherwise, the regents requirements have been the same for decades.</p>
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<p>Again, not true because as long as the student has met the city’s requirement for graduation, the school must grant them a diploma and must allow them to participate in graduation. At the time you and I were in high school, they were still distributing local diplomas. If the student met the requirement for a local diploma, they must still be allowed to graduate, because the state and the city both issued local diplomas. </p>
<p>I know kids (then and now) who went to graduation, and did not get the “stuy” “tech” “bx science” diploma, but received advanced regents, regents and local diplomas. they were still allowed to participate in graduation, got the diploma on the last day of school and went off to college. No high school in NYC is going to take a ding on their grad rate by having a kid who is eligible for a diploma not have the student graduate and receive a diploma.</p>
<p>", why not simply post a link to Stuyvesant? There has been no problem in identifying the school in discussions about organized cheating (recently) and in the distant past about how Princeton’s guru of admissions shunned the school. </p>
<p>The school is hardly comparable to many high schools, and accordingly, the curriculum and progression of students is not more relevant to general discussions than it would be to discuss what classes juniors take at Deerfield or Exeter."</p>
<p>No kidding. Cobrat, how many schools in the country offer a psychopharmacology class? Or Japanese? Precious few.</p>