<p>In the Boston Globe today:</p>
<p>It seems that the discussion here is having a ton of APs vs having some APs and other classes which the teachers want to teach and the students want to take.</p>
<p>I think that the latter approach provides more diversity though it may not be quite as good for checking off boxes.</p>
<p>There are some schools that offer a proof-based honors calculus program - would a student be better off with the AP version or the honors program? I suppose it depends on what they want to do in college.</p>
<p>I have seen this discussion a few times in my years here on CC. There are very good schools that don’t offer any AP classes because they feel their classes are better, and their students do fine in college admissions. My high school 30+ years ago didn’t offer any classes, but I took AP tests based on my honors classes in Calc, Chem, and Lit. My kids’ HS has many AP’s, and they usually have the best teachers, but there are other popular classes such as anatomy. I do wish there were more options in Lit and humanities - we just have basic English 9, 10, 11, and 12 in college prep, honors, or AP format.</p>
<p>The movement is for HS’s to add more and more AP classes when they can. For schools that have the resources and the teachers that can teach those classes thats great. What about the small HS’s that don’t have those resources?? I know some small schools do great in admissions without AP but is that common? </p>
<p>Also the AP curriculum is taking the power of choice away from local school districts. The AP curriculum is decided by the college board who, as we have seen lately, are looking out for money as much as kids. </p>
<p>Finally; if a student goes to a college that accepts lots of ap credits, great if not they took a good tough class that will hopefully prepare them better for college. I think its a win win but I think we need to be careful of just adding ap for the sake of adding ap.</p>
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<p>They do without. Students in small schools, especially those in poor districts, do not have the same opportunities that students and parents in wealthier, larger districts get as a matter of course. It’s just one of the many inequities in education in this country.</p>
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<p>Yes and no. The local district has the “power of choice” to adopt or not adopt an AP curriculum.</p>
<p>And even to the extent it’s true, so what? Should the physics taught to students in Milwaukee be any different from that taught in Little Rock? Local control and local differentiation makes sense for some things, but I don’t know of an argument that says it’s a necessary part of education for each school and teacher to have complete freedom to define the details of their own curriculum.</p>
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<p>In the vast majority of high schools, that is a GOOD thing. The AP curriculum is designed by college professors and top high school teachers. To me, that is all good. Are there excellent high school teachers in the world that are ‘better’ than AP? Absolutely, but they are few. </p>
<p>Yes, CB is a money machine, but that doesn’t make its curriculum poor. One way to look at it is a premium product at a premium price. (Lexus and Mercedes will get you to work, just as fast as a Chevy, but…)</p>
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<p>Speaking of physics…our AP Physics B class uses the exact same textbook as they use at Harvard and Cal Berkeley. (Of course, the competition is different.)</p>
<p>Speaking of AP, why does College Confidential ask for “unweighted” GPA when doing a college search?</p>
<p>Unweighted gpa is an attempt to measure all the kids by the same yardstick, everyone out of a 4.0 scale, no extra points for ap or honors classes. </p>
<p>FYI- many education experts are advocating for less signifigantly less curriculum taught in a more in depth manner (the opposite of what most ap is about). Another point; if the ap curriculum is the ‘Lexus’ of curriculum why do the top schools usually not accept any ap credits. (Ex; at S1 saftey school he had 67 credits, at the school he went to (top 10) he started with 0 credits and that seems to be the norm not the exception.) They want the kids in ap but don’t give them credit (I already know several of the ‘reasons’ but… what do you all think?)</p>
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<p>Probably for the same reason they don’t accept:</p>
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<p>[Harvard</a> College Admissions § Applying: Transfer Program](<a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/transfer/transfer_credit.html]Harvard”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/transfer/transfer_credit.html)</p>
<p>IOW, because they need to maintain the fiction that courses at an elite school are inherently better than those taken by the hoi polloi at institutions attended by mere mortals.</p>
<p>Does Harvard accept transfer credit from their Extension School? I know that my son’s CS department didn’t accept their evening college’s CS courses for credit.</p>
<p>The real message of the story was participation rates, not the offering of AP classes. My town, for example, has according to the story a 48% participation rate. That reflects the demography of the high school: reasonable sized population for whom English is a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) language, fairly large population from the City of Boston, and so on. A town like Weston or Wellesley would naturally have a higher participation rate, given their socio-economic demographics. </p>
<p>Another simple factor is peer pressure. If the kids and families you know are in x group, then you naturally want to fit into that group. This doesn’t work as well when the school is diverse. Our school has kids from everywhere - literally, from all over the world - so the peer pressure is less. It’s definitely there. That’s why the high school is one of the best. But the pressure doesn’t apply as evenly because the population isn’t homogenous.</p>
<p>The article is then really about the distinctions drawn at the high school between the more “privileged” schools - generally whiter, always richer - and the rest. They don’t push the distinction because it’s tough to make much of it: it reflects aspirations as well as advantage. Aspirations are also affected by context.</p>
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<p>That surprises me. I guess it also depends on how you define ‘top’. My D applied to 2 top 30ish schools and both would have given her credit for most of her 9 APs. The one she chose is giving her the fewest credits, and she will still get at least 14 credits, and possibly as many as 26 depending on her scores that will be released in a couple of weeks.</p>
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<p>Shouldn’t a proof-based calculus course be a superset of an AP (or normal college freshman calculus) syllabus? A top math student should be able to take such a course and also pick up the AP credit.</p>
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<p>Not all highly selective schools exclude AP credit; [url=<a href=“http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/students/ap-charts]Stanford[/url”>http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/students/ap-charts]Stanford[/url</a>] gives both credit units and subject credit / placement for many (not all) AP tests.</p>
<p>For why schools may refuse AP credit, in some cases, the standard freshman course at the highly selective school is significantly more rigorous than the AP course (e.g. freshman calculus at Caltech and Harvey Mudd, which are more like real analysis elsewhere). The AP syllabi were likely made to align with freshmen courses at moderately selective schools decades ago, when selectivity at all schools was much lower.</p>
<p>But note that most of the highly selective schools are private, where the economic motivation is to keep students (only a few of whom are being subsidized with very large amounts of financial aid) for the full four years, rather than having them graduate early using AP credit. This is in contrast to public schools which want in-state students to graduate as quickly as possible, because each semester needs to be subsidized (in-state tuition). Some selective public schools like Berkeley and UCLA are very generous with credit units for AP scores, but significantly less generous with subject credit and placement (so the AP credit can still help students graduate on time if they would otherwise be a few credit units of free electives short).</p>
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<p>There is no consistency in weighting formulas used by high schools or by colleges which recalculate GPAs.</p>
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<p>It’s not the Lexus of curriculum.</p>
<p>It’s the fairly-new-Toyota-in-decent-condition of curriculum. </p>
<p>It’s better than what most high schools could come up with on their own but not as good as what the very best high schools (mostly private, always affluent) could design.</p>
<p>And the top colleges don’t accept it because they believe their own courses are better.</p>
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<p>UCB- can you please explain what the difference is for those of us that are not as up on the nuances as we should be. For example, my Ds school is exempting her from a class but not giving her credit for it. In other classes they are giving both credit and exempting. Is that what you mean? Thanks.</p>
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<p>No. The AP course is applications-intensive which is a reasonable choice for those going into science and engineering. The honors MV course I took at BC many years ago had very little in the way of applications and even the applications were fairly abstract. The typical class was to go over homework, short lecture and do a few proofs in class.</p>
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<p>What I mean is that AP scores may give you any of the following:</p>
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<li><p>Credit units (against the number of credit units needed to graduate). Example would be if your school required 120 units to graduate and gave you 4 units for your AP score. Then you would need to take only 116 units of courses to graduate.</p></li>
<li><p>Subject credit (against specific courses or subject requirements needed to graduate in your major). An example would be if you got a 5 on AP calculus BC and the school (or your specific major program) counted that as fulfilling a year of freshman calculus that is required by your major.</p></li>
<li><p>Placement (into a higher level course than the introductory course). In the 5 on AP calculus BC example, your school may then allow you to start in a more advanced math course like multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and/or differential equations.</p></li>
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<p>You may not necessarily get all three of the above for a given AP score; you may get one or two. For example, at Berkeley, you get 5.3 semester units for AP Physics B, but not get any subject credit and not get any placement into a more advanced physics course.</p>
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<p>In cases that I am aware of, the proof based honors courses can substitute for the regular courses for the purpose of satisfying requirements for various majors. Presumably, the math department assumes that a student who can prove something can apply it to a problem (indeed, proofs do depend on applying other theorems to construct the proof).</p>
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<p>Perhaps, but the student would need the context of the application and they may not get that without the applications-oriented course. On the AP exam - you might have particular kinds of problems that are covered in AP courses but wouldn’t be in an honors course and the honors student might be at a disadvantage on the AP exam.</p>