<p>I don’t think the sole purpose of AP Art is to produce a portfolio. Serious art students, who plan to major in art at a school with a reputable art program, start preparing a portfolio for college entrance long before senior year. The AP portfolio is not necessarily the portfolio that students will use to apply with, although there are likely to be overlaps.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure what the specific purpose of AP art it is as defined as separate from honors art. I think a lot of AP classes are a waste of time in the sense that they are NOT transferrable in college because the colleges want the student to take the courses in their major AT the university they attend. Neither of my kids transferred any of their APS and my younger D never took the AP Bio exam because she planned to major in Bio and knew they wouldn’t give her credits for AP. My older D was an art major and took AP art in high school. Again, not transferable. Neither had any trouble getting into great programs.</p>
<p>EPTR, they take the AP classes for the extra GPA weighting. The kids who are aiming for the top of the class take 6-7 APs junior year and 6 or so senior year. Many know that the AP credit won’t transfer…that’s not their goal. Their goal is the highest class rank possible.</p>
<p>I am (pleasantly) quite surprised to hear so many CC parents saying that a high GPA and class rank aren’t important. Have the CC parents turned over a new leaf, or are the parents who post “My kid got a B+ Freshman year, will that keep them out of Harvard” just avoiding this thread?</p>
<p>Right. I understand that. I was really responding to an earlier post that suggested that the process of portfolio preparation was the rationale behind the AP Art course. Portfolio preparation happens regardless. When I was in high school, we didn’t have AP art (or anything that I remember. Not that I would know, I was a lazy girl). We still prepared a portfolio with which to apply to art school.</p>
<p>I think the playing field should be even and I think that every art form should have a choice of classes in varying levels of rigor. I do think that there is some complexity to the assessment process for music and dance but that could be overcome.</p>
<p>I wonder if the dance and music teachers would even support an AP class. I guess it would have to be independent study combined with performance. The faculty members are all so stretched and committed to school activities outside of the school day. </p>
<p>Trust me, it’s not the huge portion of band, orchestra and choir members and dancers who want an AP option. It just comes up in years where an art kid ends up on top and other contenders who have participate in other fine arts are slightly below.</p>
<p>Be happy your kids have AP Art opportunities. The art teacher at my D’s HS tried to get an AP Art class approved, but apparently someone came in and looked at portfolios (not sure who) and said there were no portfolios “good enough” to warrant an AP class. Personally I think the whole deal was shot down by the principle. If he had been asking for AP Football, he would have full approval to go forward. </p>
<p>As far as val of my high school class (1969), I was curious to see where she had gone - she was just SO smart. Turns out she went to School of the Art Institute in Chicago for photography.</p>
<p>D high school weights. They have a 5 point scale with honors classes (All AP classes are Honors but not all Honors classes are AP) being given a 5.33 as top grade. The HS has a tremendous orchestra program. It has two orchestras totaling about 180 kids. One is open admission and one is by audition only. Both can be taken as honors courses. This is pretty much the only honors class that can be taken by freshman. Therefore, nearly every val and sal and many of the top 50 (out of 700 or so in each class) are orchestra members. D has benefited from this but I’ve always felt it benefited the orchestra program perhaps at the expense of kids who were very bright but had no interest in a string instrument. That being said you have to be a bright and ambitious young student to be at the top of a class that size and one orchestra class is not going to make that large of a difference except at the very top. Sophomore year other art classes become Honors classes.</p>
<p>No…not even a good HS friend who ended up as the Sal of my graduating class…which was an achievement in itself due to the academic pressure cooker environment there. </p>
<p>You’d also probably have hated my HS considering most teachers not only wouldn’t give extra credit, but some also didn’t even believe in giving 100s…or even any grades greater than 95/100…and achieving even the low 90s took a lot of doing. It was a HS which didn’t rank beyond the val and sal…and few really paid attention or cared from what I’ve seen.* </p>
<p>Much more plaudits/attention was given to members of the math/science/debate teams and those who were Westinghouse Semifinalists/finalists. Comparatively speaking…being a val/sal didn’t amount to much in comparison. The Sal friend was much more thrilled with being one of the Westinghouse folks than his Sal status.</p>
<ul>
<li>There was one younger HS classmate who was obsessed with trying to be the val of her graduating class. The reaction from most of us HS classmates…disdainful pity and feeling that she was being pathetic considering how even most top academic kids didn’t pay it much heed compared to the math/science/debate/Westinghouse competitions.</li>
</ul>
<p>Oldest school didn’t have any AP classes - but the whole school had " a culture of performance", studio art was part of that.
Also since they didn’t rank or weight, no valedictorians. Everyone had a chance to perform or speak if they wanted. She sang “Beautiful” by CaroleKing.
While she was originally planning to go to art school,I admit I pressured her to reconsider because I felt it was easier to do art on the side than science, which was also a strong interest. ( she graduated with a biology degree)
But several kids from her class did attend art school even without AP art. One attended RISD & the other someplace in southeast, Savannah?.</p>