WSJ: Standards Tighten for AP Courses

Parents Forum
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<p>According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, beginning in 2007, high schools will need to get approval from the College Board before they can label a class as AP. Schools will need to submit audit forms and various other background documentation and select textbooks from an approved list, or be prepared to file an appeal. </p>

<p>Included in the article was the following:</p>

<p>"One 2004 study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, tracked over 80,000 incoming freshmen across the UC system to gauge whether taking AP courses in high school was a predictor of academic achievement in college. It found no correlation. (It noted that performing well on the AP exams, rather than simply enrolling in AP courses, better predicted academic success.) Party as a result of that finding, a UC faculty committee is expected to meet today to weigh whether campuses should continue awarding extra points in admissions to applicants who boast AP courses on their transcripts." [emphasis mine]</p>

<p>What I find interesting, and somewhat infuriating, is that it was the UC system's admissions office who, when invited to come to our district to speak six years ago, told an over-anxious group of parents and students that what UC admissions "wanted to see" was "17 semesters of AP" on applicants' transcripts. The result was pressure on the district by parents to open up more AP classes to more students and the following year the dam burst, and the already high level of pressure on campus went up another notch. Even students who did not take AP classes felt it, as their performance in the regular curriculum would now just look that much worse in comparison regardless of grades. </p>

<p>So now the very same group of people from UC--a system that drives education trends across the nation--is now considering dropping the extra credit from the very classes that they themselves emphatically stated they "wanted to see" their applicants take in order to be worthy of their underfunded, overcrowded undergraduate system. </p>

<p>Perhaps UC should have tracked the 80,000 students' performance before they put 17 semesters of AP pressure on 15- and 16-year-old kids. It seems to me from the study's findings that taking and passing a few AP tests with scores of 4 or 5 would be fine predictors of success and that anything more than that should be up to the student, not the University of California, to decide. AP classes, after all, are supposed to be college level courses. Why the state's university system should "want to see" 8 1/2 college level courses completed before the student has ever stepped foot in a college classroom is beyond me. </p>

<p>Please forgive me for the long rant, but the kids are out there busting their butts while the UC system is considering taking away the extra point for their efforts. It might not happen and I'm not sure I care whether it does or not, but that's beside the point. The point is that these people have way too much influence on our kids and they don't really seem to know what they're doing.</p>

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<p>This is no surprise and if they came to your school 6 years ago and you have not followed the discourse perhaps you are shocked. APs are not the be all and end all that CollegeBoard has marketed them to be.</p>

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<p>1Down2togo:
Are you sure that it's 17 semesters? That would be tantamount to 8 1/2 APs, or at least 2 APs per year beginning in freshman year. </p>

<p>The concern, though is about the quality of courses that get labelled AP courses. Schools label courses AP right and left, do not cover the curriculum, do not require their students to take the exam which would validate the quality of the course. In manty cases, the overwhelming majority of students do not take the exam, or, if they do, get very low scores in it. Yet, the students get extra weighting for taking the course, and thus get a boost in the admission process. There are lots of teachers who are willing to give high grades to students merely because they are in AP classes. The CB wants to restore the value of the AP curriculum, and UC want APs to have better predictive value.</p>

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<p>CollegeBoard wants to make sure this cash cow keeps on giving.....they could care less about the quality....the more exams they administer and the more scores they release the happier they are.</p>

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<p>S was at a school (briefly) that labeled Latin III as AP. S learned so little Latin that he could not continue the language at his next school, much less sit for the AP exam. But- there on his transcript is that nice big AP!
Several of the top private schools in our city are dropping AP completely.</p>

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<p>Yes, 17 semesters. It's on video tape. The event was taped and broadcast on the local public access channel, and tapes were made available at the counseling office for anyone in the community to borrow. </p>

<p>I understand the problem of lack of quality control.</p>

<p>Frankly, I don't believe for a minute that UC will drop that extra point. I believe that they know how much power they hold and, just like the SAT I's where they threatened to pull out, they are threatening the College Board by pretending to consider removing the extra point because of lack of quality control. Fine, somebody's got to do it, I suppose, since there was no quality control. </p>

<p>The "we want to see 17 semesters of AP" is what I object to. That's a whole other subject. It is a university system reaching down into our children's lives far deeper than they should have a right to go. It impacts middle schoolers. Geometry has moved down into our 8th grade. This is so that kids can get two years of AP calculus instead of just one--not because AP Calculus BC is so almighty important to have before college, but to get that extra AP class in.</p>

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<p>I know of both private and public schools that are dropping or not offering AP courses, but most of their students take the AP exams--and do well in them. The reason for dropping is that the curriculum is inflexible and they prefer their own courses. The exam requirement is meant to get rid of mislabelled courses such as the Latin III that pretended to be an AP-level course.</p>

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<p>Many HS have faculty who are qualified to teach courses at a much higher level than an AP and yet students are reluctant to risk using time for real mind development because they believe that the AP is the necessary choice. Schools with faculty resources are dropping APs because the program limits their students.</p>

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<p>At the risk of having tomatoes thrown at me, I'd like to opine that there is another problem with the AP exams. The bar for passing is set way too low. Students ought to answer at least 70% of the answer correctly to pass the test. As it stands, answering about 67% of the answers correctly will earn a student a 5, which CB says means "extremely well qualified". 67% doesn't equate to "extremely well qualified" by my standards; it doesn't even equate to passing!</p>

<p>Furthermore, colleges need to stop giving extra weight to AP courses if no exam is taken or if the exam is failed. Colleges need to require official AP score reports with the applications. There's no reason CB can't put the SAT and AP scores on one sheet of paper so students aren't charged for the extra score reporting. Unless CB, colleges, and high schools get their acts in order, students who take truly rigorous AP courses will be penalized.</p>

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<p>Hazmat:
Make it "some." American high schools are not filled with overqualified teachers. I've been reading enough about AP courses to know that the biggest problem is low quality, students who have no intention of taking the exam--even when they are subsidized in full to take it--and take the class only to get the extra weighting. </p>

<p>1Down: Wow! And that's a public university system. I doubt they can really enforce it. Harvard will grant Advanced Standing for 4 scores of 5 on APs. It does not matter if a student took 4 or 20 APs.</p>

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<p>Interesting article.. [url=<a href="http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/article/0,3045,151-165-0-46361,00.html%5DHere's%5B/url"&gt;http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/article/0,3045,151-165-0-46361,00.html]Here's[/url&lt;/a&gt;] some more info from the College Board. I agree that there's a need for some sort of standarization for AP classes. I've seen schools that have courses in non-AP subjects labeled as "AP" like AP Sociology and AP Anatomy/Physiology</p>

<p>"There's no reason CB can't put the SAT and AP scores on one sheet of paper so students aren't charged for the extra score reporting." That would cut off another revenue-stream for TCB and I bet thats the last thing they want to do. Plus, if applicants were required to submit official AP score reports, they would most likely be penalized for "bad" scores, which I think would end up lowering the number of people taking AP exams (because of possible adverse effects on admissions)</p>

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<p>Valid criticism Marite and I thank you. It is true that the lack of qualified teachers is one of the large problems with APs. Secondarily is makes a difficult job for the colleges when they have an influx of underprepared students who insist on registering for a second level course and cannot achieve. Much squaking takes place.....students, parents, instructors it is a big standoff. Limiting the credit and the standing by colleges is a step in the right direction but it doesn't help the families/students who buy into the Hs hype about APs. Many of these folks just don't see it coming.......caveat emptor. The AP markets a product and students/parents alike need to beware.</p>

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<p>EllenF:</p>

<p>I have no opinion about the level of difficulty of various AP exams. I would , however, question the idea that 70% correct answers is way too low for a score of 5. It really depends on where the bar is set. My S has been taking a number of college courses and has received the breakdown for grades. In several classes, it was clear that the threshhold for getting As was well below 90%. In fact, the profs did not expect anyone to have perfect answers on every question.</p>

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<p>Wow, the UC's claimed to want 17 semesters of AP? So glad I never heard about (and therefore never stressed about) that!</p>

<p>So you're saying the UC's are debating whether to take away extra points for AP classes? How about Honors classes? Do AP and Honors classes each get an extra point? </p>

<p>I confess I never have figured out the UC's system for weighting grades. My S, if I'm remembering right, only ended up taking ONE AP class in high school (BC calc). He took a couple of AP tests without taking the classes (so no extra points, there?) and took three college level classes. Do they get extra points for those? One of the college level classes was a class that the teacher at his high school created for four students who had taken Calculus jr. year and was not designated honors or AP, so I think it was rated the same as a "regular" class. Anyway, S did get in to the three UC's he applied to, (even though his UC GPA was kind of on the low end) but chose to go elsewhere.</p>

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<p>I think my question is this. You take the course, the exam and expect to place yourself in a higher level course in college right? One of the selling points for AP is that you can advance yourself in college for a lesser expense? So.....if you cannot achieve in the more advanced college course.....what then? I see this where I am in school. I see kids who think the college course is too hard and they justify this by saying they got a 5 on APs. If the AP course registrants are forced to take the exam then shouldn't the colleges force them into the next higher level course as well? How do others see this?</p>

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<p>Marite is right. Many high schools lack teachers who can teach basic courses, much less the "AP" classes they purport to teach.</p>

<p>Tanman - I have no problem with fewer students taking AP classes. Too many poorly qualified students are taking them now. If college admissions people discounted any AP course which was not accompanied by a verified passing exam score, the credibility of the courses would be enhanced. Such a policy would work to the detriment of poorly qualified students, but to the benefit of well-qualified students. That seems like a desireable result to me.</p>

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<p>To clarify regarding the "17 semesters" UC "likes to see" --</p>

<p>This was an evening where the UC system's admissions plus admissions office representatives from several UC schools (UCB was one, for example) spoke to a large group of parents, students, administrators and school board members of a specific high school district. It is a district with which UC is very familiar and it is one of the highest-performing districts in the state. They were aware of the types of AP classes made available to the students in the district.</p>

<p>However, the over-anxious parents and students knew something that they thought perhaps UC admissions might not know as they reviewed applications: Although an AP was technically listed as "available", it was not available to many. The number of sections was limited and students gained entry through a combination of entry test, grades, and teacher recommendations. </p>

<p>Because entry test scores, grades and teacher recommendations can be affected by things out of the student's control (for example, you are a boy and you got the really bad Algebra teacher who should have retired years ago and btw she hates boys), and because there can be very little difference between the last four kids who got in and the next four, parents and students felt that there was a capriciousness to the way it was decided which 30 kids got to take the class. And if you were Kid #31, it didn't matter that you were a hair's width away from getting in -- as far as UC was concerned, you didn't take the "most rigorous curriculum." </p>

<p>Of course, if the average kid graduated with, say 2 AP's, then if you were "restricted" to 4, your curriculum was above average, and that should be reflected in the school profile, but maybe it's not, who knows? And you didn't get a chance to get the extra point so your gpa suffers in comparison. And UC schools, despite their claims to the contrary, are still quite numbers driven. </p>

<p>The hidden agenda in inviting these UC admissions folks to speak was to convince the school district to open up more sections of AP classes to more students. Faculty was for the most part against this, and for good reasons. </p>

<p>First and foremost, AP classes in this district were indeed regarded and treated as college level courses. Faculty, knowing that kids are still kids regardless of how much their parents or the University of California would like them to be adults, knew that it would be very difficult to maintain high standards if less-capable or less-prepared students filled the seats. And there were a few that worried about what I worry about: the added pressure placed on already stressed-out students. The parents, of course, won the battle as they always eventually do when it comes to this sort of thing. And now, of course, kids feel like failures if they only take 4 AP's in high school, and feel disadvantaged if they only take 6. All the parents succeeded in doing was upping the ante. </p>

<p>Regarding honors classes and UC -- those have always been monitored by UC. UC has a list of approved honors classes for which they will give the extra point. Your school can call anything it wants "honors" and give you the extra point in its internal gpa, but UC will remove that point if the course is not on the approved list.</p>

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<p>Hazmat:
For the UCs and most state universities, the score required for credit is 3, the equivalent of a C in a college course.
Several years back, Harvard decided to award AP credit only for scores of 5, as opposed to a previous policy of granting credit for scores of 4 and 5. This new policy was based on studies done by some departments that showed that, while students who had scored 5 on the AP exam did fine in the next level of courses, students who had scored 4 did no better than the average for students who had taken the introductory class in college. It did not address the consequences for students of having to take introductory courses in which much of material would be familar.
It's true that one of the selling points of the AP program is that for a relatively small fee (say, $80x4) you can get a year's worth of credit and save a bundle of money. Yet, at highly selective universities, a lot of students who qualify for AS do not avail themselves of the opportunity. I think that the Harvard study from several years back showed 48% of students who qualified with scores of 4 & 5. When the scores were raised to 5, something like 30% qualified. Yet now, as then, only about a quarter of the students make use of the option.
At a lot of LACs, AS is not an option. S1's LAC allowed only 2AP credits to be used, to get out of some distribution requirements, AFTER getting a B or better in a more advanced class in that field.</p>

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<p>A's don't require a 90% anymore? Grade inflation? A few of my college tests were curved, but the vast majority were not. I don't think the profs expected students to answer all the questions correctly, but we had to answer 90% or so correctly to get an A, 80% for a B, and 70% for a C. </p>

<p>I truly believe that AP exams aren't unduly difficult for college level material. 90% correct sounds right to me for a student to be deemed "extremely well qualified." I sure wouldn't want to hire an engineer who made errors in half his/her work. London Bridge is falling down...</p>

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<p>EllenF:</p>

<p>I think the exams were deliberately written in such a way that students were not expected to do perfectly on them. It's a bit like scoring for the IMO. A perfect score is 42, but you get a gold medal if you score higher than 36 (or is it 32?). It's a matter of the level of difficulty.</p>