Dear all, my eldest is still in middle school so we don’t know much about the AP offerings in schools. If two schools offer the same number and exact AP classes, does it mean AP classes are really the same?? OR it depends on the teacher?? The teacher can make a huge difference in AP classes learning
The curriculum is basically standardized by the College Board, but teachers can and will put their own variations in. Yes, the teacher can make a huge difference.
If you’re asking in order to compare high schools, the sheer number of AP classes means little. For one thing, around half of AP classes offered by the College Board are foreign languages, and hardly anyone will take more than one. So if a school offers every AP there is, it will be meaningless to any given student’s high school experience. Taking somewhere around 6-8 AP classes in total is plenty to demonstrate the kid is capable of doing college level work. Yes, some kids do more, but colleges don’t award acceptances based on who graduates with the most APs. So beyond that baseline, APs may not be what tips the scale, and might even hurt an applicant who sacrifices meaningful extra curricula activities for four years of an academic grind.
That designation means it covers the material that will be on the AP exam (and the College Board determines that.)
How it is taught, how it is graded, what the workload is, whether the course covers additional material – that can vary from school to school and even teacher to teacher. At many prep schools, for example, there are no classes designated as AP but many students are still well-prepared to take the exams and do so.
You are right that the teacher can make a huge difference. There are schools where most of the kids get As yet few get scores over 3 and others where even the students with C+ grades are getting 5s. There are also schools where outside tutoring is common so it’s hard to judge the quality of the teaching by outcomes alone.
You are going to have to dig a little deeper in your comparison of the 2 schools. Good for you for making this investment in uour child’s education.
If you can find out the distribution of AP scores earned by students who earned A grades in the AP courses, you can get a better idea of how well the AP courses cover the AP syllabi.
Agree with all of the above! because of moves, the collegekids were in several secondary schools, and the differences are startling. It really is school by school, teacher by teacher, especially when it comes to work load- a lot of schools seem to think more volume is the same as more difficult!
Note that for US universities, it is the grade in the class is considered most important, not the AP score (which is why self-studying a load of APs isn’t recommended- AdComms aren’t impressed).
Don’t know if this information is available but see if you can get figures for the number of kids who took AP classes (broken down by subject), the number who took the AP Exam, and the number who passed with a 3,4, or 5 (not just percentages). Also compare it to the total number of students enrolled at the school.
In our district (large - top 10 in the US), we noticed a proliferation of AP offerings and number of students enrolled which always led me to believe a lack of quality in the teaching (partly due to teachers being unqualified to teach AP subject matter and mainly due to average students being coerced into AP classes without a realistic chance of success). Anecdotally, we know kids who were told not to take the AP exam if they didn’t think they’s get at least a 3 as the numbers would reflect poorly on the teachers review. I don’t blame the teachers, just a crazy system. Sort of like in elementary school (wife is an educator) where so many parents want their kid placed in “Gifted” even after testing indicated otherwise. Result typically would be gifted was reduced to normal.
AP curriculum may be standard but real course standard varies by school’s academic strength, teacher’s competency/interest, interest/academic level of peers and also different subjects.
I have moved around and it really varies school by school and teacher by teacher.