<p>Again it all depends on the individual’s experience. If the person is taking 4 AP’s and 1 college class. They aren’t really getting an accurate perspective of the CC. Especially if it’s only an intro 100 level class. It would be unfair of me, for example, to say bc I took one AP US History class and I found it easy as helll…that therefore all AP classes are easy. See what I’m saying? It’s unfair to classify a CC as bad or easy by only taking one class. The one class does not give an accurate depiction.</p>
<p>My opinion is that taking classes at a CC/State university will give you a more accurate picture of what college coursework will be like. Let me give you some examples of assignments in my AP US class. Make a newspaper, make some posters, ability to get points back on tests by writing explanations on why the answer was wrong, etc. These are all very HS"esque." None of that exists in college, atleast from my experience. My 200 level econ class, as contrast…3 tests, one final exam, and one 10 page essay. That’s it. I must have had 30+ different grades each semester in APUSH. No makeups in any of my college classes either. Feel like *****? Have a flu? Sucks for you. There is a major difference between someone who understands the college system by taking a full load of college coursework and then their is an AP kid who thinks they understand the system…bc collegeboard tells them AP classes are college classes.</p>
<p>"Also, how does this credit hours thing work at CCs? How many hours of instruction is equivalent to a credit hour? Can you use them (the college credit hours) to help you fulfill graduation requirements for high school? "</p>
<p>At my HS one semester of a college class is equal to an entire year of a HS class. And yes, the credits count towards HS requirements at my HS.</p>
<p>“I personally think that generally, under assumed circumstances, AP courses are better. My reasoning is that AP courses accept only students of a certain caliber (presumably, they are above average in that they are high school students taking college-level classes), and that these students are - given their presumed drive/ability - more likely to more easily comprehend the material than students on the regular track; that is, compared side-by-side, the AP student has a slight personal advantage over the college student based on the fact that he or she is advanced and thus perhaps feels more compelled to do well than the average college student. From here, I just assume that good students make good classes.”</p>
<p>This argument is immediately negated once you look at the grade distribution on AP exams.</p>
<ol>
<li>Most of the average scores on AP exams have to be weighted up to get it within a standard bell curve, because the majority of kids score a 3 or below.</li>
</ol>
<p>Let’s also assume 5=A, 4=B, 3=C, 2=D, 1=F</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I’ll use APUSH as an example. They considered a 114 out of 180 a 5. So getting a 63% is equal to an A. Of course the essay is a factor, but we can’t look at that quanitatively. </p></li>
<li><p>For AP comp a 108 out of 150 would’ve gotten you a 5. That’s a 72%. So even when the grades are weighted up, 70% of kids score a 1, 2 or 3. Getting a 72 out of 150, would get you a 3. That’s 48%.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>What this shows is that the AP kids that you think are smarter than your average college kid, really aren’t.</p>
<p>That’s how my AP Euro class is run. Tests, exams, and essays. That’s it. All of that extraneous stuff you mentioned is stuff that definitely was like middle school level… none of my AP courses are run that way.</p>
<p>But AP courses are supposed to be 100 level courses. When you get college credit for them… that’s what you typically get credit for 3 hours of a 100 level course. If people wanted to take more advanced courses, then they can at a local college.</p>
<p>But for my grading:
AP English: Essays and Vocabulary Journal (We find words that we don’t know, define them, use them, etc.) Basically the Vocab journal is the only hs-like grading.
AP Euro: Tests, Essays, Exams
AP Stats: Quizzes, Tests, and Homework (By far my most hs-ish class)
AP French: (Grammar/Reading Comprehension) Test and a weekly blog
Public Speaking: Tests, Speeches, and Participation</p>
<p>I mean… college classes aren’t <em>that</em> different from the above. But it also depends on what college you go to. A lot of people from my school go to small liberal arts schools, and their classes are very similar to our classes in high school, where-as the people I know who have gone to large state schools tend to have classes with very few grades.</p>
<p>Obviously, I haven’t taken many college classes, but I’m just going off of what I’ve been told by alumni of my school and professors. I have several friends whose parents are professors and my dad taught 100-200 level courses at a state school a while back. My uncle taught at the local CC when he retired from teaching high school and said that it wasn’t that different. So yeah.</p>
<p>I think it really depends on multiple variables.</p>