You have a lot of confidence that the alternatives to AP courses are better. And maybe they are at Andover or Sidwell Friends, or in a course you would teach. But not all of us had access to high quality teachers in our youth, and for me the lack of APs (and teaching standards) meant we covered 1772-1865 in US history repeatedly, and never once considered the 20th century in my public school. I am glad the APs ensured my kids had baseline knowledge. Many teachers are wonderful people, and the work is incredibly difficult, but I would not assume all are going to cover the material unless the kids are tested on it. And not even then, always.
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Had this issue come up when talking to kiddoâs US History teacher. She advised against kiddo taking the AP exam. He is at a bs, no AP classes. She doesnât teach broad coverage, memorizing dates, etc. She teaches an approach to being an historian: deep dive, original sources, big analytical writing projects. More of the why than the when. She knows that means there are significant holes for her students who want to take the AP exam, so her students donât take it. But the schoolâs reputation allows for that luxury.
She does cover topics up through Reagan and even 9/11 (blows my mind that Reagan and 9/11 are history, apparently I am old). The disruptions this year just exacerbated the challenges of covering everything- so I can understand doubling down on skill-building over speeding through a textbook.
It does beg the question: what is a high school history class supposed to teach? I am not 100% sold on her approach (though her assignments were really interesting), honestly, because I do see the value of breadth over depth in an intro history class. If it is the only US history class a student gets, there is a lot of context to know.
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There are several reasons why students and parents have been surprised by UC admissions historically on these forums:
- When SAT/ACT scores were considered, students and parents often assumed that high SAT/ACT scores made up for lower HS GPA, even though UC tended to weight HS GPA relatively higher than SAT/ACT scores.
- Students and parents often assumed that their weighted HS GPA was well above the HS GPA ranges shown on UC web sites, when that was actually not the case because their weighted HS GPA as calculated by their high schools resulted in higher HS GPA than the UC weighted-capped recalculation.
- Students and parents were not aware of the sometimes large differences in selectivity for different majors or divisions at UC campuses. Unfortunately, UC is not very transparent about such differences for frosh admission (although it is much more transparent about them for transfer admissions).
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Glad to hear your kids had access to a variety of courses and APs. Not everyone does. We donât have them, and since they have not yet gone away, which they surely will some day, itâs not very fair, which is consistent with the overall effect of the college board corporation on American society. I wonder if those APs had already gone away at your kids school, wouldnât they have been replaced with something else better. It seems the assumption is there would be nothing else.
In any case, weâll all find out as this corporate monopoly influence will be gone some day.
@Gumbymom will correct me if I am incorrect. The UCs are test blind for the next couple of admission cycles. Itâs not a âlawâ, OTs what they have chosen to do.
BUT there has also been discussion in CA about developing their own standardized test to be used in admissions sometime in the future.
And @UCDProf many CA kids are still taking the ACT or SAT because the schools they are applying to are not test optional.
Now, having said all of thatâŠthe list of test optional colleges on Fairtest.org continues to increase every single year.
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UCs intended to be SAT/ACT optional for a few years before becoming SAT/ACT blind, but then lost a lawsuit that said that they couldnât be SAT/ACT optional, so they became SAT/ACT blind ahead of the intended schedule.
CSU became SAT/ACT blind because of SAT/ACT access issues and probably because it did not want to have to figure out an admissions formula that would work for both SAT/ACT submitters and non-submitters.
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The CA legal decision is going to impact the rest of the country, and already has.
As you see from the numbers, thereâs no way to argue oneâs way out of the fact that the SAT is dying.
History is on our side. Weâre coming for you, 1%
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Time to get back to the OPs question.
Further discussion of SAT/ACT should go elsewhere.
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Hereâs how I would approach the search if this were my kid/family.
1- Make a list of colleges which based on a first cut are affordable, in the desired geography, have some (nothing has all) of the other preferences/requirements.
2- Cut out the ones which have a rigid core, seem to be the wrong fit academically, etc.
3- figure out which of these are within range for your kids stats/application.
Thatâs your list. Every college has kids who arrive under-prepared. Every college has kids who quickly find out the easiest major, and then become solid B students in that major. They mostly do fine in life even if they have a rocky couple of months before they figure out how much work is required to pass.
Trying to parse some complex pedagogical model or argue the relative benefits/shortcomings of a particular grading system/rubric- waste of time.
You want your kidâs ticket punched (it seems) and your kid is fine with that strategy. So do it. If you write that your kid is passionate about Art History, particularly Renaissance/Mannerism, and doesnât want a college where heâll have to take Earth Science or Statistics to cover a Gen Ed requirement- that we can help with. But youâre looking for an affordable option PLUS a boatload of other things-- and since we donât know your kid other than what youâve posted, and since your biggest concern seems to be alcohol (Iâd be more concerned about sending a kid to college who didnât like to read- since- as an academic you realize that reading is THE core competence for a college student), just figure out a few colleges you can afford, where heâll get in based on his stats, and then trust that once heâs there heâll sort out the social stuff, the academic intensity stuff, etc.
Many of the colleges folks have suggested are TERRIBLE fits for what youâve described BTW (Vassar? Filled with passionate and quite sophisticated social justice warriors. BC? Lots of kids from rigorous Catholic HSâs where they do tons of reading, writing, old school composition and rhetoric). But thatâs for step two. For now, sort out the financials and the rest will take care of itself.
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APUSH test does not have any memorizing dates questions, maybe the subject test did. Most of the test is not even multiple choice, and the m/c questions are interpreting graphs, charts, images.
âLook to the LACs that are doing holistic admissions already to see how it will work.â
Trying to get back on the OP, LACs definitely look at APs for rigor as part of their holistic admissions, just like every other college in the US. Some may not use it for credit, sure.
If you replace AP classes, it would be hard for the typical, public high school to replace them and high unlikely it would be better, maybe just different. How would you make non-AP Calc better, some kind of fluff Calc for business class that most adcoms will see right through and try to find the real calculus on the transcript? The reason APs have the status they is do is because of adcoms, students would love to take less, but beginning with FItzsimmonâs statement about 10 years ago(at Harvard, we find the APs to be the best predictor of GPA), the AP race has taken off.
Another condemnatory post (or should I be generous and just label it snarky?), but does have some obviously appropriate advice like for weeding things out which match what Iâve already said Iâm doing.
The rest of the details seem to have no relation to what I or others have written, not that your obliged to read it all. No one here suggested Vassar, although I (not others) did put it up there as economically viable. When I did that, there was quite the opposite reaction. âTicket punched?â After the lengthy discussion of pedagogy?
I donât get the motivation, but I guess this is America, a fairly crazy place I suppose.
Weâve exhausted the conversation and itâs just going in circles and going off-topic (and not in a civil way that complies with ToS). Closing thread.
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