<p>"Only 32 percent attribute A.P. growth to more students who want to be challenged at a higher academic level, the researchers wrote, leading the authors to conclude that students were often enrolling in Advanced Placement courses for utilitarian or pragmatic reasons, not intellectual aspirations."</p>
<p>I’d have to agree. It’s become necessary to take AP classes to compete for college admissions. Another factor not mentioned is that the alternative sometimes is a basic level class which is too easy. We are losing track of a good solid class as an alternative.</p>
<p>They need to make some sort of an entrance exam for AP classes or something. I would like to be in a class where people are really excited about Physics and like to share information but thats not going to happen with the current situation. Also students are starting to take AP everything which also has a negative affect. People should only take it if they are really interested in it, not to have AP on your transcript. Especially on this website people take classes and score 5 on a class they hate just because of an award.</p>
<p>It will be extremely interesting to see how well the compatibility studies between high school achievement and college achievement on the same tests compare for future years.</p>
<p>Last summer in AP Bio, they found that the results of their compatibility study showed that the AP scores were too high relative to the achievement of the collegiate counterparts, and the number of 1’s skyrocketed as a response. The amount of outrage that I heard from our school’s own AP Bio teacher was interesting to observe.</p>
<p>I have a feeling that the statistical comparisons they make from year-to-year are going to be less important over time than the comparisons to how well AP predicts collegiate success. As high school enrollment grows, there are going to be some students who probably don’t have the prerequisites but have learned the game of taking particular standardized tests who will earn 3’s and 4’s in a subject. When that happens, and colleges demand higher and higher scores to earn credit (which has happened to a small extent) or don’t accept the credit at all, I think we’ll see that the AP toughens the standards of what it means to get a 4 or a 5 as a response.</p>
<p>And as scores that have value become tougher to obtain, and as those AP scores gain more value, I hope we’ll see more students become more realistic about what they can handle, and parents doing the same. What I fear is that we’ll just ratchet the stress level up even further, though…</p>