I've been getting the vibe that AP Calculus is the big kahuna.

So I'm thinking....maybe if Christopher just takes that (assuming he can stand the sight of a math book by the time he's a junior in high school) it will do.

Sixty percent of American high schools now participate in the program, which offers courses in 35 subjects, from macroeconomics to music theory. Last year, 1.2 million students took 2.1 million A.P. exams, and the number of students taking A.P. courses has increased tenfold since 1980. Newsweek magazine has gone so far as to rank the nation's best public high schools using the number of students who merely show up to take A.P. or International Baccalaureate tests as the sole criterion.

No wonder, then, that more than 3,000 students took seven or more A.P. exams last year. No wonder, either, that some students use the A.P. program tactically, knowing that their senior-year A.P. course listings will appear on their transcripts, and be counted in admissions decisions, long before they take the A.P. exam in May - if they ever do. (The A.P. brand is a curious one: students can take the exams, which run three hours, without taking the courses.) Part of the pressure to take A.P. classes also springs from the fact that most schools weigh A.P. grades more heavily than others - an A in A.P. is often worth five points, while a regular A is worth four - so savvy students know that A.P. courses can raise their G.P.A.'s, one of the most important elements in college admissions.

SO many more students are arriving at colleges with a slew of A.P. courses under their belts that some institutions have become more choosy about giving them credit. Harvard, for example, no longer gives credit for scores below 5. And A.P. classes have spread so widely that the College Board is concerned that some schools are putting the label on courses that offer a diluted curriculum. So starting next month, it will begin to audit the 15,000 high schools that offer A.P. classes to make sure students everywhere get the same quality of curriculum.

[snip]

Despite its explosive growth, only 23 percent of last year's public high school graduates had taken at least one A.P. class, he says, adding: "Among those who take A.P. exams, 1 in 10 students in urban schools score 3 or higher, compared to 6 in 10 in suburban schools."



research shows...

Research shows that good scores on A.P. exams are strong predictors of college success. But last year, a study of University of California freshmen by two Berkeley professors found that the number of A.P. courses on students' transcripts bore little or no relationship to their college performance. So, the authors suggested, selective colleges should reconsider their use of A.P. enrollment as a make-or-break criterion in admissions. Another study, in Texas, found that A.P. classes had no advantage over other kinds of college-prep classes in raising a student's performance once in college.

In 2002, a committee of the National Research Council, part of the National Academy of Sciences, sharply criticized A.P. math and science courses for cramming in too much material at the expense of understanding and failing to keep up with developments in the subjects. The College Board is now revamping its science and history courses.

ONE striking oddity of the Advanced Placement program today is that while many less-than-distinguished public high schools have open-door policies about who can enroll in A.P. courses, many academically superior schools still act as gatekeepers, allowing only top students to enroll. At many suburban and private schools, students must have good grades or a teacher recommendation or both. [ed.: oh swell] And at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, the two most competitive public high schools in New York, demand is so great that only students with the highest grades get into the popular A.P. classes.

Some of the most academically demanding private schools - among them, in New York, Brearley, Fieldston and Dalton - take a different approach: they do not offer Advanced Placement, although many of their students still take the exams.

"At Dalton, advanced classes aren't called A.P.'s, but I think most of my grade took A.P. exams last spring," says Nell Hawley, a senior who took three exams last spring and scored 5 on each. "But not having A.P. classes at Dalton means that you get to learn for the sake of learning, not taught to the test."


Ed said this afternoon, "So they have 8 years of constructivism; then they're thrown into courses where they're expected to succeed through brute memorization."

Makes sense.

Ed thinks the Phase 4 course is a foretaste of AP in high school.

I hope that's not the case.

I do know that in elite high schools everywhere kids work 24 hours a day. It's relentless.

I'd bet the ranch half that work is pointless.



death march through physics

....the pace can be overwhelming.

"In our physics A.P., we had a test where our whole class did badly, and we asked our teacher if we could slow down and review," Eden says. "We love our physics teacher, and he understood, but he said we had so much material to get through before the break that there was no time for review. I think he was as frustrated as we were."

[ed.: I wonder what Engelmann has to say on the subject of Advanced Placement courses? I'm guessing he'd make short work of them.

Lawrence Weschler, director of the New York Institute for the Humanities, became critical of A.P. courses based on the experience of his daughter, Sara, who decided on Brown but has deferred enrollment.

"When Sara would go on her college tours, everywhere she went, they said, 'We will be looking to see if you took every challenging course you could, and that's how you will be judged,' so of course she took as many as she could," he says, adding that it seemed misguided for high school students to try to place out of classes they should be looking forward to taking in college.

"Even where the A.P. courses got the kids excited," Mr. Weschler says, "the excitement would immediately be doused. In European history, the kids got very involved in the causes of World War I and wanted to talk about it, but the teacher said they couldn't because they had to move on and cover all the material for the test.

[snip]

"On one hand, many of the classes are ambitious and wonderful, and I'm glad we have them," says Scott White, a counselor at Montclair High School in New Jersey. "I also understand that colleges have no good way to consistently assess the highest level kids, and A.P.'s can provide an external paradigm for doing that. But from the student's point of view, there is a horrific rise in the expectations on the part of colleges, almost a sense that if a student isn't taking the highest level in every course, there's something wrong. So we have students taking five A.P.'s, grinding away at all that memorization in a way that's more appropriate to boot camp than to kids growing up."

Some schools say there is now a sense that Advanced Placement classes have become inevitable.

"Part of it is that the College Board has done a very good job in marketing their products, working to increase access and enrollment, and the more students take the A.P.'s, the more they perpetuate the idea that students should take A.P.'s," says Emmi Harward, director of college counseling at Hampton Roads Academy in Newport News, Va.

I love the way we have all these enterprising National Curriculum Creators.

In K-8 the NCTM & the NCTE decide what our national curriculum will be.

In 9-12 it's the College Board.

Who asked these people?



....how important are A.P. courses in college admissions?

That depends. Certainly, most schools count them in an applicant's favor. One common approach is used at the State University of New York at Geneseo, where admissions officers tally the number of foreign language, math and science courses an applicant has taken, along with the number of A.P. or other advanced courses. Community college courses, often taken by advanced students in districts that lack an A.P. program, count, too, says Kristine Shay, director of undergraduate admissions, but "not exactly on the same basis, since they don't have that known national curriculum."

SUNY Binghamton takes a different tack. Admissions officers look at the grade point average and SAT scores, circle the number of A.P. and honors courses, consider what coursework was available at the high school and make a nonnumeric judgment: "All things being equal, if we had a kid with an 88 average and three A.P.'s, versus a kid with a 90 average and no A.P.'s, we'd probably take the one with the A.P.'s - but make it an 85 average and three A.P.'s and I'm stumped," says Cheryl Brown, director of undergraduate admissions. She adds that almost 100 students arrived on campus this academic year with enough credits for sophomore standing.

Admissions officers at the most elite colleges say, in almost identical words, that they want students who have taken "the most rigorous program the school offers" (Marlyn McGrath^? Lewis, Harvard); "the most demanding program they can take at their high school" (Karl Furstenberg, Dartmouth); "courses that challenge them academically" (Jeffrey Brenzel, Yale); and "the most challenging program that's available and that they can handle" (Richard Nesbitt, Williams).

"We don't expect students to take every A.P. that's offered, but if their school has 15 A.P.'s and they've avoided them all, that would certainly say something," Mr. Nesbitt says.

While admissions officers acknowledge that taking the most difficult A.P. courses, like Calculus BC, indicates a strong academic background, they take pains to say that there is no magic, no numeric formula - and no penalty for students from schools that do not have an A.P. program.

"Sheer A.P. firepower, having 10 A.P.'s, doesn't impress us," says Mr. Brenzel. "It's just one factor in evaluating a student's background and preparation."

[ed.: I just bet]

[snip]

Marc Paulo Guzman, Hackensack's top-ranked senior, takes the literature class, along with A.P. biology and A.P. calculus.

"I wish there were more A.P.'s offered," he says. "They're fast-paced, and you learn a lot." Marc, whose family emigrated from the Philippines in 1993, is applying to Princeton, Yale and Duke. "I've done a lot of research about college on the Internet," he says, "and I know A.P.'s can help you get in."