Are AP classes a scam?

[mathmom]

<p>Our school requires that you take the AP exam. There are arrangements for those who can’t pay. You have to fork over the money in February before most kids know where they are attending. It’s not necessarily a waste of money to take the exam even if it won’t count. You could transfer to a school where it will count, it may allow you to get into a more advanced course. I even had AP credits indirectly save me several thousand dollars of credit in grad school. Mostly though they want students to take the courses seriously.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>In the Bellevue school district all students are strongly encouraged to take APs and from reports are not allowed to drop.
My daughter wasnt forced to take APs in Seattle, but for the four classes she did take she was required to take the test. The only financial support available is for families on FRL, everyone else pays full amount.</p>

<p>

4. AP Classes… one or more of the panelists mentioned how hard Bellevue School District personnel works to force EVERY kid into EVERY AP class. I agree, understand that there is evidence that taking AP classes raises the possibility of going to college, but the pandering to rankings of Bellevue School District is NOT healthy. FORCING a kid with a documented, reading disability into 4 AP classes as a junior then absolutely refusing to reschedule him is NOT a decision that was made with the kid’s best interests in mind. In this case, the kid’s parents DID squawk and he eventually was excused from one of the AP classes and given extra support for another. I believe that parents need to make advocate for their kids. Why we let a school district dictate class loads is beyond me…

[Bellevue</a> School District Parent Blog Archive RACE to Nowhere in Bellevue School District](<a href=“http://www.bellevueschooldistrictparent.com/bellevue-school-district/race-to-nowhere-and-the-parent-union-com/]Bellevue”>http://www.bellevueschooldistrictparent.com/bellevue-school-district/race-to-nowhere-and-the-parent-union-com/)</p>

[annasdad]

<p>

@chaosakita

More ■■■■■■■■ from annasdad

</p>

<p>Huh? I posted a link to an article that to judge from the 60+ replies is of some interest to the folks here. I haven’t expressed an opinion on the subject of the article (note the question mark in the thread title), nor for that matter do I have one.</p>

[cromette]

<p>I am totally AGAINST forcing kids to take the exam, for one reason only:</p>

<p>In our state if you have taken more than 30 hours over the required hours for your degree you can be charged at a “graduate” rate. They discourage taking EXTRA hours. They allow an additonal 9 hours for AP classes (and I think dual enrollment), bringing the total to 39.</p>

<p>EVEN IF you don’t USE them, you can still be penalized for them. My D2 will have credit for 59 college hours when she graduates. Of those, I know she can use about 21-29 in her degree plan. So that means NO EXTRA classes for her in college, which is a shame.</p>

<p>We didn’t know that when she started taking AP and dual - actually it’s a fairly new rule - so now she’s stuck. Plus, when she started taking AP and dual, she didn’t know where she was going to college and what she was going to major in, so there was no way to determine how many of those credits would actually be useful to her later on.</p>

<p>BUT if you DON’T take AP and/or Dual, then your ranking will suffer greatly. So…</p>

[bluebayou]

<p>in our public district, the kid/family has to pay separately for the exam, so the test is optional.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@frazzled2thecore

Not sure how much AP calc would have helped with the calculus I took in college, though, which was proof based and used Apostol as a text. Many of us came straight from honors pre-calc, with a few having had AP calc in high school, yet had perfect or near perfect math SAT’s.

</p>

<p>What colleges use the Apostol book for a regular (not honors) freshman calculus course for students who have not had calculus in high school?</p>

[bluebayou]

<p>^^Caltech? :D</p>

[kiddie]

<p>In my daughter’s large public high school they implemented a new AP policy last year. The school wanted more AP test takers to up their HS ranking. If you were in an AP class you either had to take the exam (and you pay for it yourself) or else take a final which the teacher created which would be equivalent to an AP exam (in terms of difficulty and time) All the seniors took the AP exam, even if their college would not give them credit for it, to avoid having to take a final, since the AP exam grade would not effect their class grade/transcript and the teacher created final exam grade would. However, for the kids where the AP credit would not count - they did not study for these AP tests.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@bluebayou

^^Caltech?

</p>

<p>Caltech does not count because it expects all freshmen to have had calculus while in high school.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>

AP courses are probably college level at half the colleges the country, just not the ones we here in CC land like to talk about.

This comment made me smile, considering the OP’s usual thesis in posting.</p>

<p>But isn’t this the issue, really? If an AP course is supposed to be a standardized “college course,” doesn’t it have to be designed to match the lower-middle-or-so level of college courses? It certainly sounds like a number of the courses achieve this. If some of them don’t, that’s not necessarily evidence that the whole program is flawed.</p>

<p>How colleges deal with AP courses in terms of giving credit is probably not that different from how they deal with transfer credits from other colleges.</p>

[xiggi]

<p>Since when is posting a link to an article in the Atlantic trolling? </p>

<p>An article that is remarkably on the money. Something that a crowd sipping the KoolAid and wearing colored glasses prefers to ignore.</p>

[SlitheyTove]

<p>

Shrug. Here, AP = honors. I don’t see any broad differences. My kids didn’t join any arms race - they took AP in subject matters that interested them and regular in areas that didn’t. They liked the classes well enough - indeed, it stimulated areas for them. I don’t get any controversy.

</p>

<p>If AP works well for your school or student then anecdotally all is well. Conversely, if AP is a joke for your school or student, then you might think that the entire program is rotten to the core. </p>

<p>I’d really like to see a comprehensive study of AP, backing up to look at the level of preparation and achievement prior to taking the first AP class, then going on to see how students fare via class grades, AP scores, rates of matriculating to 2 and 4 year colleges, graduation rates, and time to degree.</p>

[jym626]

<p>Is this what you are looking for, Slithey?
[Academia.edu</a> | The Impact of Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment Programs on College Graduation | Texas State PA Applied Research Projects](<a href=“(PDF) The Impact of Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment Programs on College Graduation | Texas State PA Applied Research Projects - Academia.edu”>(PDF) The Impact of Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment Programs on College Graduation | Texas State PA Applied Research Projects - Academia.edu)</p>

[xiggi]

<p>[The</a> problematic growth of AP testing | Harvard Gazette](<a href=“http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/09/philip-sadler/]The”>The problematic growth of AP testing – Harvard Gazette)</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/02.23/05-ap.html[/url]”>http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/02.23/05-ap.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Google Philip Sadler for a bit of research. This is not a subject that generates much attention among researchers.</p>

<p>Or Kristin Klopfenstein of the University of Texas at Dallas and M. Kathleen Thomas.</p>

[jym626]

<p>Here is another one but (a) its old (uses 2005 data) and (2) its posted on CollegeBoard’s website <a href=“https://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/the-relationship-between-ap-and-college-graduation.pdf[/url]”>https://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/the-relationship-between-ap-and-college-graduation.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[cromette]

<p>So currently we have a system where:</p>

<p>High schools penalize students for NOT taking every available AP classes (ranking) and NOT taking the exams.</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>Colleges penalize students FOR taking too many AP exams.</p>

<p>Perfect. So the HS benefits, the college benefits, and the student gets penalized. What else is new?</p>

[Hunt]

<p>If AP didn’t exist, wouldn’t we need to re-invent it? Is there a need for some kind of national curriculum standard? (There’s also IB–xiggi doesn’t like that either, but it’s at least another option).</p>

<p>I can understand all the problems with AP. But would we really be better off without it?</p>

[annasdad]

<p>

This comment made me smile, considering the OP’s usual thesis in posting.</p>

<p>But isn’t this the issue, really? If an AP course is supposed to be a standardized “college course,” doesn’t it have to be designed to match the lower-middle-or-so level of college courses?

</p>

<p>I was going to let that piece of nonsense slide, but since you chose to raise the issue.</p>

<p>There is no evidence that courses are more challenging at so-called “top” colleges than they are anywhere else.</p>

<p>The evidence that does exist - far from conclusive though it is - suggests otherwise.</p>

<p>A study of course examination rigor at 40 research universities differing in undergraduate student body selectivity concluded that “selectivity had no significant relationship with the percentage of examination questions asked at the higher-order levels of comprehension, application, or critical thinking levels. This finding suggests that more selective research universities tend not to give any more rigorous examinations than less selective ones. To the extent that rigor in course examinations reflects similar rigor in the instruction received (an association that cannot be determined from the study), it may be that undergraduate selectivity alone is simply not a particularly effective way of identifying universities that have demanding academic programs.” – Pascarella and Terenzini, 79-80</p>

[cromette]

<p>Hunt, the thing is that even though the TEST is standardized, that does not mean the INSTRUCTION is. You can have 2 students, both make an A in the class, but one make a 3 (or even a 2) on the exam and one make a 5. So I don’t see this as a standard curriculum as much as standardized testing.</p>

[xiggi]

<p>

Here is another one but (a) its old (uses 2005 data) and (2) its posted on CollegeBoard’s website <a href=“https://professionals.collegeboard.c…graduation.pdf%5B/url%5D”>https://professionals.collegeboard.c…graduation.pdf</a>

</p>

<p>Jym, is it not remarkable that the vox populi would accept the studies by The College Board on the AP but soundly reject its multiples studies on the SAT? Isn’t remarkable that the SAT is regularly attacked and covered with tar and feathers, while the same community seems quite supportive of the AP (or to please Hunt, the IB program.) </p>

<p>Is the AP really about education? Is the support of the AP really based on what is learned, or is it based on what the program accomplishes in the form of open segregation and college admissions gamesmanship? </p>

<p>You know what I think! All I need to do is read the posts in January and May about the poor folks and usual suspects who did not make it despite a dozen of APs!</p>