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<p>Agreed. There are 30,000+ high schools in the US, many (most?) of them pretty poor, and statistically, at least half below average. In contrast, there may be a only a few hundred “very best” high schools.</p>
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<p>What puzzles me with the weighted vs UW is, my S could have a much higher GPA if he took CP or Honors courses, instead of AP. But his transcript would not look as good. So I think there is lots of merit to weighting GPA. Of course, I understand that every school does it differently. Some add 0.15, some 0.25 etc so you aren’t’ comparing apples to apples. </p>
<p>But S took the most rigorous courses he could take, and still get As and Bs and I think that is the right move, rather than taking all honors and having a 4.0 GPA.</p>
<p>I would like to point out that which HS kid attended might be more important than AP offerrings. D’s HS did not offer many APs and they could take only 3 / year and only starting in Junior year. However, she said that some of her regular classes were taught at higher level than others’ AP classes and prepared her better for college. As one example, she ended up being hired as SI by Chem. prof after her Regular Chem in HS (AP was not afferred as HS) and ended up tutoring lots of kids who took AP Chem. in HS. Teacher / HS will make more diff. than Regular / AP class.<br>
On the other extreme, some APs will be counted but still require student to take the first class in this subject. As example, many times pre-meds are required to take first Bio despite “A” and “5” in AP Bio. Again, D’s first college Bio class went thru AP material in first 2 weeks and then they moved on. So, if college strongly advises to re-take, make sure do not argue, they know what they are talking about.</p>
<p>^^yes, our competitive small HS doesn’t have many AP branded classes but does have some very, very good classes that are not AP branded. In my opinion the English class that was replaced by AP English was a far better class than what the kids get now following the proscribed AP curriculum. I actually think our physics curriculum (no APs available) is better than AP. Anatomy & Physiology in our school is excellent and not AP. I think our US history was better before AP, but fortunately the teacher does a good job with AP adds plenty to the class to augment the required AP test stuff. I think it was a mistake for colleges to accept these classes and give kids college credit for them as it just created another layer of goofiness in our public education system… I think the concept would have worked great for math classes or for middle and upper elementary curriculum.</p>
<p>Agree with all the posters above that it all comes down to teacher, school and the kind of students signed up for a perticular class. At our public school, even though most classes are AP branded and do prepare them for AP tests and do complete the AP prescribed curriculumn, no way there are restriced with the curriculumn. Teachers often teach beyond what is required and often go beyond the expectation of AP precribed curriuculmn. So my point is, even when it comes up with an AP brand name doesn’t necessarly true that it is restriced by it. You can think of it as a baseline the students are supposed to attain when they take an AP chem class for example. I like that my S is in AP classes because often this means he is with motivated students and teachers will be spending time more to teach than to manage the class. As a poster above said- for many many high schools around the country, it is probably good that some curriculumn is handed down to teachers to teach than they are trying to create the one that suits them and thereby watering down the rigor. Now some schools(philips academy and the likes) have really strong curriculumn which are beyond teh availablity of most of high school students. They could do away with AP and still not have their students college admissions affected by it because they have a reputation- a name- that is par with excellence. I am sure there are some public schools around too with the same reputation with out any AP and IB brand.</p>
<p>My own feeling is to view the AP curriculum with skepticism. It is rarely college equivalent. It’s taught in a high school. Chances are homework that a college student would be expected to do for no credit gets graded. I’m just not a fan.</p>
<p>I have issue with " credits" too. So a kid takes AP everything and goes into college with 40 credits. Are all 40 useful? Probably not. So they took Gov and US history. Gen Eds at the college require just one of those classes. The other is an elective. No big deal until you get a kid who is in a full program or who wants to double/ major. All those extra earned, and useless, credits from AP means they start bumping into SAP maximums and their fin aid can be threatened. </p>
<p>My kids’ high school pushes AP and DE. D transferred in 29 hours. Her program is 4 years of rigidly sequenced classes, so she didn’t save a year. She also found only 9 of those hours were useful. The science and math she’d taken wasn’t the right kind for her program. </p>
<p>The more experience I get with these kinds of classes, the less I like them and think schools should be cutting back offerings, not expanding them.</p>
<p>Back in ancient times, I entered college with three passing AP scores that were given a total of 20 credit units (120 to graduate). Two of them produced subject credit exemptions from required for my major courses totaling 12 credit units (the third gave only free elective units as a higher score was needed for subject credit). So I effectively got to substitute 12 credit units of free elective courses while graduating in eight semesters, although I could have graduated in seven semesters if I really wanted to.</p>
<p>But back then, there were not a lot of useless (for subject credit in college) “AP lite” courses like human geography, environmental science, statistics, etc… There were only about six or seven AP courses available in my high school at the time (some of them were just the honors fourth/fifth level foreign language courses).</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: I wouldn’t call them useless courses, the courses often give an introduction of the subject and some students do get the benifit of taking such courses. For example, after taking AP STAT course, my S has applied hs knowledge of stat into programming in an EC he is part of and has developed a great passion for the subject. His love of subjects like economics has come from his exposure to statistics early in his high school. His teacher was good and has taken this course to a whole different level. This is one example. Am sure a student who gets exposed to human geography in 9th grade could develop a passion for it. One of my friends daughter while doing human geography did a projetc on migration. She studied the migration happend right after independance of india and pakistan and interviewed a few people who lived in that era back home. My friend told me that after this project, she has read every thing she could about the history of those two countries and she has started developing a passion for history and reading!!
So we never know how these classes can affect the students. </p>
<p>Now it is a seperate point to discuss should the colleges give credit for such courses taken in high school.</p>
<p>AP stats is great - save it for easy “A” at college to boost your college GPA.</p>
<p>My D also found her AP Stat course got her directly into the second semester stat class in college - and there was subject matter in that class that she already knew from HS. What is a useless class to some may be valuable to others. Her AP credits allowed her to double major and study abroad and finish in 4 years.</p>
<p>There are kids interested in learning at a higher level rather than taking an easy ‘A’ class!</p>
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<p>I would disagree. They give the actual AP test to college students and then set the curve to that figure. If you get a good mark on the AP test then you have indeed learned the equivalent of that college course.</p>
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<p>First of all, 40 would be an anomaly and not the norm. The avg HPYS student has something like 7 APs. My D took 9 APs and will enter with at the most 20something credits.</p>
<p>EDIT- I just checked and Gov and Hist would both count for Gen Ed requirements as well even though your post says they wouldn’t.</p>
<p>I agree with the others that for most schools, the addition of AP courses improves the curriculum, rather than detracting from it. My high school did not offer AP Physics. It did have a regular physics class however, taught by a teacher with very little physics experience, who spent the first semester mostly on kinematics. No matter how badly an AP Physics class would be taught, or even if it was Physics B rather than C, it would still be an improvement over the physics class that was originally offered. And I went to an average suburban school.</p>
<p>And also, if AP courses are a mile wide and an inch deep, then my courses in college must be a mile wide and a mile deep.</p>
<p>Re: #28</p>
<p>By “useless” I meant specifically for subject credit and placement in college. Many of those “AP lite” courses would make fine high school level courses (and indeed that appears to be what some of them are, if 9th graders are regularly taking AP human geography and weaker-in-math students are choosing AP statistics over precalculus or calculus).</p>
<p>But perhaps it is a sad commentary that high schools need the incentive of an “AP” label to offer such useful high school level courses.</p>
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<p>At my d’s school either would fulfil the gen ed, but at my d’s school, a student only needs one. The second becomes elective credit. My own kid will finish her program with very close to 150% of hours required. I wish we didn’t have so many useless credits from high school classes. </p>
<p>Now, I’m not saying the classes are useless, just that the mad dash for credits (and that is how AP sells itself), may not be so wise.</p>
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<p>At some colleges, the college course and the AP course may not match exactly, so that a student skipping the college course may have to self-study the “missing” bits. For example, Berkeley’s second semester freshman calculus course contains some material not commonly found in high school or other college freshman calculus courses; the math department tells students who skip it with a 5 on AP calculus BC to self-study that material (many students do skip and do fine self-studying that material as needed).</p>
<p>In some other cases, the AP syllabus does not match well enough that the student needs to retake the course anyway. For example, Berkeley’s second semester physics course for scientists and engineers includes thermodynamics as well as electromagnetism using multivariable calculus, so AP physics C electromagnetism without multivariable calculus is insufficient to cover that course (an honors course is available for students with stronger preparation and motivation). Berkeley’s history department does not consider any AP history to be a substitute for any history course for history majors, although some divisions may allow AP history to count for breadth requirements.</p>
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<p>I can’t speak for human geography or environmental science, but personally I think a good understanding of statistics is far, far more of a useful skill to possess than a good understanding of calculus (for someone not in a math/science field), and I really wish everyone would stop treating calculus as king and statistics as the red-headed stepchild. There’s so much innumeracy in this country to begin with.</p>
<p>But is AP statistics really a college level course, or a good high school level course that a larger audience of high school students should take (not just the “top” high school students taking AP courses)?</p>
<p>While I agree that basic knowledge of statistics is widely useful for many high school students, that is a separate issue from whether AP statistics deserves an “AP” label that implies that it is somehow “college level”.</p>
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<p>I think that to attempt to answer that question, you’d need (at the very least) a syllabus for AP statistics and the syllabi for the first statistics course at a representative sample of colleges. Without that, you’re just spinning your rhetorical wheels.</p>
<p>I do agree with PG that given a choice between calculus and statistics, statistics is a more important subject for the general population. But then, I’m speaking from ignorance, having taken a lot of college stats and nary a calc course anywhere.</p>
<p>AP Stats is probably comparable to the non-math/science/engineering college statistics course.</p>
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<p>My kids’ HS doesn’t weight at all. AP, “pre-AP” or “regular” - doesn’t matter. GPA is GPA. And it includes music and drama and such too. Many colleges weight the APs themselves, and reduce or eliminate the “fun” classes from the GPA.</p>
<p>My S only took the 4 AP classes, (3 exams) and a local CC course for HS credit, but I am glad his college will take all of that as credit, if only so he has either a little breathing room to drop a class, or the ability to finish a semester early if he wants to add a couple of classes over a summer or something.</p>