Why is the College Board Pushing to Expand AP

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
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Above is a gift link. And the answer to the title question is… MONEY. What a surprise.

One of the “equity” measures used to rank high schools is what percentage of students attempt at least one AP course and exam. These high school rankings are important - they drive property values, because people want to move to towns with highly ranked high schools. It takes a bit of digging to get past the goosing of the rankings based upon “equity” measures as opposed to overall academic achievement. Hence, schools with lower test scores but who satisfy “equity” measures may wind up ranked higher than schools with better test scores.

My kids’ experience of AP in our good, diverse, inner-ring suburban public high school was that AP classes were often the first time that they had the opportunity for serious, high level instruction in sciences, history, and other subjects, and they took a lot of them. There was always one AP course that was designated as the class to be encouraged for any students for whom an AP level class was even a remote possibility. At one point, the school had four levels of 10th grade English: Honors, pre-AP, standard, remedial. The idea was to try to prepare students who weren’t honors level, to attempt AP English Language. Later on (and I suppose because that wasn’t working out very well), AP Psych became the class which was encouraged for every student to try. The teacher was a dynamic, engaging URM woman, very likable, made class interesting, and at the time, AP Psych was considered to be an easier AP. My kids said that the kids who were steered into AP Psych as their one attempt at an AP simply were not interested in doing the work. They didn’t do the readings, they didn’t do the assignments, they didn’t behave well in class, and not surprisingly, they didn’t do well on class exams. AP Psych, unlike all the other AP classes, had a record of a lot of scores of 5, and a lot of 1s and 2s on the AP exam. The other AP classes had virtually no 1s and 2s, a few 3s, and mostly 4s and 5s. This was pretty clear evidence that the issue was that the school had pushed students into AP Psych who should not have been there.

Obviously, College Board exists to make money, despite its supposed “mission-driven, non-profit” status. When colleges went test-optional, many students just stopped taking the SAT. When colleges stopped requiring the “achievement” subject exams, College Board finally dropped those too. A few years ago, College Board began pressuring AP students to register for the exam way, way ahead of time, in the mid fall, I would imagine because some students would decide in early spring not to take the test, and hence not register for it. My kids only took the exams if there was no dual enrollment option for the AP class with our flagship state U - that way, they got the credit on a college transcript, without the added stress of prepping for an AP exam.

So, do AP classes benefit students who really aren’t ready for serious college level work? Perhaps these students are better-served by high school level classes. As a reach, maybe they’re better off with dual enrollment in a community college class, rather than the challenge of an AP class. The exam clearly isn’t getting them college credit. And the bridge of dual enrollment in a community college class may serve as a springboard to encourage them to continue on to higher education, starting at that nearby community college.

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Thank you for the link.
Very very interesting.
On the one hand I think it is better to have access to a nationally designed, rigorous program even if you don’t do very well, because you gain from the exposure and the methodology even if you don’t do well - certainly better than if you had access to non rigorous academics or no access at all.
On the other hand, AP shouldn’t be the only curriculum like this. Florida, which offers an AICE diploma in addition to AP and IB, is a good example of this. HS with DE also offer more-rigorous-than-regular-low-income HS courses.
Btw have you heard that AP developed “AP precalculus”?
Perhaps AP needs a bit more competition. If I were Cambridge (AICE) I’d go all in :wink:

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I wonder if part of College Board’s expansion push is because private schools are moving away from AP as the be it and end all so they may be seeing declining revenue? I just don’t know if that’s a significant enough number to help drive the expansion.

My D’s STEM HS was starting the transition away from AP when she was still a student (graduated in '18). There was no difference in weighting between honors and AP courses because the rigor was similar, and they were moving to promote students to take DE courses which were free in our state, offered more course offerings, etc or just stick to their own honors courses.

For example, the HS’s calc class covered way more material than was required for the AP. They were finished covering the material for the AP exam in February and then moved on to more advanced concepts. There were 40 students taking that class and the lowest AP score was a 4, with the bulk of the class earning 5s. As it was, the school capped the number of AP courses to 8 and that was with special permission.

I’m also seeing a number of private schools moving to offer IB.

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Honestly, any opportunity for disadvantaged students to have access to higher level instruction is a good idea. But I agree, AP of things that are high school level classes? Ridiculous. Calc AB as a prereq for Calc BC? Does not make sense. Of course, high school level math is now offered in colleges, and it is not just for remedial math at the community college level.

Kids from our high school said that even at our very good flagship state U, it was not until junior year that the classes were as challenging as those AP classes in high school had been. I just feel that the leap to AP in high school is too much for all but the top students, and that most high school students would be better off with the community college dual enrollment option. No surprise that pushing kids who are not ready into AP leads to failure on the AP exams. But it sure does shore up the College Boards’s bottom line!

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There has long been a misperception that the alleged “easier” AP tests are also easy to get a 5 on. It’s clear that this is incorrect. The bottom line is that getting a 5 on any AP test is not a forgone conclusion, but as the data shows, the classes that many regard the hardest are in fact the ones with the largest percentages of 5’s.

Don’t want to derail the thread by introducing minutiae. But IMO, high schools encouraging kids to take “easy” APs are doing a disservice to students if they aren’t ensuring that students are actually prepared for these tests. College Board is simply exploiting students and parents who are desperate to get whatever edge they can. Then we see those students or their parents come here, shocked that the kid only got a 3 on what was supposed to be an easy AP.

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Precalculus as AP is kind of silly, although perhaps it may reduce the number of students taking the math off-ramp to AP statistics because the latter is an AP course but precalculus wasn’t.

But lower level math has long been offered at colleges (not just community colleges). Even Princeton offers a precalculus course (MAT 100), and Harvard embeds precalculus in a two semester Ma-Mb sequence that completes the first semester of single variable calculus.

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This is likely due to self-selection of test takers. For example, in terms of percentage of 5 scores, calculus BC > calculus AB. But calculus BC is not generally considered easier than calculus AB.

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I am not a CB fan.

With that said, the most important statement in the article is this:

Given the American school system’s bleak history of diverting low-income and nonwhite students away from college-prep classes, many educators believe in the power of a rigorous liberal arts curriculum to lift all students.

This is 100% true, still today. So I agree with myos that having equitable access is important. And I wish for more CB competitors too.

OTOH I don’t understand why HSs think they have to offer APs? (with the exception of HSs in states with schools like UGA, see below) Why not just offer multiple levels of every class, like @parentologist’s kids’ school? My kids’ HS was similar with remedial, CP, honor and high honors classes available for a large proportion of classes (It’s a large HS). APs (all at the high honors level, so not a bump) are limited generally to juniors and seniors. Have students/parents figured out the kid can take the AP Physics 1 test after freshman year high honors physics class? Yep, but IMO that’s not really a problem.

There are many problems that go along with the AP tests though as the article discusses. AP test taking has grown a lot in the last decade, where 34% of HS grads took at least on test (the proportion of those taking an AP course would be higher)

AP Program Results: Class of 2022 – Reports | College Board

IMO some colleges themselves are driving the importance of AP tests, which I think is beyond ridiculous. This has been discussed on another thread, and some posters there support their kids taking 12+ AP courses during HS. Part of that is based on where they live. For example, UGA’s class of 2027 had an AVERAGE of 10 AP/IB/DE courses. Clearly those classes have weighting in the admissions process. My kids’ HS (not in UGA region) doesn’t do well in admissions there, which is laughable…kids with mostly As in a significant proportion of all high honors courses do not get accepted. (I do understand UGA has a charter that includes an admissions process that benefits Georgia students)

Lastly, and this won’t be popular, but it’s very difficult finding qualified teachers for some of the harder AP tests. If a HS can’t find a competent teacher for [insert AP course], don’t offer it. Like I said on the other thread, someone has to be the adult in the room.

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Of course.

A lot of students who pile on AP classes are also self selecting. If they think they are creating easy opportunities for 5s, they are incorrect. High schools who facilitate these students to take insane numbers of AP classes don’t help the situation and College Board will exploit this as much as possible.

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I agree.

But what’s a kid at a regular HS in Georgia supposed to do, if they want their state flagship to be an option?

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For my kids, AP was permitted early in high school. They were mostly the only challenging classes. The top 20% of the school took mostly AP classes in junior and senior yrs, and two in 10th grade. They took no high school science, straight into AP sciences. There is no way that this level of rigor would have been provided without the AP program.

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Perhaps DE at a local CC? That was what we did. Not only were the classes free (so less expensive than AP testing which costs money), but you are guaranteed transfer credit at our state schools - unlike APs which may or may not get your credit, or sometimes can only be used for placement or elective credit (rather than fulfilling GE requirements).

In terms of rigor, it’s interesting how different schools are. My D’s high school offer some - but failry limited - AP options. However, overall, I wouldn’t say that the APs she took were substantially more rigorous than the regular classes. The only difference - aside from the AP test and possibility of earning college credit - was that AP classes could assign homework over weekends and schools breaks, whereas regular classes were not supposed to do that (although many actually did…). They may have covered less material, but mostly they covered different material as teachers could create the curriculum themselves rather than use what the College Board decides.

Also CC rigor was quite good compared to the AP classes offered. We can even do an applies to apples comparison as D took AP Stats but did not sign up to take the test, then once accepted to college, found out that stats would be required for her major, so she quickly enrolled in CC intro to stats thinking it would be fairly easy, especially after just taking AP Stats. In fact, it was not. It covered quite a bit of additional material and she found it rather challenging (not overwhelming, but she definitely had to work for her grade - AP stats, which she got an A in, was not really of that much help).

So there’s definitely a good deal of variety in terms of experiences, based on school and school districts, and state, etc. When I first found out about the limited AP options at D’s school (along with various restrictions about when and how many could be taken), I was very frustrated, worrying she wouldn’t be competitive for colleges. Now, to be honest, I am thankful that the school puts the breaks on overloading APs. For us, DE worked much better anyway and gave her a better outcome for getting college credit at state public university.

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An option for some, for sure. But not all HSs offer that option, and some HSs can’t offer that option because there is not a CC close enough. CC classes can also be wildly variable, with some classes not nearly as rigorous as HS AP or other high level classes, at least at the more rigorous high schools.

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This likely depends on the state, in terms of whether there is a policy to have a strong transfer pathway from CC to state universities including the flagship(s).

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I believe that to be true in some states, but not all states, or areas within a state. In Illinois, there are comprehensive articulation agreements in place between CC and the state colleges, and Illinois has relatively strong CCs. But some suburban Chicagoland HSs don’t/won’t offer DE classes because the HS’s own advanced and/or AP classes are more rigorous than the CC classes, just to take one example.

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Depends on both the state and the HS. Our state has a strong transfer pathway, but our kids’ HS doesn’t allow DE unless it is a subject not offered at the HS.

As a college freshman, my son now tells me that he feels his AP math and physics classes gave him significantly stronger preparation than his roommates and some other classmates who got their rigor through equivalent DE classes. (Only comparing math and physics, since that’s what he’s taking in college now. Can’t compare other AP subjects.)

Same state as @worriedmomucb but different HS and different experience.

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The College Board’s push to expand Advanced Placement (AP) programs primarily serves its financial interests, as taxpayer funds support the testing fees for many students who do not pass. Schools are incentivized to offer more AP classes to improve their rankings based on equity measures, often leading to a mismatch between students’ readiness and the rigor of AP courses. While AP classes can provide high-level instruction, students who are not well-prepared may benefit more from standard high school courses or dual enrollment options at community colleges, which can offer a more suitable pathway to higher education without the stress and financial burden of AP exams.