Personally for me, I think it’s a stupid class. Knowing how to write a paper and do a presentation should be taught in English class. Many students at my school are taking it just because it is “AP” and is the only AP offered to sophomores at our school. I just think these classes were created as a money grab for College Board. I mean, it costs $141 for “each” exam. These classes are not rigorous. In AP Research, you have a whole year to do a 4000-5000 word essay. That’s not very hard.
Anyways, what do you guys think?
Well, since you asked… 
I’ve said this on another thread, but it bears repeating: I have no issue with HS’s requiring some type of a capstone project for an honors diploma. The issue I have is with the College Board blatantly ripping off the IB Theory of Knowledge/Extended Essay and slapping an AP label on in. But don’t worry, the CB is not the only institution that I fault on this - I also blame the HS’s that drank this Kool-aid. One would think that both groups would have learned after the Physics 1&2 fiasco, IMO.
AP courses are supposed to be equivalent to an intro college-level course. There is no way that anybody can convince me that there is any college-level equivalent to this, except perhaps an honors thesis. But let’s be real, there are very very few 12th graders who can write like a college senior. Anyway, for that reason I suspect, few colleges give credit for it.
Having said that, if one has a burning desire to take this course, it will certainly add to course rigor, but no more than any other AP course in a college AO’s eyes IMO.
I mean, I took a college class called English 201 (composition) that pretty much was the same thing; we had all quarter to research and write a 15 page essay. There isn’t any AP class the college will take instead of that though so idk. I think knowing how to research is an important skill that is sort of taught in English, History, and Science classes but not completely. I totally agree that the CollegeBoard is an evil, greedy, moneygrabbing organization though.
In my high school, it costs the same as other AP exams.
However, I do agree, the AP Capstone program isn’t fully polished. A lot of the teaching is subjective, meaning the course is entirely up to the instructor’s interpretation. And while the course is fairly new, College Board keeps changing it. For example, the 2016-2017 AP Seminar course changed from last year’s curriculum where the Task 1 became individual perspective papers. This might be one reason why colleges haven’t granted AP credit. However, writing is a lifelong skill, (writing research papers helps improve that skill), so I understand why not a lot of colleges grant AP credit, but I think the main factor is that it is a new program that hasn’t been fully established so colleges aren’t sure of its potential.
I have to say the course so far does help me explore new areas of research that aren’t discussed in English classes (AP Lit mostly focuses on texts.) I rarely write long analysis papers and so this class helps me analyze from multiple perspectives while utilizing all kinds of media. Presentations aren’t really common in English classes, so I applaud College Board for encouraging high school students to take a seminar-esqe class in high school. However, the program itself with the “diploma” is unfortunately an extrinsic motivator to get more people to sign up for the program and classes.