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<p>This is a disservice to the best students in math. Students who are two years ahead of the normal sequence (taking calculus as high school juniors) should be the top students in math who should be capable of handling college pace math (i.e. all of calculus BC in one year). When I was in high school, such students were uncommon, and tended to find calculus BC an easy A in the course and an easy 5 on the AP test (most calculus students were seniors who were one year ahead, and the high school only offered BC at the time, though it added AB later).</p>
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<p>The issue is that many of the newer AP courses/tests are “AP lite” courses/tests, which, as you say, are not truly college-pace courses (e.g. taking a year to cover what is normally a one semester college course), or not even covering material at a level that colleges tend to give subject credit for (e.g. AP human geography).</p>
<p>Indeed, they are examples of AP “mission creep” away from its original purpose of allowing the most advanced students to avoid repeating what they know in college and toward defining a college prep high school curriculum. AP human geography may be a good high school frosh/soph social studies course, but to say that it is college level work is misleading.</p>