In the local schools I am familiar with, DE serves multiple purposes.
If you don’t start down a path with something like band that can last all four years, the pickings become slim for electives in junior and senior year. So for some students, getting a jump start on college classes (taken at the college with college students) makes a lot of sense, and there are articulation agreements with the public universities in North Carolina, so no guessing on what will transfer for what.
A poster upthread mentioned students not getting credit for DE while they would have for AP. The opposite is true for many public NC universities. AP classes get you at best a “general elective” sort of credit that doesn’t go toward the core requirements. The classes you take at NC community colleges can save you at least a semester. These classes are also free or close to it for high school students.
Another possible advantage of DE is to your GPA and class rank. An honors class at D24’s school is worth 4.5 for an A, while a college class would be worth 5.0 (this is especially helpful for electives that don’t have AP options). You are also strictly limited to a maximum of 8 classes for the year in one high school without DE. I am not sure what the hard limit is for her school’s DE, but the minimum is 8 and most take at least 12 classes (high school plus college) over the course of the year.
D24 also loves the additional responsibility and freedom that comes with college classes (fewer hours in class, more homework but she can plan her week to include more outside activities like volunteering on Friday morning when she doesn’t have a class).
Definitely worth looking at the colleges under consideration to see what their policies are. Some LACs seem to be quite meh about accepting credits earned elsewhere, before OR after high school graduation.
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I don’t think you can do IBD until junior year unless there has been a major change in the program. More likely, this is puffery. However, most schools offering the IB (and it’s a pain to become an IB school) have a track that sets you up for those last 2 years, so perhaps he is saying he is on that path.
I have heard of districts offering DE as a less expensive way to provide students with higher level classes, particularly if they are cutting AP classes.
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DE is not overly popular at our local HS (although it is available). DE classes are not included in your gpa so there is no boost and most high performing kids opt for AP classes over DE. A few kids who may be advanced in math may opt for DE to take coursework as we top out at AP Calc AB/BC and Stats. I think the prevalence of DE really depends on where you live and your school district (we are in MA - good suburban school).
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Intetesting comments from everyone. I didnt realize how widespread and common this has become. I feel a lot more enlightened now.
@gardenstategal some districts offers the full ib diploma program in high school and the Middle Years Program in middle school. My kids’ district does this. I’m guessing that the student mentioned earlier was already participating in that program and intends to continue it.
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Agreed
at our low-income public district- the AP pass rate was dismal; DE credits while taking the AP class was a sure thing to get low SES college credits for kids. It was heavily pushed.
our small private school in the midwest has reduced AP classes to 3; but upped the DE classes. I think*** it has to do with teacher requirements for AP teaching.
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Good point about teacher requirements. I’m observing a real bi-modal phenomenon in high schools-- the very “high end” HS (elite private schools, highly rated public HS’s in affluent areas) are abandoning AP because their own faculty are developing, or have developed curricula which they believe are superior to AP (and less restrictive in terms of what has to get covered.) And the schools in low-income areas which often struggle to hire and retain “master teachers” can’t provide AP’s because they don’t always have the right teachers to teach the courses. You can’t turn a 9th grade language arts teacher into a BC calc teacher, and teaching any of the AP History classes requires actual history knowledge-- you can’t be a chapter ahead of the class to teach effectively. And the pass rates bgbg4us alludes to certainly reflects that.
So while I think chasing DE “to look good for college” is a sad trend for kids who are already attending a high quality, rigorous HS, it might be the only shot talented kids at a poorly resourced HS have to get “something more”.
Of course a poorly taught DE class is the worst of all possible worlds, but what can you do??? Then you’ve got kids showing up for college getting credit for material they haven’t mastered and floundering in the next level…
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Yes, that’s probably the case. Splitting hairs, but IBD (SL and HL) is for juniors and seniors. But schools often sign on for the whole progression. The IBD is a high school degree, the second for most us students, so it’s more regulated than AP.
(My kid was an IBD kid, so I learned a fair bit about where there was “give” in the program require8and where there was not. Mostly not!)
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Is this true everywhere…or only on College Confidential?
That is definitely true here, and I meant to clarify our program. Our program is for 11-12th graders only. You have to test in and meet other requirements (discipline record, recommendations, etc). Then you spend the morning taking DE classes in math/science/english with the other top kids from the area. The program is housed in a wing of a beautiful building that is used for many purposes (meetings, conferences, satellite research programs). This is in contrast to their 1950s HS where the (boys) bathrooms don’t even have soap, paper towels or doors on the stalls. The kids from our HS are allowed to drive. So for lunch, they can either pay $$$ and eat in the nice cafeteria with the adults, go to McDs, or for free can go home or eat at the HS. (All kids get free breakfast/lunch at our school.) They are allowed a lot of freedom, and the teachers treat them like adults/college students in many ways. All of the kids want to be there, so it’s a good situation.
Contrast that to our AP classes at the HS where the average score is 2-3. Older S had a couple of good teachers, but they retired. Younger S got ones where they showed non-educational pirated movies on a weekly basis.
So when I say their DE classes were better than AP classes, I’m not comparing their DE classes to an AP class at an elite prep school! They are probably on par with an AP class at a regular upper middle class public high school.
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This could lead to a whole new thread, but it’s worth touching on here, especially as there are a lot of students who are starting college now and the the next few years with big gaps in learning due to Covid and zoom school.
That is definitely true where I live and both AP and DE are offered. I saw a huge increase in interest starting in 2021. I think parents with juniors/seniors at the time started this trend. Continuing to progress while managing college expenses was their main motivator. Now that everything is in person again, the popularity has remained. I’m holding my fire to see how the in state flagship is able to accommodate this increase in CC transfers. A lot of these families would have sent their kids to the public universities for four years otherwise.
Do you know if your district had AP teachers retire in the great resignation or just underemployed AP teachers as a matter of administrative policy?
I’m trying to assess this at my local public for my youngest (my DS24 is taking his AP tests there and goes to an online school) that offers DE and AP. I wasn’t impressed with the prep schools’ offerings (lack of rigor). I tried but they didn’t make a good impression relative to the public school.
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On the topic of teacher qualifications, I can provide my limited insight. I teach a dual enrollment class on our high school campus. It is more difficult to get approved as a dual enrollment teacher than it is an AP teacher. Our private school’s DE program is a partnership with a four year private university. We have to submit copious materials to prove our class correlates to the equivalent college class, syllabi, assessments, rubrics, etc… and we all must have graduate degrees in the specific area of the class we aim to teach. I had to provide all of my undergrad and grad records to show exactly what my background and qualifications are. There were observations as well. Once all of that is submitted a panel deems us worthy or not to teach DE. Now DE classes taken on the college campus would be attractive to low SES schools with limited offerings, but DE on the high school campus would likely not be doable for that type of school.
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Were you required to get state certification to teach 11-12 in your content area?
Thanks for explaining. It’s interesting to see how everyone is figuring all of this out around the country.
Your explanation of your process looks almost exactly like a parallel certification process, so if you didn’t have to do anything else, that might be why.
No, funny enough, most of us have graduate degrees, but not teaching credentials. Private schools tend to not care much for government certifications. I do have a teaching credential, or I did at one point, but also a masters degree.
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UCLA’s average OOS accepted student has taken 18 full-year AP, DE or IB courses Sophomore through Senior year, as one example… Most schools don’t have IB or the ability to take that many AP courses. DE is the new arms race of proof of rigor.
I’ve also seen some parents/students using it as a way to shorten their 4-year college time to graduation as a cost measure.
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Our school system has long struggled to keep teachers - in all levels, but especially in the HS. Pre-covid my H’s elementary school had a 20-25% turnover every year. The last couple have been better since they have a good principal! The stronger teachers are usually the older ones who have been around a long time, but over time they are leaving.
Since we have been struggling with teachers for so long, I’m not sure when the “Great Resignation” is, but older S graduated HS in 2016.
My kids did not have “the best” education growing up, but they have the best they could have in our area. Neither will cure cancer or likely be CEOs of a Fortune 500 company, but both have done well in college, are (or should be shortly) independent and seem happy with their lives. That was my goal.
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In theory, any high school teacher should have a BA/BS in the subject matter (English, math, history, …) and the teacher education courses / degree / credential. Such educational background should be enough to teach up to AP level in the subject.
But if it is common for teachers not to be able to teach up to AP level, wouldn’t that suggest a shortage of or inability to hire teachers with the expected qualifications listed above (that seems to go beyond low SES areas)?
AP teachers in public schools where I live always had content area BAs or BS degrees and MAs in education or both a content MS and an education MA. We all had to pass a standardized test in the content area. Most AP teachers had worked in their content area field before becoming teachers, some for decades. That was true in neighborhoods in middle and upper class areas. The poorer districts didn’t offer as many APs. I don’t know if they have access to DE either since it requires bussing/bus drivers and there is a shortage of those, too.