I didn’t want to derail the Getting a D in Calc BC for Princeton thread but an interesting point was brought up about the timing of the school year and AP testing.
I grew up in the northeast and our start date was always after Labor Day and the school year went through the end of June and sometimes even into July if there were too many snow days. So nearly two months of school left after AP testing, but more to the point, less time to cover all the material before the tests.
We moved to the midwest and our D always started school in mid August and was done before Memorial Day. That was plenty of time to cover all the material needed for AP tests, and left only 2 weeks or so after the AP test. That time was spent with projects, presentations, fun labs, or reviewing extra material teachers thought would be helpful in college. We have family and friends in different parts of the country that go back even sooner.
It does seem to me that there should be an advantage to starting earlier and ending closer to AP test time but when info was still available from the College Board showing state by state distribution, that didn’t seem to pan out:
College Board no longer releases that state by state data but the biggest predictor of higher scores was income, not location, and not start dates (by what I can see).
But, is there more pressure on students who have less instructional time before the AP exams? Someone on the other thread suggested more school systems sync their calendar with AP tests. I’m curious to hear what other parents think.
Since the majority of kids in high school don’t take any AP classes, I can’t see the logic of moving the school calendar to accommodate those who do. In our school system in MA there is always summer work associated with AP classes because of the calendar mismatch you highlight.
But note that many high school AP courses take a year to cover what a semester college course covers, which should still leave plenty of time for higher achieving high school students even with a later school calendar.
US history, biology, and calculus BC (from precalculus) would be exceptions.
With few exceptions, e.g. Physics C M + E&M, Micro + Macro, AP courses are an equivalent of a semester college course. There is zero reason a 15 week course requires 36 weeks to complete. And even for those year long equivalents. the material can be covered before the AP exams.
As a data point of one, we started after Labor Day with no summer assignments.
We start after labor day and for the majority of classes it does not seem to be an issue (will see what happens next year when S24 takes Physics C and AP Calc BC). The down side to it in our school is that the time after the test is spent watching movies and chatting. Not sure that is bad for the kids but it is a rush to get through the material and then almost 2 full months of hanging out.
I am not sure there’s really too much trouble fitting in the material, even for schools that start a few weeks later. I do think the time after AP or IB exams for that matter is a huge time waste. It was rare for anything meaningful to happen - so a month or longer is a whole lot of time to twiddle your thumbs. Honestly with teachers unable to schedule anything meaningful during the exam period as students all had different schedules - the impact was schoolwide. The entire year pretty much wrapped up by end of April, a mid to late June end would be a whole lot of nothing.
Our large, public, midwestern school was explicit about pushing the start date earlier to give more time for AP classes and AP test prep. Definitely caused a lot of side-eyeing.
At the time, I wondered if there was any real advantage, as it didn’t seem like schools that started later had appreciably lower AP test scores.
Why is no one saying that it’s the college board that should better align the test to the school year (say early June vs early may?) and not the entire school system that should adjust it’s calendar?
Regardless, to ski’s point, our school tends to cover the material through spring break and April is almost entirely dedicated to review.
My kids have occasionally complained about the fewer (therefore higher stakes) assessments, but I have also seen teachers accommodate for that by making things like HW or labs worth a bit more during the shorter term.
Sure. But many college students are taking 4-5 courses per semester (which meet 2-3 times per week) while high schoolers are often taking 6-7 courses that meet 4x/week or sometimes 5-6 times per ten days or whatever insane rotating schedule the school has. On top of a long commute for some high school students which students at residential colleges don’t have.
I am not arguing that college is easier than high school, but my D22 certainly is less busy and actually has the flexibility to devote far more time to each individual semester course! Her school didn’t have AP courses so I don’t have an opinion on when they should be offered. My own high school graduated the seniors a couple of weeks after AP exams (a good three weeks or so earlier than the underclassmen finished classes) and I think that was probably a good thing for everyone concerned.
As is ours but graduation is not dependent upon AP exams, and a lot of Srs skip the exam if they can’t use the credit.
The point was about the sentiment not the details. And yes, 2nd 1/2 of May would be better than first.
On the flip side, my kids are happy to be staring at the “end” of the school year in a couple of weeks and the fun stuff teachers have planned for after APs.
The volume of material in 6-7 high school (including most AP) courses would be like the volume of material in 3-3.5 college courses (only a few AP courses like US history, biology, and calculus BC would be exceptions). With more class time in high school, there should be enough time to cover the material even if a later school calendar shortens the time available for the AP course until the AP exam.
Also, most college students attend college as commuters, and commutes to college are usually longer than commutes to high school, since there are fewer colleges than high schools.
I do not see the logic of having students attend school a month or more past the AP exam dates if no content will be taught or evaluated. Rather than attempting to change the school district calendar, change the AP course expectations. The course could be taught for the full school year (or full semester for schools on a semester system). Teachers cover test material prior to the exam and expand upon selected topics or otherwise present additional content after the exam. If no additional material will be presented after the 2nd week of May, students should not be required to attend that class for the remainder of the school year.
That is what my sons’ school does. The last day of school for seniors in good standing is usually the second Friday in May. Their final exams reflect material covered through the end of April. All other grades have several more weeks of school. New content is covered and graded, although end of year ‘finals’ for AP courses are usually quizzes or unit tests since the final on AP test content is given prior to the official AP tests.
Also, my sons’ school operates on the semester system. Students taking spring semester AP courses have to hustle. Fall semester they have more time, but the trade off is that even though they finish the course in December, they don’t test until May.
Our last day of school is June 22, graduation is June 21. Would not work for the majority of schools in the NE. NYC public schools go one more week after us.
Nevertheless, in high school, my daughter was booked solid every day from about 8AM-6PM (if you include sports practices and games) and at times, she had regularly scheduled evening and weekend activities as well. This semester as a college freshman, she has one weekday when her first class is at 3:30pm and one weekday when she has no classes at all. Her weekends are wide open. Even with a part-time job, she is just less busy than she used to be.
I’m not saying that eight months is too little time to cover the curriculum in an AP course. I imagine it is enough time. However, if AP courses are as rigorous as people on CC claim (and I don’t know that most AP courses are really the equivalent of college courses) then I don’t think that many high school schedules are built for intense study over 12-15 weeks. I know some high schools that use block scheduling and other ways of reducing the # of courses studied at once, and I could see those being better suited for covering a college course in a single semester rather than nearly a full year.
Living in a state that goes back after labor day and having multiple kids take AP I have seen first hand how teachers push topics together, usually right after winter break, to try to get everything to fit in. Often it results in students having a sudden drop in grades due to lack of proper coverage of the material. We also have required summer assignments so I am not sure what the alternative could be. A later date would help, but see how it could be a problem for some states.
I assume your daughter attended a top boarding school, not a typical public high school. The amount of time required in addition to classroom lectures for a college course can vary much more than for a typical HS course, regardless of the college course’s stated number of credits/units. College students have a lot more flexibility (e.g. majors, courses) than typical HS students so their schedules can also vary a great deal more.
Even with a part-time job, she is just less busy than she used to be.