<p>I was talking to a teacher friend about the APs, since my DS is taking one today. She said that a lot of the teachers she talk to think that students in the Northeast are at a great disadvantage in taking the AP tests compared to students in many other parts of the country. Why? Because in some parts of the country, school starts in early August, while in the Northeast, it starts after labor day. That means that some kids get almost a month more of instruction in history, chemistry, etc. than northeastern students, before the AP tests in May. Do you agree that this cheats New Englanders and Middle Staters?</p>
<p>my APUSH teacher discussed that last year, and talked about that being the reason for having not had a Vietnam DBQ in awhile/ever (i forget). But guess what we got that year?
AND guess what we learned about the week before?</p>
<p>got a 4</p>
<p>No, we’re in the midwest and school starts in September. Most schools that start in August in our area have longer Christmas break, some have a “mid-winter” break that our district does not have. I would guess the “actual number of days in school” are fairly similar between the late-August starts and the September starts.</p>
<p>I don’t know about the northeast per se being at a disadvantage, but I would agree that there is a disadvantage to students who go to schools that start after Labor Day. My wife teaches APUSH, and like the poster above, her students wrapped up the Vietnam War unit a few days before the AP exam. Good thing the DBQ wasn’t about Reaganomics. This year my wife condensed her syllabus so she could get through the entire course before the exam. Seems this is disadvantageous as well. The solution? Either two exams, one in early May the other in early June, or we go to a uniform national school year. I don’t think this problem will be solved.</p>
<p>Schools don’t uniformly start in NH - each district sets its own start date. I do recall our local district starting in August but I don’t follow the date closely. If you have a complaint, the proper place to take it up with is your state legislature or local school board.</p>
<p>yeah, the Vietnam DBQ was a joke, irregardless of where you studied for the AP test.
I spent the essay making Apocalypse Now and Platoon references, and got a 5.</p>
<p>No. From talking to our headmaster - public school, but we call the job that - the real penalty for AP is going to a worse quality high school anywhere. The numbers he cites are startling, meaning the disparity between results at good versus bad public schools. That far outweighs any regional difference.</p>
<p>D’s NE prep school starts in August, just before labor day…but the killer is the block schedule: 3 courses in fall, 3 in spring. </p>
<p>Students have to cram AP curriculum into 15 weeks - and those who take the class in the fall, have to sit on the knowledge for 4 months before the exam. We dearly would love it if AP would offer a January AP in addition to May.</p>
<p>These are some of the reasons why I prefer dual-enrollment courses to AP courses. With APs, everything is based on a test and a significant chunk of time is spent preparing for the test instead of learning the material.</p>
<p>AP’s are meant to happen when the first set of schools (public and private) end their school years. Its only natural to reason that people who’s year ends later (ours is june 26th versus my cousin in florida who gets out on may 15th) get less time to spend on the curriculum.</p>
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<p>You didn’t throw in any Full Metal Jacket? :p</p>
<p>I do think this is an issue (though not really a regional one - even within many states, start and end dates vary), but there’s not an obvious solution to it, unless one wants a national school start date and end date. And in most cases one <em>should</em> be able to finish the AP curriculum without much difficulty in either case.</p>
<p>And I definitely think that the quality of your school and your teacher is going to make much more of a difference.</p>
<p>I thought the title of this thread was in reference to the fact that most northeastern schools have strict requirements for entry into AP courses, therefore, many of those students who do not qualify are at a disadvantage…but then I reread and saw “tests” not “courses”…</p>
<p>Actually agree with posters above; bigger disadvantage if you go to a low quality school with a low quality AP teacher.</p>
<p>Schools all over the place start at different times. Just in my area we have schools that start mid-august (me), late august, all the way trhough middle september. there’s no regional disadvantage but schools that start late are behind the 8-ball.</p>
<p>Yeah, but this disadvantage is offset by the fact that people from the Northeast are inherently smarter and more equipped to succeed in college and the world. ;)</p>
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<p>i hate the usage of the word irregardless.</p>
<p>^
Because it means the exact same thing as regardless?</p>
<p>We’re in CA and the school year typically starts the day after Labor Day. In our district (and other’s I’ve heard of, as well) they try to compensate by having the AP students do some of the work over the summer. This accomplishes two things. 1) Students who think they won’t be able to handle the work will drop down to another class. 2) Teachers can start the year other than on chapter one.</p>
<p>It’s still a big push here to get everything in before the May APs. Per my S, it wasn’t a big deal for the APUSH teacher. It was more rush in AP Physics C, where the teacher decided the students in the AP class could do more lab work AFTER the AP exam, considering the last day of school is June 19. In some AP classes, there’s too much dead time after the bis push for the AP exams. My S will be wishing he could already start his summer research internship by the time June 1 rolls around and he’ll still have a few weeks to grind. Ugh.</p>
<p>California parent here. Yes, almost every AP course has summer HW in our district; typically, 3-4 chapters of text with a test the first week of class. AP Stats is the ONLY AP course in our school that does not have summer reading-HW.</p>
<p>Didn’t the AP program start in the South? My APUS teacher told our class that it was used (when it first began) primarily to keep schools unofficially segregated, by enrolling the white kids in advanced classes and keeping everyone else in regular classes. No idea if there’s any truth to that, but I thought it was interesting.</p>
<p>The Northwest starts after Labor Day, too. :)</p>