Right on point. Class separation must be maintained. And the parents will willingly pay extra for that edge.
I think that the author of the Inside Higher Ed article is correct. Underlying the move away from the AP by elite private schools and wealthy public school districts is the conviction that, if the AP is good enough for the kids at an average or below average public HS, it can’t be good enough for our kids.
Most kids taking AP courses are either (1) chasing class rank or (2) wanting college credit to reduce costs and make it more affordable. I doubt the student body - or rather their parents - at these expensive, elite schools are affected by college costs. Kudos to these eight schools for having the resources to offer comparable curriculum, but I don’t see this becoming a national trend.
Source, please? (Hint: recognize that ~half of high schools don’t rank.)
UCBalum called this back in post #2.
“Most kids taking AP courses are either (1) chasing class rank or (2) wanting college credit to reduce costs and make it more affordable.”
While these may be factors in some cases, I think that the main reason why most kids take AP courses is because the colleges that they plan on applying to insist on a rigorous HS course load. Certainly that’s the case at my kids’ HS (which doesn’t rank). The elite schools that have gotten rid of the AP classes don’t need them to demonstrate rigor, or perhaps, as the Higher Ed article suggests, have determined that AP is not rigorous enough. But they are the exceptions, which is why I agree that this will not become a national trend.
My kid takes AP classes because she likes them. Our school doesn’t ranks and she gets mostly B’s in them. But she loves them.
@TheBigChef I agree. My D17 and S19 took/take APs at our suburban Maryland HS that does not rank. These are the most rigorous courses at our school and the teachers are fantasticl. Honors and AP courses are weighted the same so can’t chase class rank, even if that existed. D17 did well on AP exams and her scores fulfilled some requirements at her university, so she was freed up to try some different and interesting courses first year. The elite private schools here will have rigorous courses and the students will likely still take AP exams. The private schools may offer smaller classes and more in-depth and flexible learning opportunities but for 30-40K per year tuition, this is unaffordable for most families. I don’t see the MD and VA suburban public HS following this trend and dropping APs.
My NYC private day school never offered AP (I don’t recall even knowing about the possibility of taking the test or about the program at all). When I was there, colleges expected certain classes known to be challenging. That school does now offer IB.
I disagree. I think there is a strong belief in areas of education that the AP Curriculum isn’t the best method of delivery and that these schools have the resources to offer what they think is better. My D went to a public HS that didn’t offer APs because they have their own pedagogy which they believe is better than APs. There’s nothing nefarious about it.
Our public HS offers some AP courses but in Physics and Chemistry offers instead advanced courses that are not AP but weighted the same as AP. The course description indicates they prefer to “go deeper than AP” and that’s why.
I’m sure that is true, but the flip side is that they likely don’t go as broad, i.e., they cover less topics than a typical AP course.
“Course rigor” is one of things some colleges consider in the application process. If a particular HS offers 15 AP’s and a student ‘only’ takes 3 - then they didn’t fully utilize the opportunities available to them. If, on the other hand, a HS offers only 4 AP’s and that same student takes 3 - they would have a higher ‘course rigor’ score. If no AP courses are offered - then the fact that a student didn’t take AP’S can’t be held against a student
Stupid system. I suspect schools are dropping the number of AP’s because in the world of college applications mathematics offering to many will work against an applicant and possibly drop the number of acceptances to ‘elite schools’.
The high schools dropping AP courses are mostly elite private high schools that probably already have strong connections with and “fast track” admissions paths to elite private colleges, so the presence or absence of AP courses may not be all that relevant in this context.
One problem with the AP is that just taking the course says little about one’s college readiness these day. Close to half of all AP tests result in a 1 or 2 out of 5, yet how many of these kids are receiving a D or F on their transcript? How many kids have we seen on CC who score a 1 or 2 on early AP’s (most commonly Human Geography, a course a full 1/3 of test takers score a 1 on according to AP) then continue on with a transcript full of AP’s? Do we seriously think most of the 14 and 15 year olds out there taking AP history or English courses have the kind of deep and nuanced understanding of the material we expect of college students?
I would imagine one of the reasons these schools are backing out of the AP is to prevent the “my friend’s kid at the local HS has taken 12 AP’s and mine is paying $40,000 a year and has only taken 9” rat race to mediocrity.
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this site, but according to its calculator a student can get no more than half the questions right on most AP’s and still score a 3.
42% to be accurate
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2017/2017-Score-Distribution-All-Subjects.xls
Let’s not get caught up on that - there are top colleges that have classes (usually STEM) where one can get half the questions wrong on a final and still be above the median.
^Point taken.
Student could work really hard in school, but teacher didn’t cover enough of the AP course curriculum…
Depends on the college. I would not expect many grads of Podunk State to have a deep and nuanced understanding of any subject.
Since many AP courses take a year to cover what a college course covers in a semester, it is not like they do not have enough time.
It makes me wonder how many smaller schools - private or public - simply don’t have the necessary resources or budget to run a full fledged AP or IB program. The public HS that my D’s attend have 2400+ kids which makes it more practical to offer a few different curriculum tracks. The two elite privates in our town with much smaller enrollment offer a limited set of AP’s but honors classes are rigorous and they place well.