<p>Yeah, I'm old and out of touch. But I am stunned by the number of kids taking AP classes in my d15's high school. 41%! Is that normal??</p>
<p>That doesn't even count the number of kids taking honors classes. Aren't AP classes supposed to be rigorous, college-level classes? When I went to high school, maybe 10% took AP classes. And I went to a really good school. </p>
<p>My daughter doesn't take honors or AP. She has her hands full with regular, college prep classes. She will take honors history in 10th grade. When did regular college prep classes put you what is probably the lowest 25% of your class, because of the weighting?</p>
<p>I can't believe 41% of her school is actually "advanced" ...</p>
<p>There has been a proliferation of AP courses that are not as rigorous. For example, the following are commonly one year high school courses, even though they only count as semester courses in college:</p>
<p>calculus AB
calculus BC for students who completed calculus AB the previous year
psychology
microeconomics
macroeconomics
environmental science
human geography (if it is accepted at all by the college)
chemistry
US government
comparative government
statistics</p>
<p>When I was in high school, students who completed precalculus junior year took calculus BC in one year. Now, it seems that it is common practice for high schools to only offer calculus AB for students who complete precalculus junior year, and the superstar math students who complete precalculus sophomore year have to sit through two years of calculus (AB junior year and the rest of BC senior year) to cover what should be one year of calculus.</p>
<p>What is far more important is the scores of those students taking AP classes. If 41% of the class takes AP classes but only 50% pass the exam, well…maybe not so impressive.</p>
<p>Which ap classes are considered less rigorous? The ones in the list above? I have a hard time viewing anything with " calculus" in the title as less rigorous. lol</p>
<p>Generally, yes, since they cover what is typically a semester-long college course over a whole year in high school, unlike APs such as calculus BC (for students who just completed precalculus), English literature, and US history, which (at least in theory) cover a year of college course material over a year of high school.</p>
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<p>Calculus AB, or calculus BC for students who have already had AB, would be less rigorous than calculus BC (or college freshman calculus) for students out of precalculus.</p>
<p>My H and I were also surprised by the number of APs offered in schools now as well as the number of kids who take them. In our day, we had none.</p>
<p>Take a look at the list of best public high schools in the nation and be stunned how many schools have incredibly high AP pass rates. Our D’s high school is considered “better than average” with a 61% take/45% pass rate. </p>
<p>I’m shocked too. The school that 2 of my kids go/went to is supposed to be one of the best in our city and offers 19 APs but the stats are about half take an AP which apparently isn’t enough to get us on the state rankings. </p>
<p>I also don’t like the way they present the data. To me a 50% take and 30% pass rate means that 30% of those kids that took the test passed it. The way USNWR presents the data though is different. The 30% is the percentage of the total student body that passed an AP/IB exam. That means a 50% take and 30% pass rate is really 60% of the kids that take the exam pass.</p>
<p>I just ran the numbers for our school and 71% of our seniors that took an AP exam passed it. Considering that about half the class to an AP I am stunned that we aren’t even ranked highly in our state.</p>
<p>More than 3 out of 4 test at our school for AP and it also lists more than 3 out of for IB and over 80% pass-- but there’s a quality adjusted participation rate and exam per tester. I wonder what that means.</p>
<p>Our HS encourages everyone to try an AP class to see what a college class might be like. Similar stats as TV4caster mentioned (over 50% take an AP, over 70% pass), I think the only reason our school is not ranked highly in the state is because of the methodology used, which includes this:</p>
<p>Step 2: For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school’s least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low-income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school’s math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average. </p>
<p>I don’t think our suburban public HS passed this step.</p>
<p>there is research that does point to success in AP courses as being an indicator as to how students will do in college. </p>
<p>I think that an AP course done well is good prep for college classes. Done poorly they are a hindrance. Schools are pushing more and more kids into AP that are not interested or not ready. Our district is moving away from “Honors” classes, and only having AP and regular classes. I think that is a disservice to our kids.</p>
<p>I agree with ucb’s list, with the exception of Chem, which is generally considered on the highly rigorous scales. OTOH, Art History is probably a so-called AP Lite. And AP Gov is another one of those that is not widely accepted, at least by tippy top schools.</p>
<p>Note the ‘rigorous’ APs generally require other prereqs. The Econs and Stats, for example, only require knowledge of Alg I, whereas to do well in AP Chem, one should have taken Into Chem.</p>
<p>My district allows only those kids who get recommended by a teacher to take any AP’s and they must take the exam. </p>
<p>Since the district does extremely well in college acceptances into the highest ranked schools it doesn’t seem to hurt that the % taking AP’s is low. In addition, my district does not weight grades or rank, so colleges need to look closely at their transcripts. I have heard that this is not a problem, either, and that the colleges know my district and the quality of kids coming out of it. The only place I see this lack of AP taking hurt the district is in the USNWR rankings. </p>
<p>I’m not a fan of AP’s for a variety of reasons, but that is for another thread.</p>
<p>Blue - At least at our school, Human Geography is the freshman social studies class for high achievers. My DD’s class (she is a rising senior) was the first class to be offered this option. It is geography with some regular social studies/anthropology thrown in. She is looking at several flagships and everyone takes the class for some type of geography/history/anthropology credit.</p>
<p>AP Physics B should probably be on the less rigorous list, it doesn’t require Calculus and in our school it just replaced Honors Physics. AP Art History in our school is not considered easy at all, it’s taught by the best teacher in the school who also teaches AP Euro. </p>
<p>My younger son took AP World as a sophomore. (Global studies is a two year sequence already in NY). I thought it was ridiculous to think he was doing college level work although he did get a 5 on the exam. In any event, being stretched over two years, made it less rigorous, though the first year had not been at an AP level, which meant they had to catch up on those topics. It was a good experience for him none the less.</p>