My daughter had a number of teachers with PhDs at her high school as well.
Additionally those who have successful pass rates for the AP tests are teaching to the test.
@momofsenior1 I disagree with this generalization. My daughter had some amazing AP teachers that went well above and beyond what was in the AP curriculum, and their students still rocked the test.
And this the problem with AP & Dual Credit! We have zero Ph.D.'s teaching AP/Dual Credit courses all of our Ph.D.'s are administrators. My son is a poli-sci major and described his AP Gov class as soul crushing because the teacher was tenured and did not care at all! She gave out worksheets every day like they were in elementary school.
Contrast my sons AP experience with my DD’s Anatomy class (not Dual Credit or AP), she drew a complete skeleton with muscles and bones labeled, learned every body system and it’s function, dissected a cat and went to a cadaver lab. Instead of AP Bio she opted for this class and also a Healthcare Internship where she shadowed healthcare practitioners from many fields, wrote a personal statement (required for medical school applications), and became CPR and AED certified. I think these classes were much better use of her time than the AP Bio classes offered by our school and she would have had to take Intro to Bio at her selected college anyway.
If you have quality Ph.D. instructors teaching AP classes that’s great, but not all schools provide that level of quality for their AP & Dual credit classes.
The inequities between schools, states, and even within schools by instructors vary greatly. Families need to make the best choices with what they have to work with. The AP chem teacher at my daughter’s HS was awful. They ended up demoting her but the year she taught, many students opted for DE classes instead.
That’s why generalizations are tough!
Having a PhD after your name doesn’t automatically make you a great teacher. My son’s high school AP Calc teacher was fantastic, and he thought she was a better teacher than his college calc professor.
Our public school does not require the AP exam, and the exam has no bearing on the class grade. I disagree with a policy that requires the exam; I wonder if such a policy might actually discourage students from taking an AP class if they’re worried about the exam (either passing or the cost).
As a parent of engineering kids, I am grateful for the high school AP classes and exams. Using AP credit strategically allowed my kids to graduate in 4 years and take fewer credit hours per semester instead of the 17 hours every semester shown on the degree plan.
For DD19 She wouldn’t be taking classes with the friends that she studies with or it was the natural next step in the course (like AP Spanish). I think the biggest issue she is looking at is 7 AP tests in two weeks. Thats a lot of pressure /craming right at the end of her senior year. That is why she has asked me if she can sign up for all, ($700!) but only take the ones that will benefit her once she commits to a school. Some people on the list have mentioned that some schools view it as dishonesty, and it wasn’t really something we considered as I thought it was independent of the class. We will be careful to look at the school she gets into and make sure we understand how they view AP tests. That is why I continue to read this forum, some great information!
About 40% of our high school’s graduating class of 650-something were named AP Scholars (or above). About 100% of the kids said that high school was waaaaaaaaaaaay harder than college. I think the teachers are doing something right, regardless of who has PhDs. (All of our teachers do have master degrees.)
PhD should not be necessary to teach college frosh level material like what AP courses cover.
Yes, different colleges’ frosh level courses may not be completely standardized so that an AP course exactly covers the material in each one. Yes, the quality of teaching can vary greatly, in both high school and college.
But the assumption that a student who earned a 5 on calculus BC should retake regular calculus 1 in college, or that a student who earned a 5 on French should take French 1 in college, because high school AP courses are assumed to be automatically inferior in material covered, does not make sense.
@sahmkc A PhD demonstrates that somebody has been trained to do research, not that the person can teach. There are plenty of graduate schools which do not require that PhD students have any training or experience in teaching. Moreover, when PhDs are trained to teach, it is almost only at the college level. I have taught extensively at the college level, but I would not consider myself qualified to teach an AP class. It may be a college-level class, but it requires the ability to teach high school students, in a high school setting.
Before the proliferation of unemployed PhDs, most teaching colleges, including good LACs, only required a Master’s degree to be hired as faculty.
As for “teaching to the test” - yes, and your point? There is no other “objective” way to compare AP classes between schools than to look at success rates in AP tests. So what would you propose?
PS. IMSA, one of the best high schools in the country, does not have AP classes at all, which is why it is not ranked by most high school ranking systems.
@ucbalumnus I agree but the general rule of thumb we have been given is if the course is integral to your major you shouldn’t accept credit for it and should repeat it in university. YMMV. Kind of a moot point for DS19 because his top 2 program choices won’t give him credit for AP courses integral to the major and those are the only AP courses he’s taken.
Don’t know whose “general rule of thumb” that is, but it seems odd to suggest that a student who knows the material well from a high school AP course automatically repeat the course upon arriving at the university, even if the university says that s/he can take advanced placement.
A better recommendation would be, if the student plans to take courses for which the course that can be skipped with AP credit is a prerequisite, that the student try the old final exams of the course that can be skipped to check his/her knowledge. Then the student can be better informed about whether s/he should skip and take advanced placement, skip but review a few things, or retake the course.
But also, there is a disconnect in that students who are advanced enough in math in high school to complete calculus BC in 11th grade or earlier are commonly advised on these forums to take more advanced math at a local college if they are interested in going further in math. The “always repeat your AP credit” advice never seems to come up in that context (which would mean advising such students to take calculus 1 at the local college after calculus BC in high school).
My son’s college gave credit for a 5 on the AP, but also made you take a placement test before signing up for a math test. There reasoning being if you couldn’t remember calculus by the late summer you might be better off retaking it. In any event he didn’t repeat math or physics courses and did very well in college. (Dean’s List freshman year.)
For AP Chem, our state u suggests that kids wanting to major in the class take Chem 1 unless they got a 5 on the test.
I also disagree that teachers whose students do well on AP tests were teaching to the test. Was not my kid’s experience.
Accepting AP credit and advice on using it varies greatly college to college.
My daughter’s school also suggested not to skip a course directly for your major, with the exception of math.
Yes. I am about to pay more than $1000 for my two daughters 12 AP exams for both of them that are coming up in May.
My kids’ large public Northern VA high school requires the AP test for AP courses, but the school pays for them. I think it’s a good policy because it does keep the teachers accountable to cover what is expected.
On the topic of repeating courses once you get to college vs. taking the AP credit…I discussed this recently with a math professor at W&M. My S21 wants to be a math major and will have completed Calculus AB and BC in HS. I’ve heard this advice to retake the first level major classes once he gets to college. This professor completely disagreed when it comes to calculus. She said, in her experience, it’s better to step up to the next level and be challenged than take a class that’s really review. She often sees those students blow off the class, putting it last in their priorities, which is not a good way to start off college.
How do some of your schools make the AP exam the final when seniors would have already graduated when results come out?
My school requires students to take the AP exams. My parents had to pay for 12(!) for me and my sister.
It’s sad, too, because I’ll only be able to use about two of the credits.
@maya54 At DD’s school, the AP test was in lieu of a final, but had no impact on their course grade.
AP exam results are not used to determine your class grade, but if you don’t take it, then a school final must be taken which is used in calculating your class grade.
The one exception I have heard was from a student in Idaho. He had gotten a B+ or A- in AP Calc his senior year in HS. He then got a 5 on the AP test. He went back to his HS to verify his transcript, as his HS GPA was just a few points shy for a pretty substantial college scholarship. The math teacher looked at his AP score of 5 and changed his grade to an A. The A now put him in range for the scholarship. Happy Ending for everybody! The kid and his parents were shocked, had no expectation of a grade change after the fact!
At our HS you don’t have a final in AP classes regardless of whether you take the exam or not.