@GraceDad Thanks for the information. You are really on top of things:-). When you say fall of next year, do you mean fall of 2017? When I looked ta your link, it wasn’t clear.
@dancing1 It definitely will not be this fall (2016). I’m assuming implementation of any changes to the core curriculum would happen the fall of 2017. I suppose it depends on the feedback they get from the draft report that was issued. If the opinions are evenly divided, both for and against, I’m assuming it could delay the process.
It looks like the Core Curriculum Review is complete and was approved on 11/17/16. The final version is consistent with all of the previous drafts as it relates to AP credits.
Changes have been approved that means you will be unable to use AP Credits to satisfy Core Curriculum Requirements in the future. It will be up to each to each department to determine if AP Credits will be accepted to satisfy the requirements of each major.
I am assuming that the current policy of accepting AP credits will remain in place until the changes to the Core Curriculum are made starting with students entering the University in the Fall of 2018. If you are in the class of 2017 and the AP credit issue is a important to you, you may want to contact the University to clarify that the change to acceptance of AP credits related to satisfying core curriculum requirements will not change in the upcoming year.
Below is a link to the entire report if anyone is interested.
^^OUCH. I think that’s a shame. My D is in Arts & Letters and was able to use her AP Calc score to test out of the math requirements. It was so nice to have a cushion, and also to have room in her schedule to take some interesting electives. This is kind of a bummer.
@suzy100 ND said they recognized that taking away the AP credits would cause some to lose flexibility, so they are trying to build in the flexibility by changing some of the Core as well as making some Majors change their requirements. For example, one Engineering major allowed a person to only take 1 elective because there was so many required courses. I think the report said that all majors must set their requirements in a way that would allow a person to be able to take 3 electives. Not totally sure.
I tried to wade through that report and did see that, @GraceDad. Hard to understand how it will shake out for the kids. My D18 is interested in ND so I’ll be interested to see what this would mean for her. Thank you for the information!
I agree @Suzy100. I wonder if there will be an impact on admissions. My current student took 10 APs in high school (all 5’s and 1 4), but only 4 counted at ND. Every other school he looked at would have taken all 10 for credit. Interesting.
I researched this a bit further and found this article in the ND student newspaper. It states that the changes will apply starting with the 2022 class so I guess the AP credits are safe for the incoming class of 2021.
I think Notre Dame is not alone with abandoning AP credit. I remembered that a few years ago, Dartmouth made the same decision. Here’s a couple of articles on this very topic: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/18/dartmouth-end-use-advanced-placement-scores-credit
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/education/dartmouth-stops-credits-for-excelling-on-ap-test.html
http://www.marketplace.org/2013/02/20/education/more-colleges-stop-giving-credit-ap-exams
The condensed version, for those who don’t want to wade through all of those articles is that Dartmouth gave their own final psych exam to students who had received fives on their AP exam and ninety percent of them failed the test. Which essentially lead the researchers to conclude that ““There’s a strong feeling that the high school courses, while valuable – and there was no sense that these were not good courses – but they were not the same as a Dartmouth credit,” said Registrar Meredith Braz(IHE)” and also:“We want a Dartmouth education to take place at Dartmouth,” says school spokesman Justin Anderson (Marketplace).
But:“Even if some top schools aren’t giving college credit, AP tests look good on high school transcripts. So they may not let students get out of freshman year, but they’ll help them get into college in the first place. (Marketplace)”
As students take more and more APs, it is clear that getting credit for say, TEN classes, and being an academic sophomore is not really the same taking those classes in a college setting. I think selective colleges will still like to see students challenging themselves with AP classes for admission, and that won’t change. I also think a student who has skills in a subject will be able to PLACE out of courses, just not get CREDIT for them. But that colleges like Notre Dame believe that freshmen, who by and large haven’t set in stone their major, benefit from taking core classes in a variety of subjects. Especially, since there is a greater variety and depth of subjects at colleges like Notre Dame. And as in an example from the NDsmcobserver article posted above by @CuriousDad2021, a mechanical engineering major who had tested out of English WOULD benefit from a college writing class taught in a college. Writing is a skill most jobs need, and need a proficiency in. I think the point of taking away AP credits is to make sure Notre Dame is providing a liberal arts eduction to the students.