<p>
[quote]
The College Board has all that data
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The CB does not appear to be releasing the data by high school. If one needs to call the schools to get the data, the cruder number used by Matthews is much easier to gather, and must increase the response rate substantially compared to something that requires data collection and analysis by each high school.</p>
<p>CB releases the results only for the top few schools for each test. Each school gets their own performance by this measure for each test. However, I suspect that few will release it. </p>
<p>Matthews number is, again, meaningless. My "Babbon High" will beat"Monkey High" by having every student take every AP test every year. No one will ever pass a single one, but, since scores does not count, I have the best high school in the world.</p>
<p>It is really only fair to compare like schools. For example magnet to magnet, top prep to top prep. At many of these schools, most students emerge with multiple AP scores of 4 or better. Hardly possible with schools that do not get to select their own students.</p>
<p>Matthews' number is not "meaningless", any more than spending per pupil or student-teacher ratio. It says something. He has his own rationale for this number on the Newsweek web site that publishes the rank list, expounded in a long question-and-answer FAQ. </p>
<p>The measures that you say are better are not only manipulable, but according to Matthews, are actually being manipulated by MOST high schools. He says that schools discourage or forbid lower-performing students in the AP classes from taking the tests, which boosts the average scores.</p>
<p>The Newsweek metric is certainly manipulable in theory, but it is not clear whether schools are actively trying to rig it or not. One has to respect the fact that Matthews and his staff have had contact with hundreds of high schools and if they say that they found the more obvious AP metrics to be rigged at most schools, that carries some weight.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is really only fair to compare like schools. For example magnet to magnet, top prep to top prep.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The Newsweek list excludes public magnet schools and private schools. They attempt only to compare unselective public schools with each other.</p>
<p>Please read a bit more carefully. The measure that CB reports, and to which I was referring is NOT manipulable. Forbidding weaker students from taking the test would not raise the schools' ranking. That is because the assessment is NOT based on average scores.</p>
<p>This assessment is done by taking
Number of students who score 3 or higher on a particular AP exam
Divide by the number of students in the school. (NOT the number of students who took the test)</p>
<p>The number of students who take the test is not part of this assessment. Having large or small numbers of students getting 1 or 2 does not matter.</p>
<p>Matthews's scale is obviously manipulable. He has admitted this, and then made two assertions: 1. He thought the high schools would not implement this strategy and 2. It might be useful for students to take the exams for which they were not prepared. In other words "they don't do the manipulation" and "it is ok that they do the manipulation, it is good for the kids"</p>
<p>One of the problems people note in Matthews's ranking is that he excludes schools that have high proportions of top students. It would be far more meaningful to both use a more reasonable metric, and to include all high schools. Then, for example, one could see how magnets stack up against one another.</p>
<p>Hi, afan, since I have perused the AP National Report to which you so kindly linked, I note that many schools that are noteworthy schools for their high average scores on one or another AP test are either public magnet schools for gifted students, the kind of school formerly excluded from the Mathews list, or private schools. So to return to the main thrust of the original post in this thread, the applicant to Harvard (or a similarly selective college) from a typical public high school has a problem: how can the applicant demonstrate that the curriculum in the applicant's high school really offered solid preparation for a highly selective college?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Please read a bit more carefully. The measure that CB reports, and to which I was referring is NOT manipulable.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The reading was fine. The CB measure that you now focus on, is certainly manipulable. It cannot be manipulated by the particular method Matthews cited, but you (and this discussion more generally) were not talking exclusively about that measure, or only about measures that are invulnerable to that particular manipulation.</p>
<p>Tokenadult,</p>
<p>In real life the individual student cannot do much to document the rigor of the curriculum. It is whatever the high school provides. The student can try for distinction in academic activities and competition beyond the curriculum and can select conventional AP courses, as opposed to those with the designation, but not a national test, to the extent they are available. The student can make sure to follow the standard advice of taking the most rigorous course selection available. Local college courses, EPGY and other distance learning endeavors are other options.</p>
<p>The article does raise the issue of what high schools can do. The standardized tests, AP and IB, provide a way for a high school to demonstrate rigor in certain courses. For those high schools with long established reputations for academic standards and importantly long relationships with elite colleges, these tests are not that significant. Exeter can do whatever it wants. Most high schools need an easily interpreted standard, like these tests.</p>
<p>Siserune,</p>
<p>That's another problem with the Newsweek measure. It purports to identify the best high schools, but it begins by elimintating from consideration schools that select for academic ability. Would one eliminate colleges that practice selective admissions from any consideration for "best college" recogniztion on the grounds that their average SAT scores were too high?</p>
<p>The only ways I can see to affect the CB AP measure would be to have more students get higher scores, or reduce the number of lower scoring students at the school. Since numbers with high scores, and total number of students are the only inputs, only these can change the school score. Can you see some other way to raise a school's ranking?</p>
<p>
[quote]
In real life the individual student cannot do much to document the rigor of the curriculum.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The student cannot do much to document the rigor of the * school's * curriculum; the student, however, can document the rigor of * his or her* curriculum by showing the number of AP classes and exams, college courses, distance learning courses taken.</p>
<p>Some ways to manipulate the above measure, "number of AP scores of 3+ divided by number of students in the school (not just test takers)":</p>
<ul>
<li>expand the enrollment in easier APs and drive as many students as possible to take the tests (hoping some will pass).<br></li>
<li>in the extreme case, make taking (or passing) some AP exam a graduation requirement or something close to it.</li>
<li>direct students who are qualified but below median for harder APs such as Calculus BC or Physics BC, where they run a risk of scores of 1-2, into easier offerings such as statistics, calculus AB, chemistry, physics AB.<br></li>
<li>sandbagging. Have calculus BC students take the AB exam unless it is clear they can get 3-5 on the BC.</li>
</ul>
<p>I probably have some of the names of these AP exams wrong, but the point should be clear. There are harder and easier versions and you push students into the easy ones to improve the scores, and in general try to increase the number of tests taken by students who have even a small chance of scoring 3+.</p>
<p>I seem to remember reading in the last few months, somewhere?, that many colleges are looking at the AP curriculum in general and are beginning to enforce only allowing a certain amount of AP credit to be used at college. Perhaps AP's are now going to be used as a permanent admissions tool at most colleges, instead of "considered" an admissions tool as we were told at many college visits. I am of the belief that one must be careful how the AP credit is indeed used. It can be a great advantage, but at the same time a curse when a student is bumped ahead to much more difficult classes.</p>
<p>
[quote]
- expand the enrollment in easier APs and drive as many students as possible to take the tests (hoping some will pass).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not sure what "easier" Ap's are. However, since the metric is BY AP EXAM, it compares only one school's performance in AB Calc to other schools performance in AB Calc. If a school has students who would pass, but were not taking the exam, that would be a strange situation. Were they taking AP courses, but not the exams? How would getting them to take and pass the exams constitute manipulating the scores?</p>
<p>
[quote]
- in the extreme case, make taking (or passing) some AP exam a graduation requirement or something close to it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not sure what this has to do with the metric. The number of students graduating, or what tests they took, does not matter. How would this increase the ranking on each AP exam? If it meant that only students who could pass AP exams were enrolled in the school, then this is another form of selective admission on academic grounds. Is that what you are driving at?</p>
<p>
[quote]
- direct students who are qualified but below median for harder APs such as Calculus BC or Physics BC, where they run a risk of scores of 1-2, into easier offerings such as statistics, calculus AB, chemistry, physics AB.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, Calc BC includes Calc AB, so not sure how this would help. In any case, it would mean the school might look better on those tests the students took, but worse on the others, where few students would attempt the exams. the school would end up at the bottom on Physics C and Calc BC. How does this improve the score?</p>
<p>
[quote]
- sandbagging. Have calculus BC students take the AB exam unless it is clear they can get 3-5 on the BC.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Same problem. Then you have good numbers on the AB, but terrible numbers on the BC. </p>
<p>The only way to improve the scores is to reduce the numbers of ENROLLED (not graduating) students or increase the numbers of students with 3 or higher scores ON EACH TEST.</p>
<p>Notre dame,</p>
<p>I think a number of colleges, particularly the ones with the highest academic expectations, find the AP exams do not fully reflect what would be taught in their intro courses. They are then forced to make a choice: redesign their curriculum with an intro course that matches, and is limited to, the AP syllabus; do not give credit for the AP exams; or run the risk of sending student unprepared into higher level courses.</p>
<p>Some places simply do not give AP credit at all. You need four years and the standard number of courses taken in college to graduate. AP can help with placement and, maybe, with prerequisites, but not to replace college courses at all. </p>
<p>Others reduce the credit- perhaps considering BC calc equivalent to a semester rather than a year of calculus.</p>
<p>Others accept only 5's, and tell everyone else to repeat the course in college.</p>
<p>Some dismiss the AP altogether and offer their own placement tests.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>I'm glad you agree. Those are the steps students can take. Parents can help by making sure the so-called AP courses at least really do conform to the national standard- and have test scores to validate them. Probably also useful to check the results of AP test scores to make sure students take the stronger courses offered at the high school.</p>
<p>You are right afan, and unfortunately, one does not "really" know where they will be attending college until likely after the time frame for taking those AP tests. In retrospect, be careful about which AP's are taken and how they are used. Yes, every college is different!</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, since the metric is BY AP EXAM, it compares only one school's performance in AB Calc to other schools performance in AB Calc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>We were talking about a single reportable number to summarize a high school, not 20 different metrics to show how a school does on every single AP exam. The number manipulable by the means I described is the one based on total number of scores of 3+ on all AP exams, divided by number of students. The College Board has been calculating since 2005, for instance, an "equity and excellence" statistic for high schools (possibly inspired by Matthews' rankings, and published by Matthews along with his own statistic) which is the number of students who score 3 or higher on at least one AP exam, divided by number of graduating students. This is manipulable in the same ways.</p>
<p>Now I see. We are talking about two different measures. The one to which I was referring (post #24) is the number of students who score 3 or better on each exam, by the number of students enrolled at the school. It has nothing to do with how many people graduate. It has nothing to do with how many people take the test. </p>
<p>Essentially it asks, for each test, what proportion of the students at a school pass that test. The only way to increase performance on this metric is to increase the proportion of students who pass the test. The only practical way to do this is to get more students to pass.</p>
<p>Aggregating across all exams would create potential opportunities for gaming the measure. The "equity" measure that looks at percent of students who got a 3 or higher on at least one exam also ignores people passing multiple exams, so it again becomes a bad metric.</p>
<p>Well, can you think of a single-number measurement of a high school's AP results, that is:
-- reasonably obtainable for large numbers of schools
-- less prone to manipulation than Matthews' statistic
-- more informative about a school's quality (however defined) or its AP performance?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Colleges have always been free to set their own policies regarding use of AP exam scores for any purpose. It's no surprise that colleges that are more highly selective and offer more challenging courses are less likely to offer AP credit, for a given score on a given test, than the typical United States college. The most selective colleges also have a more limited set of AP courses that correspond to any course those colleges offer, because many AP courses are designed after the syllabuses of first-year survey courses or introductory courses at liberal arts colleges or state universities. </p>
<p>The College Board makes efforts to validate AP test scores. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Colleges may or may not conduct their own validity studies in addition to the College Board studies to make sure they are using AP scores in a way that fits institutional goals. AP scores can be used for exemption from prerequisite courses, granting of credit toward graduation, advanced class standing, or placement into particular courses, depending on the AP course, the score obtained by the student, and the college's policies. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Efdo/publications/advancedstanding0607/%5B/url%5D">http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Efdo/publications/advancedstanding0607/</a> </p>
<p>I'm sure (by observation) that students who score well on AP tests don't all say "Oh, I'm done with that subject now," but rather some/many say, "Now that I have this beginning in the subject, I want to go on to a deeper understanding." There is always more to learn, and I would be the last to say that the AP program in general is a faultless high school curriculum, but it is a considerable improvement over the kind of curriculum found in the high school I attended in the 1970s, in a supposedly "good school district." I had to do a LOT of independent reading to supplement my high school lessons, but I wasn't as aware as I should have been about means of demonstrating what I learned through self-study. </p>
<p>Admission officers, the subject of this thread, have their work cut up for them in trying to compare the varied high school curricula found just in the United States, not to mention what they have to do to compare curricula offered in other countries around the world. External testing programs help alleviate but don't cure this problem. </p>
<p>Another step the College Board is taking to make sure that "AP" is a credible course label was reported on in the news story linked from the original post in this thread. The College Board has an AP Course Audit process </p>
<p>process to encourage high schools to meet minimal standards in planning and offering AP courses. </p>
<p>
<pre><code>* As always, schools develop their own curriculum for courses labeled "AP." The AP Course Audit simply specifies a set of expectations established by college and university faculty for college-level courses. Courses that meet or exceed these expectations will be authorized to use the "AP" designation.
</code></pre>
<p>Again, not a cure-all, but an effort to improve courses that are labeled "AP" courses. I would be the first to say that some high schools offer courses without the AP brand name that offer very good preparation for being a first-year student at a highly selective college. Harvard's admission office makes its best efforts to be aware of those high schools. A lot of avid learners of high school age end up taking actual college courses (of varying degrees of rigor) as part of their "high school" program. </p>
<p><a href="http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005008%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005008</a> </p>
<p>In any case, a college admission committee has to develop some sense of how strong a high school curriculum an applicant pursued. Most college admission officers, when they speak in public, say that the applicant's previous academic record is the single most important element of a successful college application. If that is so, the applicant from a little-known school will find it expedient to demonstrate somehow that his or her high school academic preparation was at a high level, perhaps through external testing programs or perhaps through some other means. Transcripts DON'T speak for themselves.</p>
<p>The idea that limited college credit is a sign of rigor needs to be modified. A number of colleges (this may be true especially of LACs) have a residency requirement of 3.5 years and therefore do not grant Advanced Standing. They limit the number of AP credits that can be used to just a couple. Students can use the credits to place into higher level courses but not to shave a year off their residency.</p>
<p>This is the case, for instance, of Wesleyan University, which, though excellent, cannot be said to be more rigorous than Harvard, which grants Advanced Standing for four of many (though not all) APs with scores of 5.</p>
<p>Thanks, marite, for the additional nuance on AP credit policies at LACs.</p>