<p>Whenever one of the "art kids" emerges at the top of the graduating class, there are comments by some envious students with slightly lower GPAs that he or she "cheated." The allegation is not that the student cheated on school work. Rather, they think it is unfair for an artistic student to receive so many opportunities to earn weighted AP credit for fine arts classes, when no weighting is given for other fine arts.</p>
<p>For example, at our HS, a student can take two pre-AP weighted art classes and 3 AP studio art classes. In contrast, the equally gifted and hard working choir, band or orchestra member or dancer has no similar oppportunities. </p>
<p>I'm sure that the art students work extraordinarily hard to put together their portfolios. *But does anyone know the history or rationale for making that opportunity available in the AP context? * I'm sure that an equally rigorous program could be put together for music or dance, and a few hard working students would take advantage of the opportunity. </p>
<p>Not to denegrate the hard work of the art students at all, but why is artistic talent and endeavor deemed appropriate for AP testing/credit, but not music or dance?</p>
<p>You don't need to post to jump to the defense of the art kids. I know how hard they work. I just don't know why AP Art but not AP Dance or AP Violin.</p>
<p>The other students don’t care about that. What they care about is that they dropped choir or band so they could take another academic AP class to earn their 4.45 GPA and the art student was able to pursue his passion while earning a 4.49 GPA.</p>
<p>That makes a different problem worse. Then the student who makes As in a math sequence of Algebra I, Geometry, Math Models and Algebra II has the same GPA points as the student who makes As in a math sequence of Pre-AP Geometry, Pre-AP Algebra II, Pre-AP Pre-Calc, and AP Calc BC.</p>
<p>At my school, we have AP Music Theory for music and Advanced Dance for dancers, and you have to try out and/or be approved by your teacher for both. Advanced classes are weighted the same as AP classes for us. Do you not have any of these?</p>
<p>I guess it’s just the nature of the performing arts. I had one of those art students who was valedictorian. Believe me she would not have been just on basis of art honors and AP alone…she had 9 other AP classes (+2 art AP) and was in academic magnet. She put more time in AP art than in BC calc. Aside from AP there is no reason for there not to be at least honors credit for dance/music…that’s up to school. For music there is AP music theory. </p>
<p>I have two musical daughters…don’t know so much about dance, but the hard part is the portfolio. If my art daughter is painting until 1am she goes into class the next day with a piece for her portfolio. If a musician practices extra it shows in better performance, but not something you can judge objectively. Also, progression to higher level in music often includes ensemble work (that’s keeping my very good pianist daughter from minoring in music in college…huge time suck) and it takes so much time. In this day of tech, seems like you could produce DVD of performances to be judged for AP credit.</p>
<p>Finally, it’s really one of these life is not fair moments. At our HS only one science AP offered, keeping my daughter from doing AP in that area. Also, even if could do AP in music performance, that would still be “unfair” to my pianist…not a high school course. And then the reality is that AP studio art classes are not taken for credit at many colleges.</p>
<p>My science kid, DS12, took AP Art because he loved it. He took it in his senoir year so it didn’t really help his GPA for college submissions since the critical GPA was only up to Jr. year. I dont’ know why no AP Music and dance, other than AP art is graded by the college board, and I’m not sure whether they could “grade” music and dance submissions. Maybe they were concerned with the ability to transmit quality dance and music submissions. Also, if colleges don’t accept music and dance credits, there really is no reason to offer it. As far as kids dropping out of chorus and music to boost their GPAs, well I think that is their choice to join that rat race. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that DD13 will be top ten percent, because she took both chorus and drawing in her junior year. She is a future engineering major, but she loved both chorus and art. Good for her.</p>
<p>Colleges look at your transcript. They can read if you took remedial math, algebra & geometry or pre cal honrs, Ap calc Ab, ap calc bc.</p>
<p>Neither school had any problem with students being admitted to colleges, in fact i have been in the counseling office when recruiters from ivies made their calls. Universities are very interested.</p>
<p>“The other students don’t care about that. What they care about is that they dropped choir or band so they could take another academic AP class to earn their 4.45 GPA and the art student was able to pursue his passion while earning a 4.49 GPA.”</p>
<p>Both my daughters dropped instruments but not specifically because of AP but because of basic conflicts with other academic courses…which is probably a problem at many schools and that would have been the case even if AP music performance was available.</p>
<p>I wouldnt ever recommend students drop a challenging and worthwhile class to take one that will boost their Gpa.
Is that their plan for college?</p>
<p>Our high school offers IB and AP music theory, IB film (1 2 year course), and honors level choirs and orchestras. They also offer AP and post AP computer science.</p>
<p>Younger Ds high school has jazz band & orchestras which have racked up national & international awards for decades.
Classes dont need to beweighted to be good.
[National</a> School Orchestra Championships - The Finals!](<a href=“http://www.fortefestivals.com/]National”>http://www.fortefestivals.com/)</p>
<p>I consider AP Music Theory more equivalent to AP Art History. Both relate to the fine arts but neither are performance based. I didn’t count AP Art History as one of the three AP Art classes a student could take. </p>
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<p>The students in the running for the top of the class all have 10-14 AP classes. The Art student is able to pursue Art at a very high level and have, say 3 Art AP and 10 other AP = 13 AP. The equivalent orchestra student can have 3 orchestra (0 AP) and 10 other = 10 AP, or drop orchestra and have 10 other APs.</p>
<p>We are not talking about above average students complaining about the kids at the top of the class. We are talking about very very hard working students who have to decide if they are willing to lower their class rank (maybe from top 2% to the top 5%) and pursue their fine arts, or if they are willing to drop the fine arts for the GPA.</p>
<p>We are in a state where you have to be in the top 8% to be admitted to the state flagship. Because we’re a large public school, the students have to pretty much be in the top 5 (unhooked) students in the class to have a chance at HYPS. Yes, grubbing for every hundredth of a GPA point may be unattractive, but it can be very important for college admissions.</p>
<p>I guess they do offer AP dance since someone mentioned it. AP art is graded by sending in a portfolio which is panel judged. Obviously slides of work may be easier to judge and less time consuming than dance videos or recordings of music. That may be why it is widely offered. The rigor of the program though is dependent on the teacher–but whether you get AP credit is dependent on the student (as in all subjects).
It is true that AP college credit for art will not be given if such a student attends an art school. AP art classes do help develop portfolios for pursuing art degrees. Art is a singular pursuit rather than band which may be another reason.
But why harp on art? If you can’t draw, I’m pretty sure you won’t be in the class. There are lots of “easy” APs out there. Band and choir are great EC’s to put on the resume.
Having said that–I gave up band in HS to get other courses in, but it would have been an easy A and not lowered my GPA at all.</p>
<p>If the question is about val/sal status…is that really so important these days? Many schools don’t even DESIGNATE a Val/Sal anymore. Many others do not report class rank on their transcripts. </p>
<p>Honestly…while it’s been years…I don’t even REMEMBER who the val/sal of my high school class was.</p>
<p>My daughter’s high school does not offer any AP or honors level performing or fine arts classes. All classes in these areas are unweighted. All the kids who want to be val/sal take the required one year of art and no more so that they don’t spoil their weighted GPA. </p>
<p>My daughter took four years of chorus - she told her chorus teacher she would have had a shot at val/sal had she not taken chorus all 4 years. </p>
<p>The kids vying for the val/sal spots play the same game with language - taking only languages which are offered at honors/AP levels. They would never consider taking Italian which my daughter took (where no AP class is offered at the school even though it was reinstated this year). </p>
<p>This year’s val took a study hall senior year instead of corrupting his GPA with an unwieghted elective (plus he had run out of science and math classes anyways). It worked - got him val and into Harvard!</p>