AP test score = higher class grade?

Parents Forum
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<p>it is possible to have a good, bad, or mediocre intellectual experience in an AP class. It is possible to have a good, bad, or mediocre intellectual experience in a non-AP class. It is possible to have a good, bad, or mediocre intellectual experience in a college class. But whatever your feeling about AP classes, I think most of us can agree that high school grades are a function of very different inputs than college grades. Day to day factors in high school courses (homework, attendence, participation, busywork, "sucking up") are a much larger component of grades than they are for college courses. College courses generally say, "here are the lectures, you can attend or not. Here are the assignments, you can do them or not". It is highly likely that the grade will depend entirely on the midterm and final. Is it possible to cram for the exams the night before and pass a college course without learning anything? Absolutely! But it is also possible to spend a lot of time in a high school course on stuff that is totally irrelevant to actually learning the subject.</p>

<p>Many (most?) kids are going to have AP scores and course grades that coincide pretty well, and this discussion is irrelevant to them. There are 2 groups who are likely to have a sharp disparity - the "Conscientious Plugger" of limited intellectual ability, and the "Lazy Smart Kid". Maybe every course should have 2 grades. One grade could be designed to measure effort expended, the other to measure level of knowledge and ability in the subject, however it was gained. Colleges could do with that whatever they wish. </p>

<p>I personally loathed high school, and found it to be a strong anti-learning and anti-intellectual experience (this was the pre-AP era). My sympathy is with the smart kid who can demonstrate mastery of a subject more easily than s/he can play the game that leads to good grades in high school.</p>

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<p>so long as the grade doesnot count for class rank and so long as your grade cannot be lowered, i don't see the problem. many profs assign class grades by the grade you receive on the final. </p>

<p>if you know up front, what's the difference? JMHO .... (i've got to figure out how to do smiley faces!)</p>

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<p>I could see adjusting the portion of the course grade attributable to the final test score for the AP test result. Afterall, that is basically what the AP test is for an AP course. However, I don't see the reason for changing the whole course grade unless the same policy holds for all final test scores.</p>

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<p>My history teacher did this. A 3 would get you an A for spring semester, a 4 or 5 an A for the year. </p>

<p>The teacher is one of the school's favorites, so most kids would do anything for him anyway. The school year was full of practice exams and essays, lots of reading from many different sources, and various presentations from students.</p>

<p>I benefitted from the AP score policy, but I have mixed feelings about it. In favor of it, it gives kids who may not be great participators a chance to "earn" their grade in a class whose sole purpose is to verse the student in knowledge relevant to the exam (and, perhaps as a byproduct, teach them a little something about history). It also gives them a chance to choose: do they want to participate in class and do the assignments, or bank on an exam that, for many, is their first exposure to AP? </p>

<p>On the other hand, it unfairly unbalances the class dynamic, in that there are always students who prefer to take the "easy" way out and put their grades on the back of a 3 hour exam. It also overemphasizes the need for knowledge of "things." It becomes a matter of "I don't need the teacher or the class", which means they don't participate and can be rude and detract from the learning processes of others, and erroneously suggests that going to class is irrelevant. That's the worst lesson to teach a teenager, as I know from experience. :D</p>

<p>Overall, I think the policy needs to be approached with caution. AP classes (especially in public schools) are watered down a great deal because all parents think their kids are special and deserve to be in the "advanced" course. They no longer serve their purpose: most top colleges give very limited credit/placement for top scores, and the class really doesn't prepare you for much material in college over the other. They no longer serve as a refuge for the 'smart' kids to be in a dedicated learning environment separate from the 'regular' classes. </p>

<p>I think grades are more than how you do on an exam. If the class is exam-based, then it only makes sense that the AP score trumps performance in the class (after all, the class is there to teach the exam). If the class is based on busy work, participation, presentations, papers and exams, however, the AP score should have no or very minimal effect. As undesireable as busywork is, it is part of the class and serves a purpose, if only to show that you're paying attention.</p>

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<p>The real reason teachers do this is they strongly believe this is their best motivating tool (and it doesn't go unnoticed that it pads their stats). Personally, I do not subscribe to this belief. I have lots of ways to motivate my students, and my students do a darn good job of motivating themselves. The reward is only real and one to be proud of when it is deserved. Kids know what a joke it is to do practically nothing and get rewarded because they are smart enough to have gotten something out of just their seat-time in class, can put in enough cram time, and are good test-takers. But, like everyone else, they will not look a gift horse in the mouth.</p>

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<p>Maize&Blue - are you related to Maize&Blue22? Interest contrast btwn your post and theirs (#6) on the "No Child Out Ahead" thread at
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=59000%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=59000&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>There are certainly dedicated an inspirational high school teachers. Perhaps you are one. But I think that in general, the more intelligent/intellectual/interested the student is, the larger the preponderance of their learning takes place outside of standard classroom work. Schools were designed to produce Industrial Revolution factory workers, not to light an intellectual fire under anyone. Teacher and student who are truly looking for an intellectual fire are swimming upstream. If smart kids can circumvent some of the stultifyingly boring Mickey Mouse stuff that goes on in high school by taking AP exams, it just gives them more time for their real education.</p>

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<p>Just an aside here...DD will be taking an AP exam this year. She is not taking a corresponding AP course. Under the OPs guidelines, would this mean that my DD could have an additional A added to her transcript if she gets a 5 on the AP test? Seems to me that should be the case if grades are awarded based on AP test results.</p>

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<p>M&B22 and I are not related. Must be someone who wanted the name but arrived a bit later than me. I do believe it is a current UM student. I'm a parent of a UM alum.</p>

<p>Well, I guess my students and I are swimming upstream. And we're having fun doing it, despite the occasional setbacks. Part of learning, part of life.</p>

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<p>My chem teacher and calc teacher promised to replace the students' grade if they get a 5,4,3. My APUSH teacher was really against it. I think it's kind of unfair that students with a five but a grade of B or C get a A for the year. It's not that I can't get a five or anything, but it's because I actually worked for the grade while many of kids who might get a five often skipped class to avoid tests. I will agree with the policy if the student got the highest percentage on the AP exam in our class. However, if the student wasn't that bright he/she has no right to receive an A. You earn an A, not because you had a good day or because you had good luck but because you actually did all the assignments.</p>

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<p>This policy is too idiotic for words. If we're going to give grades based on ability alone, why.not assign them according to IQ and be done with it. And while we're at it, let's shorten all college applications to three lines: name, address, SAT score.</p>

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<p>I think it is a great policy. It will help curb the GPA game.</p>

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<p>I find this discussion very interesting. I guess I come down on the side of the people who think the policy is fine. My rationale is that a college will not give you college credit for taking an AP class but they will give credit or placement for the actual AP score. So I guess in their eyes the AP score counts for more than the class grade.</p>

<p>Someone posted earlier that Stanford is moving away from awarding credit. However, they continue to accept the more scientific versions of the tests, i.e. Calculus AB, Physics, etc. Many college are moving away for awarding credit for AP classes but I think we should look more closely at those new policies and why they exist. But that is topic for another thread.</p>

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<p>This policy should be reserved only for those teachers whose courses are so poorly conceived and blandly taught that the AP exam really does become the best reflection of both the course's rigor and the breadth of learning that has taken place in the classroom. The problem with this policy is that it lends itself to the narrow, uninspired pedagogy that makes so many college lecture classes--the kind of classes where one's grade is dependent on one or two tests--so stultifying.</p>

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<p>Two summers back, I had a respectful disagreement with a young admissions representative at Swarthmore about AP scores and their value with regard to admissions decisions. He was a Swarthmore grad, about 25. He told a room full of parents and students that Swarthmore did not care if the student took the exam at all, just that they had taken the course due to the expected rigor involved. He was very adamant about this opinion. I was appalled as I am aware of many schools where AP courses are poorly taught (and syllabi not followed) and kids "earn" decent grades and never take this national/international exam to validate those grades. If a college intends to use SAT/ACT/SATII scores to even the playing field with GPA, it seems to me that AP scores do the exact same thing. </p>

<p>Note- This applies to underclassmen (scores for seniors are too late to matter to admissions): I explain to my students that their grade in my AP course reflects how well they met my standards in delivering the course syllabus, while the AP Exam score reflects how well they met the standards set forth by the writers and graders of the national/international exam (who are college professors and very experienced high school AP teachers, many of whom have written college texts in the subject). I tell them that it is up to the colleges to take my grade and their AP grade and draw their own conclusions. I cannot in good conscience provide an inaccurate record. As it is, my students already have a good idea of what that result will be as I use former AP Exam questions on all of my tests.</p>

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<p>maize</p>

<p>AP scores are not required by any college that I know of--nor should they be. Yes, some AP courses are poorly taught, but I like the respect for teachers implied by Swarthmore's position. They just assume that AP courses are rigorous and don't feel the need to inspect scores to validate the teacher's grade. As a teacher myself, this sort of validation would strike me as paternalistic and unprofessional. Also, I don't like the idea of making an adcom's job any easier by having them look at even more test scores, offering them yet another convenient means to blithely keep students from the "maybe" pile. One last word of warning: be very careful about what past AP materials you put on your exams. These materials are public and often circulate both on the web and, increasingly, among private tutors. I know it's convenient to use past AP materials, escpecially for math and science teachers, but I know many teachers who have run into trouble.</p>

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<p>Although I don't believe my APUSH teacher ever had any issues, my Spanish teacher once used some AP free response fill-in-the-blanks out of a a review book, and several low B students suddenly got 100s on that part of the test, which is quite difficult. She reevaluated what she did curved the grades so that part of the test was worth very little. She learned her lesson. :)</p>

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<p>spoonyj -</p>

<p>You and I are in the same boat regarding scores for teacher validation. This is not expected in my district. As more kids take AP courses, when keeping the standards high, lower scores will result and are expected. The bar is not coming down where I work and I am not evaluated by the numbers of passing scores. That would result in the gate-keeping that we oppose.</p>

<p>I would like colleges to view AP as an additional way to even the GPA playing field (for the applicants, not their teachers). That's why I oppose some of my fellow teachers' grade changing policies. My point is more along the lines of if the 100 or so selective schools that require the SAT II's, why not allow the use of the AP score in the same subject also. In fact, Middlebury lets the applicant submit 3 scores from the SAT II and AP spectrum (one verbal, one math, one of choice) instead of the SATI. And, if a student has a low SAT score in one area, why shouldn't a student submit high AP score offset that and have adcoms draw their conclusions?</p>

<p>BTW, warning already taken (for the past 7 years). I change important facets of the free response questions so those clever enough to memorize many years of exam questions cannot be helped. I generally make them harder :D and weight the results using appropriate statistical methods, which then become lessons in and of themselves. Some days, my kids think I'm absolutely sinister.;)</p>

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<p>My US history teacher always curved our grades (if we turned in all of our IDs for the chapter) with an 85 as average. It made the class very easy to get a B in, much harder to get an A.</p>

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<p>It must be nice to know that your grade for the year doesn't really matter at all...and that you only need to do well on the AP exam to get a decent grade in the course. Perhaps some of those C/D/F grades in the class for the term were because the students KNEW that the exam was the way to the grade they wanted. I'm sorry, but I don't support this at all.</p>

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<p>Not necessarily. At least for me and a few band of students that I know. The AP test is harder than the class tests... all we were doing was trying to survive..</p>

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<p>"It must be nice to know that your grade for the year doesn't really matter at all...and that you only need to do well on the AP exam to get a decent grade in the course. Perhaps some of those C/D/F grades in the class for the term were because the students KNEW that the exam was the way to the grade they wanted. I'm sorry, but I don't support this at all."</p>

<p>Are you going to risk getting an F for the year because you're cocky enough to think you can get a 5 on the AP exam? In the class where my teacher offered an automatic A to anyone that got a 5, I had an A- for the year already, and walked into the test fairly confident. I still wasn't going to risk slacking off because of the possibility that I could get around doing the work. Even if you manage a four, you've got a huge black mark on your transcript that no amount of explaining will get out.</p>