<p>Some of the newer AP courses and tests, like human geography, are well known “AP lite” courses and tests. Such courses may very well be appropriate for high school frosh, though it calls into question as to whether they represent actual college frosh level material.</p>
<p>That’s what ours does with Physics 2 and Chem 2. The only AP sciences offered are Bio and Environment. Kids who take Physics 2 and Chem 2 do often take and pass the AP test, but it’s not required and the school prefers not to teach to those tests.</p>
<p>It has been my kids’ experience that sometimes AP courses are easier than non-AP courses. Even though, say, AP English 11 reads 3 more books and writes 3 more and longer papers than “regular English”, my kids found that class time was never interrupted by behavior issues or kids not getting it, and they got through much more material in class, leaving less homework in many cases. Or less busy work, period.</p>
<p>I know a student who was unable to take AP classes - she bought the study guides a week before she took 2 AP exams and she got 5’s on both of them.</p>
<p>Some APs are much easier to self-study than others, depending on the student and background. S had no problems self-studying for AP US Gov and AP Env Sci (spent about 5 or so hours studying for each & got 5s). He would have self-studied more but had his regular AP courses to complete as well, which he also got 5s (with a 4 for 2 of the 14 or so AP exams he took).</p>
<p>Two excellent prep schools in my state make it a point to offer no APs at all. They say that the AP curriculum is limiting, that it chokes creative teaching and learning, that the material is gone over too quickly, and that kids tend to memorize and forget course material as they aim solely at the exams. The graduates of those schools are admitted to a wide range of excellent colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Of course, the schools which have “better than AP” courses are likely only a tiny number of outliers. It is likely that, for the vast majority of public and private schools, AP courses are the most rigorous that they offer, and if AP were absent, the most rigorous offerings would be less rigorous than the current AP courses. In addition, even with the current AP courses, the teaching might not be very high quality (where A students in AP courses score 1 on AP tests).</p>
<p>It is a sad state of affairs when the AP label is needed to get high schools to offer potentially useful high school level courses like AP human geography and AP statistics.</p>
<p>A class does not have to be designated as “AP” to be a good class. If you want to take the AP exam, you can. I only took two AP courses, but I took 4 AP exams - graduated early.</p>
<p>Just because there is an official written policy does not mean that one can’t get an override to that policy. It’s all negotiable. There is a simple matter of self-selection at work here: those determined to over-ride policy are also those most likely to try to do exceptionally well in those classes.</p>
<p>Truly not a fan of the AP system at all and for many reasons already outlined, but if you want to take more of them in your Senior year, I don’t see a reason for them to halt that other than the fact that most require teachers who have a Master’s degree to teach them and there may be limits on how many students they can handle.</p>
<p>Don’t rule out CLEP as an alternative. Much bigger fan of that program.</p>
<p>We didn’t have a limit on the number of APs but I really hated most of my AP classes. I ended up just taking honors classes/interesting classes and self-studying AP exams. I took 10 exams and 5 or 6 classes. </p>
<p>I could see why a school would limit if they have a limited number of spots in the classes. It could be based on a seniority system.</p>
<p>In defense of APs, I think for a resource strapped public school, they are a turnkey way of offering a more rigorous curriculum. They come with well-developed syllabuses, designated books and other resources, and a clearly defined test as a goal. You don’t need to start from scratch to offer them. </p>
<p>A resource rich private school may be able to develop a supposedly more rigorous alternative to an AP class, but a public school maybe not so much. </p>
<p>My kids all went to public school, and benefitted from the availability of APs. My last one in high school was able–with a bit of assertion–to take calculus as a freshman, and as a soph he took four more–including chemistry and physics without the honors classes first. His chemistry teacher is a local Walter White–a PhD–and because he finished the AP, he’ll be able to take that teacher’s organic chemistry class. </p>
<p>We are also fortunate in that there’s an established program where juniors can take tuition free college courses at the local univeristy. </p>
<p>One aspect of APs is that with a talented student we feel no pressure for him to enter college after his junior year. He can be challenged for the whole four years, and enjoy high school life, which he does, without being thrown prematurely into the college scene.</p>
<p>You’re fooling yourselves if you think a high school AP course mimics college, just for being labeled AP. Or that your junior or senior is truly operating on a college level in critical thinking and analysis and so are their peers in a hs AP class. There are exceptions, of course. But just look at the range of APs some hs offer- it’s crazy. It feeds the mania.</p>
<p>The AP folks set guidelines and, last time I checked, hs have to submit some course outline or some such and have it approved. The end. No one monitors progress, depth or the results, other than the test. It offers no assurance of standardization, quality or increased critical thinking. Look hard enough and you can find some of these guidelines.</p>
<p>High school classes, including AP, are taught by hs teachers. They aren’t bringing in a local college prof to teach APUSH or chem. Some hs teachers have advanced degrees, but they are not generally still immersed in their fields, doing ongoing research, interacting with their subject matter peers daily or routinely, going to conferences or even necessarily aware of the latest trends in their fields. They aren’t, in that sense, active. </p>
<p>It’s true that some college freshman class could be taught by an adjunct/recent PhD, cover a minimum and set a low bar. But at the better colleges, the context is different. If all a kid is doing by taking AP is moving away from less competent peers, a slew of APs on the record says little.</p>
<p>Why don’t hs offer more “college level” classes? Because they are not college. DE is good, but not all schools have that arrangement.</p>
<p>At our public high school, the reason is that the demand for APs comes down to about a fraction, though sometimes a large one of what would comprise another class. So if you have an average class size of say, 30 kids in a class, and you have 40 kids wanting AP English, you have to have two AP English classes and you are shorting something. Up the class size and the parents and the teachers scream bloody murder. Also with AP classes, there is an accountablility Your school does get panned when you have 40 kids taking an AP class and they aren’t making the marks on the tests. Which is another reason a school wants to gatekeep the classes, though anyone is supposed to be able to take the exam whether they take the course or not. So, they keep the number manageable so the teacher can’t use an overfull class as an excuse, the parents don’t complain, and also can have some control as to who takes the course, like the kids most likely to do well on the exam. Of course, their criteria may not be accurate for any given kid. My older kids test well, but their day to day work is not A level, so they would have not been eligible for a lot of the AP Courses at their public school, because the grades are what make the main part of the determination for getting into the classes. At the private schools where they went, just about anyone could. A recommendation was given, but that was it. At another private school, none of the courses were designated AP. Anyone could take the AP exams there, though certain courses were known to cover the material. But there were review sessions for anyone who was signed up for the exam. But this is a selective private school and their AP scores are sterling. Beat the pubic school (which is highly rated) by a lot in results. No 2s few threes, mostly 4s and 5s across the board.</p>
<p>Not all AP courses are created equally, that is a certainty. At my daughter’s school, AP courses were very demanding. Many of her teachers had degrees from top schools and for the most part they were great teachers.</p>
<p>Really, there is overlap between high school senior level courses and college frosh level courses, as one would expect there to be due to some students being more or less advanced than others.</p>
<p>For example, the standard math sequence goes to trigonometry and precalculus in high school, followed by calculus and higher math in college. But many high school students are advanced enough in math to take calculus in high school, while many college students are weak enough in math to need to take trigonometry and precalculus in college before taking calculus. Trying to draw a hard dividing line between “high school” and “college” math, or assuming that a good high school math teacher (who presumably majored in math and took calculus and real analysis in his/her own college studies) cannot effectively teach calculus, does not really make much sense. Of course, some calculus courses in high school or college can be poor quality (in high school, this may be exposed by the students getting A grades in the course getting 1 scores on the AP test).</p>
<p>There certainly are exceptions. Top students at some of the “elite” private schools are performing at VERY high levels. I have seen some in action and they are impressive. The thing that is interesting is that this high level of performance is in both AP and non AP classes. More interesting is that at these rigorous schools some of these students still get B’s – and worked VERY hard for them. These students are definitely performing at or above college level.</p>