Advanced Placement, Advanced Education
by Lauren Lynch
Advanced Placement, Advanced Education
It is no secret that AP classes are becoming both increasingly popular and increasingly controversial. High school guidance counselors suggest taking as many AP classes as possible, students bend over backwards to keep up with all of the work, and schools spend millions to improve and add AP programs. But many universities are becoming more skeptical of the program, questioning if AP credits should transfer to college at all. Millions of dollars funded by taxpayers and thousands of hours of work done by the students will go to waste if colleges deny credit for AP. Both high schools and colleges need to collaborate more closely to make the AP program as successful as possible. At the very least, this would mean cooperation between local high schools and colleges to ensure the rigor of the curriculum.
The Advanced Placement (AP) program provides high school courses that have the academic rigor of introductory-level college courses, and every May students take an exam to test their proficiency in understanding the material and applying it to different problems. The nonprofit advocacy organization College Board sets standards for both the curriculum and the AP exam. Courses are created after extensive review by “experts”, which includes college professors and veteran AP teachers. AP teachers are provided test descriptions, practice tests, and curriculum descriptions. These classes are taught at a faster pace and in greater depth than their high school equivalent. AP exams usually take around three hours and contain both multiple choice and free response questions. Qualified teachers volunteer and grade the free response portions of the exams over the summer, and students receive their scores in July. The AP exam is graded on a bell curve, with 1 being the lowest grade and 5 being the highest grade. By fitting results to a bell curve, students are not graded on a concrete scale, but rather compared to others who took the exam. Scores of 1 and 2 are considered failing grades. Scores of 3, 4, and 5 are passing grades and can be transferred into college credit, depending on what the college accepts.
However, past and present AP students receive perks beyond college credit. Those who succeed in AP courses look more competitive to an admissions committee than a student who did well in regular-level classes or honors classes. At many colleges, a student who got a B in an AP course would be a better candidate for admission than another student who got all A’s in regular classes (assuming there is equal opportunity for AP at the two schools). AP is even more of a factor during consideration for honors programs. But it doesn’t stop there. Once a student is in college, transfer credits from AP could allow the student to register earlier than their classmates who came to college with no credits.
A common misconception about the AP program is that the main goal is to receive college credit. But according to Trevor Packer, a leader of the College Board, the broader goal is to expose gifted high school students to college level classes. Those who excel move at a pace that allows them to reach their full academic potential, while those who don’t are at least introduced to the subject at a higher level. Coming to college with credits also provides room for schedule flexibility for minors or programs like study abroad. For students who earn college credit and for those who don’t, being exposed to a higher-level class allows students to attain the goal of the AP program.
Then there are benefits you can’t measure with numbers and figures. AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC taught me one of the most important academic (and life) skills I learned in my entire high school career. When faced with a math problem that I had never seen before, it would have been easy to just give up and move on. But my calculus teacher taught me to first look at the problem from many different angles. Then, I identified what I knew and where I was trying to end. If I still had no clue what to do, his advice was simple: “Try anything.” Because doing something is better than doing nothing, and more often than you would think, an epiphany pops up in the middle of a thought process. All of a sudden, I knew what to do. Or maybe I could only rule out a certain path. Either way, I was one step closer to the answer. AP Calculus taught me how to work through tough problems instead of simply giving up. This knowledge will stick with me forever, and it can apply to all aspects of life.
Despite all these benefits, there are a lot of critics of the AP program, like Boston College Professor Michael Mendillo. He contends that all students should take entrance exams to determine college course placement. But isn’t that the purpose of the AP exam? The only difference would be a non-standardized test, but colleges would still be relying on a single test to place a student. In this case, a standardized test is best because it provides consistent testing in schools across the nation.
Mendillo believes that AP students “miss out on university-level introductions” because they don’t learn as much in high school level classes. A few schools, including Dartmouth, agree that the program’s academic rigor does not compare. However, critics of Mendillo’s argument, like Gruber, respond that AP is an opportunity for students to both challenge themselves and to study subjects they love in great depth. For those who earn it, college credit is an invaluable added bonus. These critics fail to recognize that education is like a staircase. There is no way to reach the top without climbing the lower stairs and maintaining the support of these lower stairs. The success achieved in an AP class is not unrelated to college preparation, but rather suggests that the student is equipped to move on to college courses above the introductory level.
Finally, Mendillo makes the false assumption that college professors are experts and are better than high school teachers. He ignores the rising number of associate professors teaching at universities and the thousands of equally (or more) qualified high school teachers who are extremely knowledgeable in their fields. Also, high school teachers are certified, having been taught effective ways to convey information to students. Often professors who are experts in their field are the hardest to learn from. Mendillo’s argument against AP holds no validity.
While I agree with Mendillo that the AP system has flaws, there are more pressing issues. Because of the lack of communication between high schools and colleges about Advanced Placement after the AP course, students waste time, effort, and money that could be spent elsewhere. I am no stranger to the AP program. I received AP credit for all the classes I took: AP Calculus AB and BC, English Literature and Composition, and Biology. As a biology major with a Spanish minor, time is precious. If I want to graduate in four years, I do not have the privilege of taking many electives. The AP biology class gave me credit for BISC208-Introductory Biology II. Wanting to go to medical school, however, my professors recommended that I take BISC208 to better prepare for the MCAT. As I took the class, I realized that my AP Biology class followed the BISC207- Introductory Biology I curriculum almost perfectly, while BISC208 only overlapped with the AP class in a few chapters. I devoted 4 credit hours of my first semester learning biology topics I had learned once (most twice) before in high school. My time would have been better spent skipping a different class, BISC207, and taking BISC208 so that I could challenge myself with new material for my major and minor. Although college professors and AP teachers collaborate to form AP courses initially, there is often a disconnect later. If there were direct communication between high schools and colleges, students like me would never run into this type of problem again.
Others question the reliability of standardized testing. To alleviate these problems with the AP exam, the College Board could develop short-term exams that test students on a few chapters at a time to set benchmarks and make sure classes are rigorous enough.
There are alternatives to AP, like dual enrollment, second-year classes in high school, and having teachers make their own advanced curriculum. The second two options are much less regulated than AP, and it would be difficult for colleges to gauge the effectiveness and rigor of these courses. The dual enrollment program is a more viable suggestion, but it is often viewed as less rigorous than Advanced Placement. AP is currently the best option available for high school students who want to study at a higher level.
Unlike Mendillo, many still support the AP program and are doing research to improve it. Kretchmar and Farmer performed a study at UNC Chapel Hill to determine a correlation between number of AP classes and first year GPA (FYGPA). Kretchmar and Farmer concluded that although the study “provide[s] no evidence to support the idea that taking an extreme high-school program… will better prepare a student for success at UNC than a strong but more modest program”, the data does suggest that having some challenging courses prepares a UNC freshman better than a moderate curriculum. Kretchmar and Farmer recognize that their research cannot apply to all programs, but they hope to spur on more research about education, specifically related to the Advanced Placement program.
Also interested in improving the AP program, Scott Jaschik analyzes a study found in AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program. The studies “suggest that AP students get a strong experience in high schools with good resources and high levels of student preparation”. But Jaschik expresses concern about the amount of money impoverished schools put into AP when there are possibly more important things for those schools to focus on. In California, an estimated $1.1 million dollars was wasted on failing AP students. Thousands more could have been wasted on students who passed the AP exam but did not receive college credits. Jaschik concludes that a peak of AP relevance must be determined in order to maximize the program’s effectiveness in improving education. But this peak can never be found if more universities continue to reject AP credits.
In addition to using College Board’s curriculum, direct communication between high schools and local colleges would benefit all parties involved. High schools’ curriculum would be challenged to keep up with the advances in a field while students also learn the concrete basics. Colleges would be confident in saying that AP classes are as rigorous as their college introductory-level course counterparts. If schools across the nation do this, then all of the courses will become more rigorous. Schools would never again have to question the validity of the AP program. As a result, students would not waste time relearning the same material.
AP is a great program for students who want to take their education to the next level while still in a high school setting. Students who receive college credit for AP classes can move on to new, challenging information instead of relearning the same topics. Why put a limit on when a student can learn new material when the foundation is already in place? Instead, colleges and high schools should improve their communication to make sure students are getting the most out of their AP experience. Students can avoid wasting the time and effort that they would have expended to learn the same material over again in college. They will be able to breeze ahead of schedule, leaving extra space for reduced course load, extra majors and minors, and study abroad experiences. This schedule flexibility would also allow the student to become more involved on campus or dedicate more time to work. It is imperative that high schools and colleges work together to give credit where credit is due so students have the opportunity to reach their full potential.
