<p>If an AP class is intended to mimic a college class, there should be some students who fail. Not because they are not prepared, but because they have reached the level where it has become difficult. Part of our problem is grade inflation - we are so concerned that everyone should be able to get an A, but what does an A represent? What should a 5 on the AP exams represent, if a 3 is passing? A 3 should be equivalent to a C in a college level course - and if elite colleges choose not to award credit for that C, so be it. Yes, it is passing, but if you’re transferring from a CC to an engineering or other technical school, is the C in Calc I going to prepare you for more advanced classes?</p>
<p>Some of the score distributions can be explained easily - I know of many high schools that offer Calculus as 2 classes. AB taken first as a Junior, and then followed by BC senior year. The students that don’t do well in AB don’t go on to BC, so that knocks out the low scorers in the BC class. Then when they take the BC exam, they have spent 2 years studying the material - they’re taking 2 years to complete a 1 year sequence of classes. This is also the case with many of the non-STEM courses. Yes they are rigorous, but are they completing a full year of college study? In most cases, no. They are taking a full year to complete a 1-semester class. This is not in fact preparing them to the rigor of college level classes which will move twice as fast.</p>
<p>Are they covering that semester’s worth of material? Yes. As such, they should place out of an equivalent college class - if the college they are attending has a course that is equivalent. As others have already said, there seems to have been some creep in terms of the purpose of AP classes. They were originally intended to allow placement, and perhaps to allow gifted students more advanced (though not necessarily more rigorous) classes. They allowed HS students a taste of the level of learning done in college, but not necessarily to prepare them for college any more than a traditional college-prep class would.</p>
<p>It does bother me that so many schools are offering these classes to freshmen and sophomores - it suggests that schools don’t have an appropriate curriculum for their more advanced students. If so many HS Freshmen are really ready for college level classes, then why are they still in high school? I would argue that any student taking a string of 5 AP classes in one year should have completed the requirements to graduate HS, and should be a college student. Those taking 1 or 2 math/science APs, while completing HS english and history makes sense. Those taking 1 or 2 non-STEM APs, while completing HS math and science also makes sense. Those students have not learned all they need in HS yet )particularly given the large percentage of new college students who seem to be unprepared.</p>
<p>I think part of the problem is that we allow these HS students to believe that they have been working at a college level. Some are, but most are not. They are going in with advanced standing, and starting with upper level college courses - having never taken a true college level class, taught at the regular college pace. Is that not a disservice?</p>