<p>Looks like a general overview of CS at a high school level, or a non-majors' overview CS course in college. It does not look like it would be useful for any subject credit or placement into more advanced CS courses in college.</p>
<p>While it may be a useful high school course offering, it does appear to continue the trend of devaluing AP into an inducement for high schools to offer courses that they would not commonly offer otherwise (e.g. statistics), rather than its original purpose of providing a standardized way of ensuring validating college level material taught to advanced students in high school.</p>
<p>Honestly, the regular AP Computer Science is already basic and is an introduction class as it is. From the looks of it, this is a “lower”, “watered down” version of CS. I do not support this in anyway; the current CS curriculum is basic enough for even “non CS majors”. Honestly, even after a year of AP CS, most students will not understand computer science. Most will just know how to program. having a even more watered down curriculum is ridiculous.</p>
<p>It sounds like as if they are milking money now, even more so than before…</p>
<p>While it does look “watered down” in difficulty, it does give a broad overview of CS which can be useful for those who do not intend to take more CS courses in university. Such a student facing a choice between AP CS Principles and AP CS A would probably be better served by taking AP CS Principles.</p>
<p>However, neither should really be viewed as a true “college level” course. (However, in universities, there is a market for courses similar to the proposed AP CS Principles as breadth courses for non-majors.)</p>
<p>This sounds like it will become the “Physic B” exam of Comp Sci AP Exams. Schools will offer it, it will be a joke, good colleges won’t take it for credit.</p>
<p>Yes, Physics B and Statistics are probably comparable – good high school level overview courses, but not really college level for those planning further study in the subjects (though colleges may offer similar courses for non-majors who would take a “physics for poets” type of breadth course).</p>
<p>Berkeley, UCSD, and UNC Chapel Hill are certainly highly respected elite research universities, and they were three of the five (six?) schools chosen to pilot this as a college class.</p>
<p>I started in an era where if you didn’t take numerical methods – and understand how addition and multiplication were implemented at the hardware level, and how floating point calculations were accomplished – then you certainly couldn’t claim to be well educated in computing. Today not many CS grads at all learn numerical methods at that level, nor do they learn how to wire core memory, write assembler language, or calculate block optimization for 9 track tapes. Life changes. </p>
<p>Not all college courses are designed as prerequisites for students majoring in the subject. Computers are ubiquitous, and more than ever there is a rationale for CS classes that provide a functional, hands-on exposure to computers. As outlined, this class seems to be more analytical than the typical Intro to Computer Programming for non-majors class offered far and wide at US universities, and required for many non-CS, non-Engineering majors. I see no reason to disdain it.</p>
<p>For that matter, I’d like to see AP Statistics offered as both a Statistics A and a Statistics AB course, because more substantive statistics background would benefit a whole host of students.</p>
<p>Theory, theory, theory … under ideal conditions this course might certainly be good for some HS students. The bigger issue is (A) Whether HS’s are going to even offer the course given availability of AP Computer Science; (B) How well the course is taught; and (C) Whether college credit will be granted. </p>
<p>The main complaint I have is diluting the effectiveness of core AP … those established disciplines where a 5 on the AP test really does mean the student has a grasp of freshman college course material.</p>
<p>Berkeley has a course CS 10 that this AP test appears similar to. It is a course for non-CS majors which is purely an elective course which does not satisfy any graduation requirement (other than giving credit units).</p>
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<p>They list it as covering Physics 25, which is one quarter of a three quarter long sequence of physics for biology majors, and does not include the lab component.</p>
<p>Cornell and Berkeley both offer 8 units of credit for Physics B. (Neither of those two colleges are science slouches!) Sure it may not do much for a physical science major, but Physics B is not an AP Lite, such Enviro, Calc AB alone, Govt, Psych, Human Geography (what is THAT course about?)</p>
<p>And it is easy to forget on cc, that the average high school student doesn’t plan to attend Stanford, Cal or Cornell. Instead, they hope to matriculate to a Cal State or SUNY. And it is those students which comprise the bulk of the AP courses.</p>
<p>It’s interesting to see the constant claims on CC that statistics and physics B are useless for credit, since the vast majority of universities actually do accept them. There are more universities than just the top 25. I believe the percentage of seniors to take at least 1 AP test is around 15% now. That is a lot more people than just those at the top universities.</p>