<p>Two new studies financed by the College Board find that students who complete Advanced Placement courses and take the tests that go with them see significant gains in their college performance. I think part of the key here is taking the AP course and the AP exam. In any case, the new studies offer new data to counter MIT's analysis that found the AP program lacking in substance and results.</p>
<p>"The study found that students who took AP courses and exams “significantly outperformed” other students on a wide variety of measures of college-level performance. They earned higher grades, earned more credits, and graduated within four years at “significantly higher rates” than other students did. The researchers concluded that the study documented “strong evidence of benefits” of participating in AP courses and exams. The study was conducted by Linda Hargrove, a lecturer in education at the University of Texas at Austin; Barbara Dodd, a professor of education at Austin; and Donn Godin, a researcher at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.</p>
<p>The second study looked at students in four entering classes at the University of Texas at Austin. It found that students who earned college credit through the AP program “consistently outperformed non-AP students of similar academic ability in all college outcome measures.” Further, the study found that AP exam scores are “a good predictor” of future college performance, especially in the areas that match the AP exam in question. The purpose of the second study was to test the impact of the rapid expansion of the AP program and it concluded that the growth “has not diminished the validity of AP exam grades to predict college success.”"</p>
<p>Whoa! There's a whole lot of dog-almost-bites-man "news" here.</p>
<p>Among the highlights:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Kids who get college credit for AP scores graduate faster on average than kids who don't. Glad we have a study to show that!</p></li>
<li><p>Between similarly situated kids, kids who take AP courses and tests "significantly" outperform those who don't. Depending on what groups of kids get compared, there might be some interesting nuggets here. But I don't think anyone would question much that, as between Kid AP and Kid Slacker at the same high school with the same SAT scores, the one motivated to take the tougher courses is likely outperform the other at the same college. On average.</p></li>
<li><p>MIT's first-year courses may be more challenging and have more depth than UT's. Shocker!</p></li>
<li><p>Good grades in a challenging 11th or 12th grade high school course are a decent predictor of good grades in courses in the same area in college. Who would have guessed THAT?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I think that state universities, even top ones like UT-Austin, are under heavy pressure to accept both AP credits and community college transfer credits as being equivalent to their own introductory courses. By doing so, they help enable students with limited financial resources to get through college. To make this work successfully, I suspect that they design their own courses so that they are similar in content to the AP course so that all students going into the second-level courses will have similar backgrounds.</p>
<p>Private universities, especially extremely rigorous or specialized schools such as MIT, have different priorities.</p>
<p>And I'm sorry, the fact that these studies were financed by the College Board indicates that we should at least be skeptical of the results. Not that self-serving could ever be used to describe the College Board :)</p>
<p>When AP class numbers are used to rank the high school, and rankings help real estate values..there can be some smoke and mirrors.</p>
<p>By the way, a current 5 in AP class is not as hard to get as a 5 years ago when there were fewer students and better educated ones taking the test.
The number needed to get a 3,4 or 5 has been dropping.
On the most recent AP Mechanics Exam for which scores were released, a 38/90 was a "4". The trend over the last 15 years is for the scores needed for a "5" , "4", "3", etc. have been going down steadily.
Comparing college work to AP classwork is tricky. How good is the AP high school teacher? Does the school look at results or body count. (see America's Best High Schools ranking mess, and NY Times article about it)
College Board needed these studies to justify the program, but with the high pressure/big money involved, real estate values effected etc. some districts have not provided courses that are going to produce better educated kids.</p>
<p>Regardless of any problems/flaws, AP courses are good for a lot of high schools. These courses give students a more rigorous course than the regular courses offered at their schools, better preparing them for any college. Having a national test for a standard is better than a nebulous honors designation for many students. Instead of dissing the AP courses please consider that there are a lot of high schools out there that give a better education to their students because of them. Some studies show obvious results, but what if they had disproved "common knowledge" conclusions? Even students who go to elite colleges benefit from having taken AP classes instead of the regular classes they would otherwise have been stuck with in most high schools, without them they may have had no chance of getting into or doing well at better colleges. Better this imperfect system than nothing for most students in this country. BTW, the recent review begun by AP of their courses is good. Knowing the number of students who take and pass AP exams in a given school is useful, regardless of real estate values.</p>
<p>No one is dissing the AP program. We're commenting on the validity of the CB studies and their, ahem, startling, amazing, stunning, astounding... conclusions that seem to boil down to taking AP is better than not taking AP classes. Which is what Wis75 is arguing without the benefit of two CB financed studies.</p>
<p>I find it interesting to see how differently Us treat APs (even when the student received 5s on the exam). Some schools would have exempted my S from taking most similar classes at the U & entitled him to take the next level course instead. USC (where he's a freshman) gave him the max 32 credits they allow & exempted him from just two classes out of the 13 APs & one college course he entered with! He's re-taking all the courses he took in HS at USC, sometimes using the exact same textbook that he covered thoroughly in HS. He's cruising & enjoying the ability to get his bearings socially & explore new things he didn't do in HS.
He could have challenged USC & struggled to get them to allow him to take the next level course of several courses he already completed in HS, but since none of that would shorten the time for him to get his degree in engineering he decide not to bother. Many of his friends & classmates are similarly situated at this U & others (including Harvard & ivies & top tiers) & also cruising thru their 1st year & beyond.</p>
<p>The College Board picks its battles wisely. Is it an "accident" that the AP study was conducted at the University of Texas ... in a state that has an automatic admission for the top 10% of EACH high school in the state? Is it an accident that this study is conducted in a state that is rapidly becoming the poster child for the expansion of the unproven IB program? </p>
<p>I'd be more interested in seeing a study about the AP program at a school where professors have abundantly and clearly debunked most of the findings in the recent study.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this will give plenty of ammunition to the duffus who writes the education columns at the Washington Post.</p>
<p>"I find it interesting to see how differently Us treat APs (even when the student received 5s on the exam)."</p>
<p>Maybe there's a cost issue? Our state provides free tuition,all four years + books at any public university within the state to students with a 1270 and a 3.5 in high school. At the same time, our public U's are pretty generous with their AP credits. I think it's a money saving measure. At a private school, or in a state which does not have any state-sponsored merit scholarships, there's no incentive to be generous with credits. The more classes the students take, the more money the college makes.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The more classes the students take, the more money the college makes.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, a number of private universities have fairly generous policies regarding AP credit. Harvard, for example, allows students who have 4 scores of 5s on some APs to make use of Advanced Standing. But the majority of students who are eligible choose not to exercise this option, although it would save their parents a very substantial sum of money. This holds true for other universities with similar Advanced Standing policies.</p>
<p>USC (where my son matricualted) is a hybrid. They give the kids the credit but allow them to retake the classes & cruise, which most of them do. My friend's D at Seattle U was not allowed to retake the class she got college credit for. If he went to a different private U that had also offered him a generous 1/2 tuition merit scholarship, he would have gotten credit & exempted from the same classes he's having to re-take now. He could have gotten his engineering degree easily in 3 years & gotten his masters in the 4th year, which a boy we know is doing there.
I do believe there is a financial aspect and also a quality aspect, since the U probably recognizes that different AP courses at different HSs give kids different levels of preparation. In any case, my S is happy & thriving, & for that I am grateful, even if it could have saved us money if he had elected to exempt out of his freshman year. :)
S did tell us that if he wanted to major in something in arts and sciences, he would definitely be able to get his degree in 3 or fewer years, but we told him to stick with what he wants, which is engineering.</p>
<p>There's probably no financial incentive at a place like Harvard. It can fill every slot it has to fill, and the number of slots is basically limited extraneously (i.e., guarantee of on-campus housing to all undergraduates). Harvard shouldn't care if more kids graduate in three years, since it will have the same number of students, paying the same tuition (on average, net of discounts) regardless.</p>
<p>It may or may not be more complicated at other schools. State Us can expand their headcount at the margin (so they would rather not have students leave early), but politically they have to hold the cost of a degree down, and they may well lose money (before subsidy) on in-state students (so they want kids to be able to leave early). LACs, other than the most selective, may not have a limitless supply of qualified transfer applicants.</p>
<p>JHS:
You're right that Harvard shouldn't/doesn't care about students graduating in 3 years. It's the students themselves who choose to stay for all four years. This includes students on scholarships. Besides those who choose not to exercize the AS option, there are those who, having activated it in their sophomore year, regret it in their junior or senior year and end up staying all four years.</p>
<p>Last year, I talked to a young woman who had an impressive number of APs coming into Harvard. She was a freshman and lamented that she could <em>only</em> stay four years, considering the wonderful array of courses on offer.</p>
<p>S1 attended a LAC where the AS option was not possible and credit for only 2 APs was given.</p>
<p>My son will graduate from HS having taken 9 AP classes and AP tests. We were talking about this because its time to pay the $83 per test for this years batch. He has appied EA and been accepted at one school that gives AP's credit toward graduation. He had an interesting take. He said depending on the school and the max number of hours it allows through AP, he might be able to graduate with a double major. His preference is Columbia which I think limits AP to 15 hours, but I was intrgued that he saw AP's as a way to get more out of college, rather than do less. Since I have only agreed to a fixed financial commitment that is not going to cover all college costs, I took futher comfort that he apparently wants to go to college to get more education. It interesting what you can learn about your young adult by listening.</p>
<p>Musings- Using AP credits distorts class numbers- I wonder when a school has more juniors or seniors than freshmen if it's because of transfers, AP credits or taking longer to graduate? Wonder what happens to the AP credits applied when students take courses that are first semester x, but at a much higher knowledge level...could this be a reason some schools allow no AP credits? 07DAD- learning by listening works if son talks, be thankful for every nugget!</p>
<p>USC's policy makes no sense to me. Why not give credit for taking every class twice? I also really don't understand U's that won't give credit for courses that cover exactly the same material as the AP course. I realize using the same textbook isn't everything, but still! Perhaps part of the problem is the lowering of standards on the grading. My son went into the Physics C exam confident he'd get a 5 because of the curve. "Mom I only have to get x out of 90 mult. choice questions right, and I get way more than that correct on all the practice tests."</p>
<p>No answer from me, but this was a real question when S chose college. If he had entered state college, he would have been a junior. He had dozen each of local college courses and APS. The school he chose gave no credit for APs. They do let students take exams to place out of entry classes. The courses do not repeat AP material. If some credit was given,it would give a student time to pursue study/travel abroad or exploratory internships.</p>
<p>If one plans on grad/law/bus school, 4 full years of college plus is a long time.</p>