The top private schools have very little range in terms of student ability, as they hand pick who they enroll and many use testing as part of their admissions process. So they have less of a need to have different ‘tracks’ as the entire class is in the selective college track. Contrast that with a big public who may have an AP track, and then honors, college prep, vocational etc. They have a greater need for APs so as to differentiate the students.
“A spokesman for the College Board provided this statement on the schools’ decision: “Over the past decade, the students at just these D.C.-area independent schools have earned more than 39,000 credit hours at the colleges to which they sent their AP scores. That equates to nearly $59 million in tuition savings at highly selective colleges, not to mention the head start these students received in their majors – particularly in STEM disciplines. At a time when the placement, credit and admission benefits of AP have never been greater, it’s surprising that these schools would choose to deny their students these advantages.””
I saved a year’s tuition because of AP courses. And the high schools rhetoric doesn’t say what great and mighty courses are available for replacement. Using AP credit from HS allows a student to take courses in college they might not otherwise get to take in a much wider range of subjects. Better to “delve in deep” in college than on a HS level.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/56692/brief-history-advanced-placement-exams says:
I.e. the AP program started with elite* high schools and colleges, but has become much more widespread, and now is “not good enough” for elite high schools to distinguish themselves from non-elite high schools.
*Although “elite” back in the 1950s did include a substantial component of inherited elite SES origin students content with “gentleman’s C” grades, the schools did have at least some students who were academically elite and would find value in getting advanced placement in college to be able to take additional advanced courses instead of retaking frosh level courses whose material that they have already learned.
I don’t think one can assume that the AP curriculum and the exams from the 50s are the same as the curriculum and exams of today.
Obviously, there has been another 60 years of history since then, but why would subjects like calculus and foreign languages be all that different now compared to then?
However, the students at the elite high schools and colleges are probably far stronger academically now than then, since the then-strong inherited SES preference has been reduced to today’s legacy preference and a few development admits, so it may be that course material suitable for the students at a 1950s elite high school may not be high level enough for those at an elite high school of today.
Well, for starters, they did not have all these AP-lite courses like APHG in the 50’s. But I really doubt that the concepts taught and tested for Calc BC have changed much. APUSH and APEH have another 60 years of history in the curriculum, but at least until the recent revamp, the testing was probably the same.
@skieurope your simply too young to remember anything prior to 2000. 
New article from the Washington Post regarding this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/06/18/several-well-known-private-schools-in-the-d-c-area-are-scrapping-advanced-placement-classes/?utm_term=.429efd115cd4
That article does mention elite private high schools as early adopters of AP courses in the 1950s.
Tests can be so unfair.
It has not been my experience so far that my kids’ AP classes have been formulaic memorization factories. D20 just took Euro this year and after the questions were released I looked at them, asked which ones she answered and how she answered them and was impressed by the depth of knowledge and interpretation she displayed. I hope that is indeed what she wrote down. The LEQ she answered in the 40 minutes allotted involved comparing the differences between the political consequences of the Glorious Revolution in Britain and the French Revolution. That’s not a just memorize some dates kind of question.
This is not a new trend. In my neck of the woods (Bay Area) the elite privates stopped offering most APs and replaced them with their own curriculum as far back as 2010. It hasn’t seemed to hurt college admissions one bit. I know that not al schools can do this, but those that can claim that it allows them to go deeper into a subject instead of the “inch deep mile wide” curriculum that is required for the APs. Personally I’ve seen it more with the sciences than the humanities courses (or math, since Calc is Calc).
Anyone know of any PUBLIC high schools besides the one in Scarsdale, NY that have replaced the AP program with their own advanced curriculum?
Our local high school only offers the IB Diploma program.
Offers AP courses: Branson, Castilleja, College Prep, Harker, Head Royce, Menlo, San Francisco University
Does not offer AP courses: Crystal Springs Uplands, Lick-Wilmerding, Urban School
Looks like most still offer AP courses, though some offer a much wider range of electives in some subjects and/or courses more advanced than AP courses (e.g. multivariable calculus).
The advantage that AP courses offer is the same advantage offered by the ACT/SAT - it allows schools to look at different kids, from different schools, in different regions using the same measuring stick. Now, if you are talking about schools like Sidwell Friends, Hotchkiss, or Scarsdale HS, admissions doesn’t need the AP because they know the courses at those schools are extremely rigorous. However, if you are trying to compare a kid from a small public high school in Vermont to a kid from a large low income public HS in Yonkers, to a kid from a middle of the road suburban district in Ohio, that’s where the AP comes in handy.
The foreign-language APs have changed significantly. When I took them (Spanish in 1972, French in 1974), they were a hybrid of today’s AP language and AP literature tests. There was a listening component (but no speaking) and multiple-choice grammar/vocab, but there were also multiple-choice questions and writing about a fairly extensive canon of literary sources from the early Renaissance to the mid 20th Century. In Spanish, that meant Jorge Manrique to Antonio Machado and Borges (Borges and Ruben Dario were the only Latin American authors included then); in French it was Villon to Sartre and Camus, with a lot of emphasis on classical drama (Racine, Moliere, Corneille).
AP is not that wide spread here in Canada and many of the selective universities are pretty conservative with regards to offering transfer credit. Most will only grant the equivalence of 2-3 1 semester courses with a minimum 4 score and for a few courses/faculties a 5 is required. Most engineering programs will not grant any credit. A few schools additionaly specify:
PLEASE NOTE: A.P. results from students who have completed the examinations as a challenge and have not taken the course at high school will not be considered as having completed the required prerequisite courses for admission consideration.
So self-studying and challenging the exam will not get you credit.
DS’19 is in a congregated AP program that he had to apply to with selection based on a variety of criteria including written assesments in Math and English. He is in the first cohort of the program and will be taking his first official AP courses next year in senior year (previous to this all his courses were “Pre-AP”). I’m kind of torn as to whether or not he should bother writing the exams or not. He will not be accepting transfer credit since the AP courses he is taking will be integral to his major (not gen eds). The only real value I see to him writing the exams is the prep required (which will also help him prep for his final exams which are a requirement in addition to the AP exams) and the experience of writing the exam itself.
I teach APUSH, AP Euro, and AP World. The “revamps” of the tests have really changed the game. I can’t even count how many times I have told kids “memorization is a waste of time - it’s about THINKING”.
I feel very strongly that AP is the best system for my garden variety, midwestern, upper middle class suburban HS - b/c it offers students the largest number of options as a result. AP is FAR from perfect, but it is a BIG jump up from the “average” class out there. I agree that I could possibly create a class that could challenge them even more - BUT, when one of my students from my “ordinary” public school applies to a selective college - the college would have no way of knowing how challenging my class was. But if I have a student who got a 5 on the APUSH - they know what that is.
It seems like some public schools need AP’s to prove that some kids have reached a particular level ( esp in cases where the school system is otherwise weak). In other public schools, the APs become a basis for competing in which some kids participate and others decide to take the tests only or forego APs in favor of other things.
Strong private schools can do as they wish. Many likely provide APs mainly for the parents ( who make this a criteria). Others have none and can state with certainty that their classes are equal to or better than APs. In case where the acceptance rate is 10-25%, all kids there can do APs if they wanted to. The privates have the luxury of being able to teach the kids how to learn and not force them into APs. While the publics have to decide if they want to offer them or not.
Using APs as a yard stick is a bit different from using the SATs as a yardstick. For the kid from a weak public school, it’s great. They can study and prove their mettle. Kids who are focused on learning may not have detailed knowledge that MATCHES the APs ( it’s all about learning what’s on the test-not learning about a specific aspect of American history for example).