This discussion was created from comments split from: Pomfret.
A lot of schools don’t have APs because you have to conform to a specific curriculum. The lack of APs would not be an issue as long as they have high level classes. A lot of times kids can still take the AP tests but the school doesn’t have to “certify” their courses or something like that. At least that is what I have seen. The courses are rigorous enough that kids still pass.
I am not trying to start an argument but being at a school that DOES offer the AP courses make a student’s life much easier on so many levels. I am a professor at a college and I have 4 kids, 3 of whom have attended/are attending PREP schools. However, as I said to the student, it can be done. She just has to do the work on her own.
I don’t believe APs have any place in good boarding schools as these are the schools the APs were designed, in part, to measure against. I sent my kiddo to BS to avoid scripted teach-to-a-test curriculums; he could get that, in spades, at our local schools. Also, at BS, it’s generally the teachers who draw the short straw who end up in those boring classrooms. The best teachers do not want to waste their time and talents on APs. Choate only started offering AP courses in response to parental pressure and, under this new headmaster, is re-starting conversations on removing them and educating parents on why they are unnecessary at a school whose rigor the colleges know well. I scratch my head trying to understand why on earth anyone would dumb-down their experience at BS with AP classes that they could take at home. BS students can sit for any AP test they want if they want the credit and are applying to colleges that accept them, but the fact that some of the more selective colleges are questioning their value or not giving credit for them speaks volumes to me about their worth. I say if you want your BS kid to take AP classes, you’ve missed the boat on what a BS education is all about.
I have no further comment.
Sunnystudent, good luck for the upcoming school year.
My son just graduated from Pomfret this spring. I can tell you that the decision to move away form AP classes is part of an on going strategic plan the school is implementing and it was not a snap decision. Hand in hand with this decision, Pomfret will be moving to a six week block class schedule much like Colorado College employs. It will allow the classes to delve much more deeply into each subject. Moreover Pomfret sought feed back from many of the colleges it works with in the college counseling realm. Feed back from selective schools like the U of Chicago, Harvey Mudd, Smith and Conn College all indicated support for phasing out AP classes. They all said what mattered was academic rigor and that Pomfret was a known quantity in that regard. In addition Pomfret has instituted a month long class in between fall and winter terms called Project Pomfret. Students get to select a topic and pursue it for a month culminating in some academic deliverable at the end of the month. Some students designed and constructed a bridge on campus. My son did a study of the elements of stand up comedy and had to write and perform a stand up routine in front of the whole school. The point is that Pomfret has the forward thinking from the Head of School to the Board of Trustees right down to the faculty to develop and implement new ways of teaching and reaching students in the 21st century. It is an exciting environment and I would recommend that anyone interested in boarding school take a closer look.
I don’t think every environment works for everyone. For me personally, a school that offers AP courses is what I am looking for in regards to my children at this point in time. Is it appropriate for every child? Absolutely not. When we attended revisit day at Phillip Exeter Academy, one of my sons said he realized that the school was “too big” and made a decision to go somewhere else. My other son (same age) LOVED Exeter (did not think it was “too big”) and signed his commitment letter that day. My comments to the student (Sunnystudent) was an honest and objective view of how I saw things and really was a response to her comments in her first sentence.
Agreed that each environment is different and the most important aspect of finding the right school is that concept of “fit” between the school and the prospective student. However, I must confess I see a bit of irony in that one of your children chose Exeter, undeniably one of the top boarding schools, but where they no longer offer AP classes either.
My son will be doing it on his own, just like I told the student she could.
I should clarify one thing. Phillip Exeter Academy does not offer the courses per se, but they DO offer the AP exams.
Understood. Good luck to your son at Exeter. I hope he enjoys the experience.
I feel like this has turned into a debate about the pros and cons of AP classes at boarding schools 
. Exeter, of all schools, must know what it’s doing and at this point in time AP classes are not my greatest concern. However, I must admit that it would probably be easier taking a class that is specifically “designed” to prepare you for the subject tests.
Exactly. I really tried to answer your specific questions. I also agree, AP classes are not for every student. In fact, some colleges are moving away from accepting SAT scores. Other factors will be of different importance to different students at different points in time. I was trying to give an overall perspective on the school. It just depends on what you need at that point.
I will make one last recommendation. If you already know this (or as soon as you know this) call the college(s) you want to attend and speak with an Admission Director/Counselor. You want to find out 3-4 years in advance what that college is looking for and how you need to get what is needed over those years.
Finally, good luck.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel when one can get that information from the school’s college counseling office.
@choatiemom speaks truth. Three prep schools created the AP system in consortium with Harvard, P’ton and Yale. The original point was the tests not teach-to-the-test classes. The latter are a tacit admission that regular courses are insufficient prep for college level work. Generations of prep school students have taken their schools’ regular courses, gone in to take AP tests, aced them and entered college at sophomore level coursework.
I have not followed the other thread that this was split off, so apologies if I’m stepping into something here…
Generally speaking (and not meaning to pooh-pooh any parent’s guidance for their own child, ahunter) I think America’s obsession with racking up AP courses is misguided.
Unless one is truly concerned with getting an undergrad degree done in less than 4 years, I question just how much benefit there is to placing out of certain college classes? Yes, friends of mine from Penn who are Exonians did use their AP credits to either make double majoring easier in terms of workload across four years — and one even graduated a year early (to go on to LSE for his Masters). But most of the other smart BS kids I knew in college did 4 years just like rest of us.
Personally, I placed into a higher language class and got my butt kicked. So looking back, I think I should have just done a lower level class to start.
When it comes to BS, I think some people new to the culture are disappointed to hear that School X only offers X number of APs, or even no APs. I offer what one AO said to me early in the process: “You’ve got to understand, in terms of academic rigor, this is an ‘AP-level’ school.”
Additionally, I think many students (guided by their parents and pressured by peers) are just trying to tick off boxes that they think will make them more attractive to the uber-selective colleges. Which, if you read anything I’ve posted over the years, is something that I just don’t buy into.
I personally do not want to take a class that prepares me for the AP test. I want to learn the subject matter thoroughly enough to ace any kind of test. One of the reasons I want to go to Prep school is that my school teaches to tests!
To me, the key question is whether the purpose of the class is to “teach to the test” or not. If my kid takes a challenging, interesting class on US history and at the end of the course, he happens to be well positioned to take the AP exam, then by all means, he may as well go ahead and take it. But I don’t want him taking a US history course in which the teacher feels that they absolutely have to cover topics x, y, and z because otherwise kids don’t do well on the AP exam, or that they don’t have time to go off on other tangents as the class’s interest dictates.
I think, though, that at least AP math courses are somewhat of a different story, as the way I’ve always heard it, there’s really nothing that a math teacher would want to teach that isn’t also covered by the AB or BC Calculus exams. So there I have much less of an issue with a class teaching to those tests.
I totally agree.
Correct IMO. Calculus is pretty cut and dry. Having said that, many colleges, especially the elite colleges that seem to predominate here, may have their own topics which are included in the way they teach calculus, which may differ from the College Board curriculum. So a 5 on the BC exam may theoretically earn credit and placement into Calc 3, if the college teaches proofs in Calc 1 and 2, the student will be in for a shock heading into Calc 3.
Using USH as an example, my school did not offer AP USH per se (although I took the exam), the challenge with taking the exam is not so much the content of the course, but the structure of the exam. While a student may use primary sources in the class, the teacher may not be teaching how to take chunks of several primary sources and form an essay out of it, which is what is needed to answer the AP’s DBQ’s. Additionally, classes like AP Lit, AP Spanish Lit, AP Art History have, to varying degrees, a very prescribed reading list / art list. Are these the most important works in English/Spanish Lit and Art? Obviously some teachers may disagree.
“Unless one is truly concerned with getting an undergrad degree done in less than 4 years, I question just how much benefit there is to placing out of certain college classes?”
The benefit is not in shortening one’s time on campus, it’s in testing out of gigantic mind numbing freshman intro courses and jumping immediately into more focused higher level courses. As a rule, colleges do not grant unit or terms credit for AP exams and therefore AP test credit has no effect on overall college cost or time - unit credits or terms required for graduation usually are unaffected.
This is particularly true in the Ivies and their peers. If @SevenDad’s college pal at Penn graduated early, it was not due to AP tests.