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AP Classes

edited June 2009 in Politics
Please realize that I'm making a generalization based on a certain demographic. This is not absolute nor can it be applied elsewhere.

Basically, the Advanced Placement system is very flawed. AP classes are supposed to offer classes for students who are especially interested or advanced in a certain subject area the opportunity to take a college-level course. This is not happening, as is obvious from fewer and fewer colleges accepting good AP test scores as grounds to skip a class.

The main cause of this problem is a parent/student problem. The parent and the student see AP classes as an avenue for the student to get into better colleges. The problem is that when you have parents who are pushing for their children to be allowed in AP classes who aren't necessarily ready, the system breaks. When a teacher has a class where a few of the students are capable of AP level work and the rest aren't, it creates a dilemma. Do you let the kids who aren't ready fail, or do you lower the bar so that they can pass? On the one hand, failing half a class doesn't look good politically. On the other hand, lowering the bar harms the students that are capable of higher level work but are never pushed to their full potential. But the downside to the latter choice is often ignored. After all, no failing students, no complaining parents, it looks good for the school, everyone is happy. The kids who would be getting A's are getting them anyway, albeit rather effortlessly, but there is no immediate harm.

But the harm becomes apparent later. I'd like to know, of those here that have attended or do attend a university, how many can honestly say that high school completely prepared them for college-level work? After all, even if you're not taking AP classes, CP classes are called "college preparatory" for a reason, right? They're supposed to still get you ready for the higher, more analytical aspects of college classes as well as give you a frame of reference for the kind of work you will have to do in college, right?

In every situation that I can conceive, this is not the case. Virtually every adult has memories of that first semester of college, where the first quarter "went by just like that" and left them totally unprepared for their first finals. If our schools were really doing what they were supposed to do, would there be this steep learning curve associated with college?

To make matters worse, schools are often nationally ranked based on how many students they have in AP classes, so there's no reason to make a change if the AP classes don't work. But, if they didn't work, wouldn't it show up on the AP test? There are very few AP tests that require actual analytical and thinking skills and, as a teacher, to teach your class for the sole goal of taking one objective exam isn't difficult.

So, what do you think about this? Do you accept my premise? Do you think that high school prepared you enough for the kind of work you did/do in college?

Comments

  • Sail, to the best of my knowledge you are entirely correct, however I don't start college until August 30. My school system is very concerned about being near the top of Newsweek's top high school list, so they push students to take AP classes. However, for the most part I really enjoyed my AP Biology, Computer Science, and Macroeconomics classes. From what a friend who is currently at RIT tells me, the RIT CS program works very well with the APCS program. This is probably because the head of the CS department is on the board of directors or whatever for the AP Computer Science curriculum.
  • At my school, all the AP classes have a strict GPA requirement (usually like a 3.5) to be even considered for the class. Rarely, if ever, does someone unqualified get into an AP class. When someone does (well, it happens more in plain old honors classes more than AP classes), the teachers just tell the kids that they shouldn't have taken honors, advise them to drop the class, and if they don't, they don't care if the student fails.

    On the other hand, my school still has dreadful AP test scores (no one from my school has gotten a 3+ on AP Physics in a long time), and kids probably still don't get the proper education out of it. But oh well and whatever I guess...
  • edited June 2009
    I would have to agree with you, Sail. Personally, I was prepared for my first semester of University, but not because of my High School experience, but because of my own preparation.

    I would like to add a further worry, however. In my experience, many students participated in the AP classes, not in order to do well on the AP test (and therefore, hopefully, skip a class in College/University), but rather to have Colleges see that they were taking these higher level courses, and therefore be more likely to be accepted and then simply retake the class in College and get an easy A, thereby rising their GPAs. This would only be probable during senior year (since Colleges would see the AP test scores, and the grades in the AP classes from junior year).
    Post edited by Fancy Hat on
  • edited June 2009
    We don't have AP classes here in Australia. However, at my school some people got to do introductory university classes. Some friends of mine did uni-level chemistry, while I got to do an advanced intro maths course.

    In any case, I handled my first year of uni quite well; all it took was a slight reduction in laziness and doing things I wanted to do.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • edited June 2009
    This brings back horrible, horrible memories of AP Chemistry.

    Anyway, the system is flawed, but not nearly as broken as you make it out to be. I hate this idea of being "unqualified" to take an AP course. Even if people aren't at the level of the class, there's no reason one shouldn't be given every opportunity to take it. People who would do poorly in AP classes generally don't take them, so it's not unreasonable to have no restrictions and expect everybody who enrolls to be prepared for the difficulty. If you can't handle it, you can always drop out, but to prevent someone from taking a class they want to take is contrary to the purpose of school in the first place: to provide the best academic community they can.

    To say that "the AP classes don't work" displays a deep misunderstanding of the philosophy of APs, IBs, Honors, and whatever other advanced courses there are. They are meant to be precisely that: advanced courses for good students who want them. To say that they are entirely broken because they didn't completely, thoroughly, 100% prepare you for your first semester of college, or that colleges are not allowing AP students to skip classes is ridiculous. If somebody told you that's what they'd do, they were lying, and if you thought that, you were mistaken. Nothing can prepare you 100% for your first semester of college, nor should they try.

    Basically, you didn't get what you expected and are now criticizing the AP courses for not delivering those expectations. It's like ordering a plain pizza, and ranting against the pizza delivery guy for not giving you pepperoni and mushrooms.
    Post edited by Σπεκωσποκ on
  • RymRym
    edited June 2009
    AP classes are supposed to offer classes for students who are especially interested or advanced in a certain subject area the opportunity to take a college-level course. This is not happening, as is obvious from fewer and fewer colleges accepting good AP test scores as grounds to skip a class.
    Are fewer and fewer colleges actually accepting them? Cite something. RIT gave me 41 credit hours for my AP test results, and every university I even remotely considered accepted them. Granted, RIT required 4s and 5s for credit, but that is as it should be.
    The main cause of this problem is a parent/student problem. The parent and the student see AP classes as an avenue for the student to get into better colleges.
    That's a problem with those people, not the AP program.
    The problem is that when you have parents who are pushing for their children to be allowed in AP classes who aren't necessarily ready, the system breaks. When a teacher has a class where a few of the students are capable of AP level work and the rest aren't, it creates a dilemma. Do you let the kids who aren't ready fail, or do you lower the bar so that they can pass?
    This is why the AP system is NOT broken. Regardless of whether or not a particular teacher wishes to lower the bar, the real bar (the AP test itself) is fixed.
    On the one hand, failing half a class doesn't look good politically. On the other hand, lowering the bar harms the students that are capable of higher level work but are never pushed to their full potential
    Grade inflation is a problem with the school system, not the AP system. That, and I've found that smarter kids tend to push themselves to achieve more regardless of what the school is offering, provided they have supportive parents. While there is a known problem with the lack of opportunity for exceptional students in public high school, this is again not a problem with the AP system, but with individual schools.
    But the harm becomes apparent later. I'd like to know, of those here that have attended or do attend a university, how many can honestly say that high school completely prepared them for college-level work?
    I was 100% prepared for college. In fact, my first year of college was a trivial joke.
    After all, even if you're not taking AP classes, CP classes are called "college preparatory" for a reason, right? They're supposed to still get you ready for the higher, more analytical aspects of college classes as well as give you a frame of reference for the kind of work you will have to do in college, right?
    This is not a problem with the AP system: it's mostly a problem again with parents and individual schools. Many kids today leave high school homesick, afraid, and with no ability to function in the real world. They can't do their own laundry, let alone make any meaningful academic progress. But this is a problem with high school and parents, and not with the AP programs themselves.

    AP Biology was more thorough and challenging than any science class I would have had to take at RIT. AP Calculus C went far beyond Calc 1, 2, and 3. AP Physics C was the most challenging thing I have ever attempted in my life, and provided more intellectual stimulation than any class I ever took in college. I was 100% prepared for college long before I graduated high school.


    The problem is not the AP system. The AP system is brilliant. It's just not designed to prepare you for college: it's designed so that if you're already prepared, you can skip all of the sad remedial BS that the majority of incoming college students have to take just to make up for the fact that their high schools never taught them anything. It's a skip-ahead for those who already excel. It will not help those who do not excel do so in and of itself.

    The real problem, which has nothing to do with AP classes, is simply that most high schools do not prepare students for the real world in any conceivable way. A great many of the incoming students at RIT were pathetic, failing basic algebra and literature classes that barely pushed the 10th grade level. AP classes are not to blame: they're a means of escape for the smart kids who push themselves independently of those around them. If you are looking for a system that pushes students who won't push themselves, look elsewhere, but don't blame the AP program for not achieving what it was never meant to achieve.

    As an example of how it can be done right, consider my high school's AP Biology class, which I took in 10th grade. It was a class of eight students, as those eight were the only ones who met the stringent requirements. We had three lectures a week, a large textbook, and a test every two weeks. That was it. No homework, no classwork: just lectures, books, and tests (exactly like college). If you didn't learn the subject matter on your own, from the text and supplemented with the lecture, then you failed. The teacher couldn't care less if you failed the tests: she would just fail you in the class. She would help you personally if you asked, but the impetus to learn was entirely on you, the student.
    Post edited by Rym on
  • I was 100% prepared for college. In fact, my first year of college was a trivial joke.
    This is a good point here. Pretty much every low-level class I took at RIT was review of stuff I learned in high school. I took maybe 5-10 classes at RIT that were at or below the level of my high school courses. In addition to being low level, the material covered was redundant to what I had covered in high school, and I didn't even take any AP classes. Keep in mind, this was at RIT. I wonder what it's like at state school.

    If you want to say that AP courses count for college credit, fine. But then why do these low-level classes taught at the colleges themselves also count for credit? By those standards, every class I took in senior year of high school should have counted as credit.

    College really should not be redundant with high school in any way shape or form. I'm not paying outlandish tuitions to be re-taught the same chemistry,physics,math,literature, and history that I was taught for free in high school. If you require students to have high school diplomas to be accepted, then you should assume that they know that stuff already. If they don't, then that's their problem. If you do want to offer those courses for students who do not know the material, that's fine, but don't give college credit for it.

    I mean, it's bad enough that you have to take some of these high school classes your freshman year of college. What's worse is that just about everyone I know had to waste time taking one or two of these courses during their last quarter/semester in order to meet the graduation requirements.

    Absolutely every course in college should be as grueling as AP courses in high school, or worse. Anything less should be worth no credit. If you aren't ready for that, then you should hang out in community college until you are ready. We need to make school much much harder, so that diplomas from high school and college both mean something again.
  • At Georgia Tech at least, the introductory classes were significantly harder than their High-School equivalent AP courses. A large number of students who got AP credit for Calculus 1 and took Calculus 2 their first semester failed because they did not have the necessary skills to perform well. Additionally, those who took Calculus 1 found the course equally hard because it was significantly more difficult than AP Calculus. I hear it's pretty much the same all around with their introductory classes.

    My own experience with the AP courses is mixed. I signed up for AP Physics B in my last year in High School. The problem is that they fired the last teacher and forced us to take the class online. Without a lab instructor. All of our homeworks and assignments were to be faxed to an offsite teacher and the actual material was work at your own pace. I'm not going to lie, while I could have worked diligently on my assignments, we just ended up skipping pretty much every period (because it was the last one of the day). However, my AP Literature courses were probably the best courses I will ever take on the subject. The required english classes at Tech are a joke.
  • At Georgia Tech at least, the introductory classes were significantly harder than their High-School equivalent AP courses. A large number of students who got AP credit for Calculus 1 and took Calculus 2 their first semester failed because they did not have the necessary skills to perform well. Additionally, those who took Calculus 1 found the course equally hard because it was significantly more difficult than AP Calculus. I hear it's pretty much the same all around with their introductory classes.
    Hmm. This is tough now. Were RIT's introductory classes actually easy, or maybe it was just my high school was that good? Are GA Techs classes actually hard, or did those students have bad high schools? All these things are so relative, it's hard to get an empirical evaluation.

    Also, just to add some more data, I too honors non-AP calculus in high school. It was hard, and I got about a C. At RIT, calculus 1 and 2 were a breeze. Calculus 1 was just a joke because I already knew about Nx^(n-1) beforehand. Calculus 2 was about equal to what I had in high school, but I had a TI-89 to help me as well as my previous knowledge. Calculus 3 was all new, and all hard. I failed it two times, but then got a C on my third try in the summer.
  • edited June 2009
    Calculus 2 was about equal to what I had in high school, but I had a TI-89 to help me as well as my previous knowledge.
    Ahh, well at Georgia Tech, students are not allowed to use any sort of graphing calculator for any of the Calculus classes (physics as well). At most they are allowed four function ones, but many professors do not allow them in the exams.

    My Calculus 3 was actually a specific course for CS majors and I enjoyed it thoroughly as we were required to apply the knowledge in programming projects. My project consisted of created my own image compression algorithm.
    Post edited by Andrew on
  • My Calculus 3 was actually a specific course for CS majors and I enjoyed it thoroughly as we were required to apply the knowledge in programming projects. My project consisted of created my own image compression algorithm.
    Man, I wish.
  • edited June 2009
    At Georgia Tech at least, the introductory classes were significantly harder than their High-School equivalent AP courses. A large number of students who got AP credit for Calculus 1 and took Calculus 2 their first semester failed because they did not have the necessary skills to perform well. Additionally, those who took Calculus 1 found the course equally hard because it was significantly more difficult than AP Calculus. I hear it's pretty much the same all around with their introductory classes.
    Hmm. This is tough now. Were RIT's introductory classes actually easy, or maybe it was just my high school was that good? Are GA Techs classes actually hard, or did those students have bad high schools? All these things are so relative, it's hard to get an empirical evaluation.
    Speaking from experience with these Tech classes... Yes there were a handful of students who had an easy time because they were either the generic super smart Asian kids (sorry to be so stereotypical), or they told me they had been prepared at high school. Of the latter, I am jealous. However most of the other Tech students I talked to had the same problems I did. It was too darn hard to understand a thing the professor was saying. I think all of them were foreign and could barely speak English. You could tell they were super smart and really knew their stuff, but they just scribbled furiously on the boards and spoke incoherently at the same time. And if they ever turned around to see if anyone had questions, everyone would just be staring at them like "Wtf just happened?" The professor would take this non-responsiveness as "good they understand" and keep going.

    So basically what it comes down to is: Can you teach it to yourself solely from the book? Is the Teaching Assistant competent enough to speak English and actually help you? Can you predict what the prof might put on the test? (I actually cried on my first Calc final because nothing I had studied was on it) Most people couldn't and relied on curves to pass. I would say the average scores were in the 40s-50s out of 100. I was able to glean enough information from the book to be slightly ahead of the curve and get decent grades.

    And speaking of being prepared. My high school was a joke, and I am jealous of people that say their high school classes were hard (including AP) and got Bs and Cs. (Of course I am referring to people who really did take hard classes, not the average Joe that doesn't understand anything) I got As, but only because it didn't involve too much effort. They let anyone in AP classes, as long as they weren't failing anything, I guess. I was one of the rare people that ever got a 5 on any of the exams. The biggest shock for me when I got to college wasn't how "hard" the material was, but how the class structure was. For the most part, we only take tests or do projects, and that's it. No homework (graded) to rely on to raise your scores like in high school. Since I didn't have much experience studying independently for tests, this really hurt me. (Of course I realize this is my fault, too)
    Post edited by Lyddi on
  • edited June 2009
    I hate this idea of being "unqualified" to take an AP course. Even if people aren't at the level of the class, there's no reason one shouldn't be given every opportunity to take it. People who would do poorly in AP classes generally don't take them, so it's not unreasonable to have no restrictions and expect everybody who enrolls to be prepared for the difficulty. If you can't handle it, you can always drop out, but to prevent someone from taking a class they want to take is contrary to the purpose of school in the first place: to provide the best academic community they can.
    I completely agree with you, but you're not hearing what I'm saying. AP classes aren't as sink or swim as they should be. Because so many underprepared students are taking them, it is causing the teachers to lower the bar.
    Basically, you didn't get what you expected and are now criticizing the AP courses for not delivering those expectations. It's like ordering a plain pizza, and ranting against the pizza delivery guy for not giving you pepperoni and mushrooms.
    Then what are normal level classes? Raw ingredients without any cooking instructions? This is the problem. Taking an AP class shouldn't be like ordering a plain pizza, because just by having the word "advanced" in there you're implying that you're getting something with toppings.
    Are fewer and fewer colleges actually accepting them? Cite something. RIT gave me 41 credit hours for my AP test results, and every university I even remotely considered accepted them. Granted, RIT required 4s and 5s for credit, but that is as it should be.
    How about Brown? This is fairly common knowledge. Colleges are demanding the highest score or not accepting a score at all on certain tests and they see the AP exam as being less and less trustworthy.
    This is why the AP system is NOT broken. Regardless of whether or not a particular teacher wishes to lower the bar, the real bar (the AP test itself) is fixed.
    I addressed this already. Most of the AP tests only touch upon the first two levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Many, especially sciences like Bio and Chem, are mostly memorization and comprehension tests. Even the writing section of the English test only requires a very formulaic application of the five paragraph essay. You said that AP Bio was a ridiculously difficult class for you, but I bet anything that the test was trivial for you.
    I was 100% prepared for college. In fact, my first year of college was a trivial joke.
    That's excellent, I'm only making a generalization. But I wonder, how much of that was the classes you were taking rather than your own intelligence?
    Grade inflation is a problem with the school system, not the AP system. That, and I've found that smarter kids tend to pushthemselvesto achieve more regardless of what the school is offering, provided they have supportive parents. While there is a known problem with the lack of opportunity for exceptional students in public high school, this is again not a problem with the AP system, but with individual schools.
    Some of them will. These people are high-uppers, they have a lot of ability and self-motivation. But there are an equal amount of high-unders, people who have a lot of potential but not self-motivation. Besides, I'm exploring all aspects associated with the system, here. Marxism is also absolutely flawless, only because it works well on paper. Likewise, the AP system is a perfect idea, but does not function perfectly.
    The problem is not the AP system. The AP system is brilliant. It's just not designed to prepare you for college: it's designed so that if you're already prepared, you can skip all of the sad remedial BS that the majority of incoming college students have to take just to make up for the fact that their high schools never taught them anything. It's a skip-ahead for those who already excel. It will not help those who do not excel do so in and of itself.
    Firstly, read this page and keep telling me that AP classes aren't supposed to be getting you ready for college. Secondly, this "skip-ahead" is allowing people to stay in the class who aren't excelling. Your experience with high school is obviously a lot different than most people here, so you probably never encountered this. I agree with you 100% on everything you're saying about what the spirit and philosophy of what an advanced placement class should be. But it's not happening. And, you're right, it's not the "system" because the system is perfect. It's the people who are moving the system. The electricity is flowing perfectly, but the cogs and wheels are grinding against one another.
    I mean, it's bad enough that you have to take some of these high school classes your freshman year of college. What's worse is that just about everyone I know had to waste time taking one or two of these courses during their last quarter/semester in order to meet the graduation requirements.
    Yes, yes, and of course. But, like Rym said, people's "sad high schools never taught them anything". While your high school was obviously doing what it was supposed to, the fact that colleges make you take classes over again is a testament to how little they trust high school classes.
    Post edited by Sail on
  • You know, I think that high school should be more like AP classes. That is, AP is not special-transfer-into-college classes, it just is high school. Then the colleges could stop teaching people how to read and write simple essays. AP test aside, I think the set up of the classes is pretty good.

    High school got easy, and so everyone goes to college if they want to get anywhere in life. College got easy and now they are calling masters degrees "the new bachelors."
  • You know, I think that high school should be more like AP classes. That is, AP is not special-transfer-into-college classes, it just is high school. Then the colleges could stop teaching people how to read and write simple essays. AP test aside, I think the set up of the classes is pretty good.

    High school got easy, and so everyone goes to college if they want to get anywhere in life. College got easy and now they are calling masters degrees "the new bachelors."
    In my school, this is how it is, and it sucks if you actually want to learn. Most sophomores take AP U.S. History, so it has to be dumbed down and made easier. Same thing with AP Chem., AP World History, and all the AP English classes. The AP tests are all easy and pointless (mostly memorization, and barely anyone passes the ones that are actually hard, like AP Physics).
  • At least from my experience at RIT, First year of Biology pretty much has a overview and went into everything you would learn later but in a far shallower and faster speed. Generally, after the first year if your survived they knew you were going to make it to the end. Which is why my grades suffered my freshmen year and gradually raised year to year afterwards..
  • edited June 2009
    In my school, this is how it is, and it sucks if you actually want to learn. Most sophomores take AP U.S. History, so it has to be dumbed down and made easier. Same thing with AP Chem., AP World History, and all the AP English classes. The AP tests are all easy and pointless (mostly memorization, and barely anyone passes the ones that are actually hard, like AP Physics).
    But then if the classes everyone took were at the current AP level, then they could be very exclusive with the new AP class.

    The problem is, parents want their kids to be in the "best" tier. It's the theme in the Incredibles. "If everyone is special that just means no one is." The AP gets watered down and no one gets challenged.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • What is with this "nobody passes AP physics" stuff? Most of my class got 5s on all 3 of the tests (at public school), and I certainly didn't think it was too bad.
  • On the one hand, failing half a class doesn't look good politically. On the other hand, lowering the bar harms the students that are capable of higher level work but are never pushed to their full potential
    Grade inflation is a problem with the school system, not the AP system. That, and I've found that smarter kids tend to pushthemselvesto achieve more regardless of what the school is offering, provided they have supportive parents. While there is a known problem with the lack of opportunity for exceptional students in public high school, this is again not a problem with the AP system, but with individual schools.
    This was a point I wanted to bring up. Regardless of the difficulty level of the school system, I've found that the smart kids are doing above and beyond what is required. Granted, I am speaking for myself, but I've known people of similar caliber.
  • This was a point I wanted to bring up. Regardless of the difficulty level of the school system, I've found that the smart kids are doing above and beyond what is required. Granted, I am speaking for myself, but I've known people of similar caliber.
    If I were to accept your premise, then we don't need AP classes, do we? If the kids who are interested or gifted in the subject matter will push themselves beyond the confines of a certain class, then they shouldn't need to take an AP class in order to be able to do well on an AP exam.
  • edited June 2009
    accident post
    Post edited by Zeehat on
  • If I were to accept your premise, then we don't need AP classes, do we? If the kids who are interested or gifted in the subject matter will push themselves beyond the confines of a certain class, then they shouldn't need to take an AP class in order to be able to do well on an AP exam.
    But confining them to a normal class would be tantamount to torture. Even if they could have studied the subject matter on their own, if you force them to perform at a level well below their capabilities they'll lose the willingness to go above and beyond and their enthusiasm for the subject matter. I had to take normal English rather than AP level English my junior year of high school, and every day, I rued having to go to that stupid class (with, I might add, a racist teacher), and almost lost my passion for literature. Schools need to provide challenging classes for those who want them, regardless of whether or not they are "necessary" to do well on some stupid test.
  • then they shouldn't need to take an AP class in order to be able to do well on an AP exam.
    You do realize that you can take any AP test without a class, right? Several people in my high school took AP classes for which they studied entirely on their own, and thus received college credit.
  • Several people in my high school took AP classes for which they studied entirely on their own
    I think you mean took the AP tests. Regardless, this still conveys the point.
  • edited June 2009
    Yes, I do. Two of my friends did it, and one of them is going to Berkely and isn't getting any credits for passing it.
    Even if they could have studied the subject matter on their own, if you force them to perform at a level well below their capabilities they'll lose the willingness to go above and beyond and their enthusiasm for the subject matter.
    Yes, that's what I think. I was talking following Zeehat's logic, who is saying that they'll go above and beyond on their own.

    So, which is it? Will students with high potential generally push themselves beyond their confines, regardless of the class? Or will a low-level class generally bore them to the point that they will lose interest in the subject? Or is it a mix of both? Should advanced classes be oriented toward challenging and pushing the student or should they just be a way for the smart kids, assuming that they'll do fine on the AP test either way, to get some college credit?
    Post edited by Sail on
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