<p>A new book from Harvard Educational Press seriously questions the value of AP courses and AP exams. The book is:
AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2010) edited by Philip Sadler, Gerhard Sonnert, Robert Tai, and Kristin Klopfenstein.</p>
<p>I have not seen the whole book, but have read a summary by a ISM (Independent School Management) citing the book as important reading for administrators of private high schools. I can't give a link to it here because it requires a subscription to ISM's publication to view it.</p>
<p>In their summary, it says:</p>
<p>
[quote]
The book ... reports that “two recent studies found that the number of AP courses taken in high school has little relation to the GPA of college freshmen or their persistence to their sophomore college year.”</p>
<p>An interesting finding is that students who took an honors course in school (physics and chemistry) did as well as those who took an AP course in school at the first-year college level... </p>
<p>Further, another study found that “no significant differences in persistence and performance outcomes were discovered among regular course, AP, and credit based college course participants.”
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So, apparently AP courses don't do a better job at preparing kids for college than honors courses do.</p>
<p>The summary says that anecdotal evidence shows that fewer colleges are accepting AP credits and/or are requiring higher scores, so a main purpose of AP - to lower the cost of college - is becoming less valid.</p>
<p>Although AP courses are somewhat standardized, the quality of courses between and within high schools varies wildly. Here, the public schools seem to do well in the AP calculus, English, and psych courses (test-wise), but terrible in science and foreign language. </p>
<p>IMO the great majority of our local high school students take AP primarily to boost their GPAs and often don’t even take the tests.</p>
<p>Not having seen the book, I can’t really comment in depth. However, I have some issues with the points below:
First, I believe similar studies have found little correlation between SAT scores and high school GPA and college GPA. I don’t think any accurate way of assessing future college success has been developed.</p>
<p>Second, this only seems to discuss students who take AP courses, not students who pass AP exams.
First, I can’t help but note that colleges do not have the same incentives as students with regards to the cost of college. If anything, they are opposites.</p>
<p>Second, a statistical analysis showing a significant reduction in credit given in, say, the past decade is necessary to prove this point. Some colleges take AP credit. Some don’t. I have no clue whether there has been a change.
First, consider the sample! What kind of students are most likely to be attracted to AP or honors courses? Are those students more likely to enjoy learning and correspondingly develop a positive attitude about their teachers? I suspect that the answer is yes.</p>
<p>Second, why is this statement any less “obvious” when reversed? I’m not surprised to find that teachers are not on the whole inclined to teach general classes where more of their effort is needed to produce even a small amount of benefit, discipline issues are more common, and apathy is the special of the day.</p>
<p>Third, the only advocacy I see to solve the problem in the quoted text is to eliminate any kind of advanced course and fully integrate the student body. This issue is 0% unique to AP courses.</p>
<p>Actually, there is a strong correlation between high school gpa and college gpa.</p>
<p>I suppose the problem colleges face is determining “who” to admit once it all shakes out and they are sitting there staring at applications with high GPA’s…</p>
<p>That’s the issue, and they probably just need some rational, and testing and whatnot is the one they use, because at least they can say they are being “objective.”</p>
<p>But, really, I think the only thing that can be stated with any real confidence is that kids tend to have a similar GPA in college to the one they had in high school. (Barring factors like engineering and weed out chem classes, that is.)</p>
<p>I don’t think that the GPA of college freshmen is an appropriate measure of the AP program. Some students with AP credit will move on to courses that are a little too high-level for them (i.e., courses normally taken by college sophomores or juniors). </p>
<p>At my university, students with AP credit are offered an honors version of the first-year course, which is more challenging; also it has a concentration of the top students. So some students whose ability and effort could have earned them a 4.0 in the regular freshman course will not have a 4.0 in the honors first-year university course. </p>
<p>Also, if you look at students enrolled in the regular university course, the AP students who are in essence repeating the course may have had weaker AP courses, or they may not have done as well in the AP course. So comparing their performance in the regular courses with that of students who took honors courses in high school does not give a level comparison, either. </p>
<p>I am no great fan of AP courses, in general (with some definite exceptions). I just think that it’s difficult to find a method to assess the impact of AP accurately, without imposing undue constraints on the students in course choice.</p>
<p>The most important fact…the quality of the teacher and the school where the AP course is given. If you think an AP class at an okay high school compares to an AP class at a highly ranked high school, your sorely mistaken. Even if the course is standardized the highly ranked high school will have a much better program.</p>
<p>Sorry, I edited my original post because I thought it was too long, but noimagination managed to grab one of the quotes before I deleted it. I’m glad, because it was a valid point. The writers of the summary state that they strongly believe teachers should rotate between teaching different levels of curriculum - AP for a year or two, then honors, then CP, then back to AP. This way students of all levels will be exposed to the best teachers.</p>
<p>I would have assumed - as I think the administration at my children’s public high school did - that kids who take AP classes are better prepared for college. But according to studies, kids who take honors classes instead of AP do just as well in entry level college classes. </p>
<p>AND I would have assumed that kids that take lots of AP classes would be more motivated and better prepared than kids who don’t, and thus would do better in college. Again, this is apparently not the case.</p>
<p>The authors seem to be pointing to a US education system that has gone standardized-test-score crazy. When we compare ourselves to other countries, we’re again comparing standardized test scores. But what is interesting to me is that foreign countries are still sending large numbers of college students to US universities - much moreso than the other way around. I don’t think things like innovation or imagination show up on test scores. I’m wondering what Bill Gates’ test scores were, or Walt Disney’s, or Mark Zuckerburgs - folks who created new industries or innovated products in new out-of-the-box ways.</p>
<p>Purely anectodal, both of my kids took a ton of honors classes and only 2 APs. One now is a senior at a selective LAC with a 3.8 GPA, the other just earned a 3.7 her first college term. The younger was convinced she was going to be the “dumbest” kid at her college because most of her new friends had taken several more APs than she had. Instead, she did better than they did. Both of my kids attended a good - but not great - public hs.</p>
<p>Many public school systems, for whatever reason, give better grades to schools based on the number of kids taking AP courses. So obviously what has happened is that alot of kids are taking AP courses who probably should not be and are getting scores of 1 and 2. Because kids are in these courses that should not be it makes it difficult to teach the course at the level needed for kids who can handle the course load to get 4 and 5. With one child in private school and 1 in public school it is clear to me that private schools do a much better job of screening kids for A/P and then teaching A/P courses at a very high level.</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is why selective colleges want nothing to do with an applicant’s AP test scores when considering admission. I would be willing to bet alot of money that kids who get 5’s on their AP scores do very well in college and much better than kids who get 3’s. Let’s see if Harvard does a study on that-not holding my breath.</p>
<p>Lafalum84, I can’t tell whether the authors of the book were comparing students who took honors classes vs. AP classes at the same high schools, or honors classes at schools A, B, and C, but AP classes at X, Y, and Z. I have the impression that some of the top prep schools do not offer AP or at least do not emphasize it because the required coverage is constraining, and their courses are actually more rigorous. Some of the top public school districts (not ours) have also moved in this direction. Depending on a high school’s course offerings, a student might be able to take only one AP science (if honors in the same science is a pre-requisite). So then a “top” student might have 2 or 3 primary sciences at the honors level only. I don’t think that prior coursework of any type has a great deal of influence on later performance–it’s more a question of the individual aptitude and effort. Of course, I’m not advocating skipping directly to the senior major’s classes in literature in a foreign language after 2 years of high school language, but any reasonably sized gap can usually be crossed by a determined student.</p>
<p>The quality of the teaching is important. You can have a bright kid who is not as prepared for the AP exam. To make a broad statement the the student with a score of 2 will not do well in the college class is a bit of a stretch. Just like the SAT those who have had the proper preparation fair better.</p>
<p>I am not of fan of AP classes at all. I think any class which teaches to a test is doing a disservice to the students. Also, imo, I believe high school is the time to prepare students for college work, to get the basics down cold and to learn how to think critically and how to write. </p>
<p>My son has been in all honors classes since his Soph yr and this year he is taking physics at the community college (all the kids at his school take it at the CC.) I have no doubt that my son will be prepared for college. </p>
<p>He has already been accepted at 5 colleges and I expect out of the 4 he is waiting to hear from he will get into 3 of them (and possibly even his 4th which is his reach) without one AP on his transcript.</p>
That’s exactly the point of view that this summary of this book was coming from. </p>
<p>However, I think it would be interesting to see the actual studies the book quotes, and the conclusions the authors make. The book is a collection of essays from a “variety” of viewpoints. But overall I think the point it is making is that the College Board and AP folks are more interested in market share than in academic excellence, and that the US has sacrificed imaginative and in-depth curricula on the altar of standardized test scores.</p>
<p>Oy. These discussions make me feel like such a clueless dweeb. As home-school parents, we didn’t do AP courses. Or honors courses. (I honestly don’t know the difference.) But we did do a super-rigorous classical curriculum that included calculus, physics, Latin (now at level IV), and Greek (now at level III). </p>
<p>I hope this cuts some ice with adcoms, even though it’s so unconventional. </p>
<p>OK, sorry; I know this is off-topic, but when the rest of the world assumes that APs are de rigeur, we home-schoolers tend to feel like real oddballs. :o</p>
<p>Seriously? A call to take the most motivated students who love to learn and give them the worst teacher? Is the idea to PUNISH kids? While we’re at it, let’s throw all of the varsity athletes off the varsity team every few years and put in the least athletic. After all, they will benefit from the coaching and practicing, won’t they?</p>
<p>I read an article in the NYT last week which stated that the AP curriculum and tests are being completely revised starting in 2012. The new courses and exams will have greatly reduced fact-based content and much more critical thinking. The current massive amounts of memorization of dates and facts is being eliminated in favor of problem solving, labs, understanding the big picture.</p>
<p>In many cases, AP physics and chemistry is not accepted as equivalent to the introductory courses for physics and chemistry majors at university (though they are more likely to be accepted for non-majors), although students with such AP credit may be encouraged to take the honors versions of the introductory courses at university.</p>
<p>AP Physics B (non-calculus) is obviously of little use for a physics or other science or engineering major. AP Physics C only assumes concurrent enrollment in AP Calculus, which means that it will fall short when electricity and magnetism is covered, since university physics courses for physics and engineering majors typically have a prerequisite or corequisite of multivariable calculus.</p>
<p>To comment on the quote in #13. My D attends what is considered one of the “top” preps. It is true that there are few formal “AP” courses. However, virtually the entire junior class takes an AP English test after “regular” junior English. Other subjects are similar. Not official AP classes, but lots of AP test-taking.</p>
<p>@Consolation - to be fair, that is good preparation for college, where it may be impossible to avoid the “bad” professors (and there are quite a few). It may be better to learn to deal with it in high school than in college, where one could argue the course counts more. In fact, my high school does this - all teachers are expected to teach all levels, from Algebra I to honors linear algebra, and they rotate every couple of years.</p>
<p>I attended one of the “top” prep schools. They offered more AP courses than most of the similar schools, but few in the humanities…the understanding was that students who took the standard US History class or the standard 3rd year English course (everyone took the same level for these courses) would be prepared to get at least a 4 on the AP exam. Math and science offered AP courses in most fields. Even with this, though, it was common for students to take AP exams in a subject for which they didn’t take the course. I myself did this, taking Latin: Vergil and Latin: Lit in the same year. My problem with AP tests is how they’re graded. In areas like BC Calc and physics C, 50-60% of the maximum possible points seems to be sufficient to get a 5 (based on every test book I’ve seen). Now, neither of these exams are particularly challenging if one understands all of the material. The nature of the test (MC with penalties for wrong answers) means that we can’t take these cutoffs as percentages, but I wonder how someone with a knowledge of 75% of the material can be told they would get an A in the equivalent college course. My 5 in Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism was definitely of this nature; (and the grade on my transcript should confirm this…if I couldn’t get an A in the high school course, why would I get an A for the same performance in a college course?</p>
<p>The other question is pace…except for a few courses like BC Calc, Physics C, and the Econ exams, an AP course does in a year what a college course does in a semester. The slower pace in the high school course helps greatly, and the equivalent college course could be twice as fast, and so harder for students to stay on top of work. In Latin, for instance, the AP syllabus covers roughly 2000 lines of Latin in a year. The equivalent college course would do this in a semester while expecting a higher level of class participation. Many people who get 5s on both the AP Latin exams come into an equivalent college course and struggle, at least in my experience. I believe that offering challenging courses is good, but the AP courses aren’t the right answer.</p>