<p>Assuming a student is taking an AP course at the HS they attend: if the student/family is required to pay in full for the corresponding AP exam in May, should students be required to take the exam? Students also receive a weighted grade for the AP course, if you need this info to discuss this question. I's appreciate your comments. Thanks.</p>
<p>No. It's perfectly reasonable to pay for something and not use it.</p>
<p>No. Absolutely not.</p>
<p>I think whether it's public or private is impotant to this question. I'd say porbably not for a public, but I wouldn't have an issue at a private</p>
<p>I feel strongly that AP exams should be mandatory. If students are receiving a GPA weighting advantage by taking the AP level, they should take the exam. In our town, the test was not mandatory & kids were flocking to the AP sections for the GPA bump. Many were unmotivated students who slowed down the instruction or hindered intelligent class discussion. Now that the test is mandatory (and paid for by the BOE) the number taking APs has dropped. The district will also be monitoring how the new policy has impacted passing rates.</p>
<p>At our local high school (public) they introduced a requirement a few years back to take the AP exam or else lose the weighting for the class. Not sure if it is still the case. I disagree with it because if my daughter had stayed at the school she would have stayed with mostly AP classes to get the more challenging class but would not have wanted the AP Credits for her major related classes (biology/chem). The weighting was not very high so getting a B in an AP class would have a negative affect on the GPA and students who could not maintain a certain grade could not do the AP class. And the BOE did not pay for the exams.</p>
<p>She wouldn't have been forced to use the AP credits, though. Many kids choose not to and some schools won't take them. If the high school gives no boost to AP courses, then I think the test could be optional. But I'm fairly certain that most high schools do give a boost. Colleges give AP kids an admissions boost, as well.</p>
<p>My children attend a non-public school and AP exams are mandatory. I agree with this. All classes are unweighted. Also, entrance to the AP classes is competitive and limited. You must achieve certain grades in prior years in the subject matter and in the case of History and English AP's, you must also sit for an essay test prior to be admitted to the class.</p>
<p>What is the real purpose of taking the AP exam? There might be several reasons to encourage it:</p>
<p>1) keep the non-serious students out of the AP class to begin with
2) measure the effectiveness of the AP teacher
3) allow the student to skip the corresponding course in college, potentially saving money & time
4) give the student a slight bump in his or her college application, assuming a college looks at AP scores
5) other reasons I'm not coming up with at the moment</p>
<p>Reasons not to take it:
1) it's expensive
2) if the student hasn't mastered the subject, then the student should retake the course in college anyway (despite potentially passing the test with a 3)
3) standardized testing in secondary schools has run amok</p>
<p>I have to admit to being biased against standardized testing, and after 12 years of seeing how schools are "teaching to the test", I'd be inclined to register a protest and encourage my sons to not take it.</p>
<p>I'm in the "absolutely not" category, especially if the school is not paying for the test. DS took five AP courses, including Japanese, at his public HS. The HS does not pay for AP tests. The college he is now attending gives AP credit for all of the AP courses DS took except for Japanese.</p>
<p>DS did well in that course; he took it for four years and had all A's. I was pretty sure that he would get a 5 on the AP exam, but neither he nor I thought it made sense to pay $84 just to find out if we were correct.</p>
<p>If the student/parents have to pay for all AP exams I don't think it should be mandatory to take them. In these tough economic times, that may lock quite a few kids out of taking AP's. </p>
<p>Some might argue that there is no point in taking an AP class if not planning to take the exam. Not true. For example... Our school only offers AP Calc. (no reg. or honors). If S1 could not have taken AP Calc. (due to the cost of the exam) he would have been a semester behind in math when starting college because he would not have had any calc. in hs. and would have been required to take the pre-req. for a semester to earn entry into calc.1. Same goes for foreign language, just taking the class (and not the exam) could prepare a student for the FL placement exam to allow them to skip entry levels. </p>
<p>Our school system pays for all AP exams. Anyone who wants to try an AP class is allowed to. AP's carry 2 extra points for the gpa bump. Everyone who takes the class is required to take the exam of lose a letter grade off the year end grade. Consequently, there are plenty of kids who take the class to boost the gpa and the transcript but don't give a flip about the AP exam. They take it because it's mandatory but don't really stress over it because they/parents didn't have to pay for it so it's "freebie".</p>
<p>Seems to me that a lot of issues around the test do not involve learning for the sake of learning. I'm quite glad that MIT OpenCourseWare exists (and Yale, Berkeley and the other schools that put out their courses on the web).</p>
<p>At the local public HS my DS attends (enrollment about 2100), the HS makes the rules clear up front. To receive the weighted GPA for the class (e.g. an A=5.00, B=4.00 and so forth) the student MUST take the AP exam, period.</p>
<p>If the student doesn't want the weight, the don't have to take the exam. I believe their is some funding set aside for low income students but I don't know how this works since our family doesn't qualify. I was glad the physics teacher alerted us, at back to school night last evening, that AP Physics C students are required to take (and pay $84 each for) TWO exams: one in mechanics and one in electricity/magnetism.</p>
<p>For the admissions process, I think there is value for the student in taking the AP exam, presuming they do well. Irrespective of whether they get college credit for the course (which varies by the college) the AP exam tends to be the norming factor to whatever grading curve or GPA weighting that occurs at individual high schools. It's probably the same reason why most of the colleges require the SAT/ACT. While college admission team purportedly try to work with the same HS so they can understand these variances, standardized nationwide tests give them lots of information, too.</p>
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Seems to me that a lot of issues around the test do not involve learning for the sake of learning.
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Yes. And I don't see anything wrong with that. If a kid doesn't love math & science, but knows he needs credits in those disciplines for college core requirements, what's wrong with getting them out of the way in high school? This can free up plenty of room for courses that he'd enjoy simply for his love of the subject. APs in that example prove he can handle the college level work while allowing him to study his true passion in greater depth. I think that's a good thing.</p>
<p>FIndAPlace, I forgot about the value of AP scores as a norming factor. Good point.</p>
<p>No. Our school does not have weighted grades. Families pay for the tests. There are strict requirements to get in the class. What's wrong with pushing yourself to the limit even if you don't take the class?!</p>
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<p>One such other reason is that the (silly?) Top High Schools in America type of rankings are heavily based on #s taking AP classes, # AP scholars/commendeds etc. (ie based on the scores on AP tests). So high schools want to make that cut.</p>
<p>Our hs didn't used to require the AP test. It does weight AP classes, but so does it weight Honors classes... and there's no standardized test for those courses. Now it does require them and I've always wondered whether those rankings were a factor.</p>
<p>To me, the only reason to take the test is if a student wants credit at the college level for the AP course, and to enrich the College Board.</p>
<p>Many APs are taught to the test and not very enriching. Some APs are well taught and enriching. So who's to say that higher scores on the tests indicate better quality of content or instruction?</p>
<p>Probably no family is going to the poor house based on the cost of AP tests, but those costs are prohibitive imo. And shouldn't be required. </p>
<p>Full disclosure: my S took the test for the AP classes where he wanted credit or Advanced Standing in college. He didn't take it for those where he didn't.</p>
<p>Our public, large suburban school district made the AP exam mandatory last year if student wanted the AP designation on the transcript. District motivation was to get on Jay Matthew's list of top HS. However, the result of the policy is that the percentage of students who "flunk" the AP increased dramatically. Many, many students, especially seniors just paid the test fee, sat through the exam and got 1's, but got the designation on their transcripts.</p>
<p>I have been on my kids HS for 8 years now about holding the teachers accountable to teach the material before mandating the kids test. Very little emphasis goes into encouraging the teachers to get AP training or to follow the AP curriculum. Hopefully the CollegeBoard approval of HS AP classes will help, but only time will tell.</p>
<p>I guess you can tell that I am against the mandatory AP testing. It only hurts the kids. Not everyone goes to school that accepts AP, or in my district, most kids go to State U and take the community college credit rather than sit the AP exam.</p>
<p>What happens senior year? Many kids take APs that show up on the transcript with the weighted grades. If they don't take the test, does the HS recalculate the grade and then notify the college in July or so when no AP grade arrives for the student?</p>
<p>In our case, my son's college did not offer credit for any English classes. He was already in college so it would have been a complete waste of over $80 and his time to take the test. Tax money should not go to paying for students to get college credits. Ideally, the class itself should be difficult enough to warrent the GPA bump. </p>
<p>I can understand why some think the test should be require. I thought there was some oversight by College Board(?) about course content. If most kids don't bother to take the AP test, there is something wrong with the class. Perhaps the AP folks should require that some percentage of kids take the AP test or the school loses its right to call it an AP class. </p>
<p>When I took AP US History way back in the dark ages, the teacher was not very good (at least in the opinon of the kids). He made us do some long papers. Almost nobody took the AP testas we didn't learn much history. I certainly don't remember having to do DBQs in class.</p>
<p>No. Especially for students whose families must pay the fee. No weighting of grades in our school system either. A student can take one or both semesters of AP Music Theory, obviously not prepared for the AP exam with just one semester, but an excellent filler instead of study hall opposite the phy ed semester. The exams are somewhat independent of the classes- one can take and get a 5 without taking the class, take a non AP class in the subject or take it elsewhere. Also, with the exams a month before the end of the spring semester here the course can't just be preparing for the test. With the possibility of getting AP credits I don't see why HS's would offer both honors and AP- the exception being a required course (here they have "advanced" language arts 9, 10 and 11, and 2 AP LA courses, fortunately because schedule conflicts meant son couldn't take both AP courses and finish a foreign language- also content differed with the adv. course perhaps better in scope).</p>