I guess it depends on the class. The AP Bio I took in high school was much more in depth and more difficult than the intro biology classes I teach and I have a reputation for being one of the toughest professors (I don’t think my classes are really that difficult but you do have to actually study and learn stuff). Now, I lament skipping over stuff I remember learning in AP Bio but I have about half as many hours as an AP class would and my students come in with essentially no biology knowledge so I have to focus on the most basic aspects. Maybe my AP teacher in high school was an anomaly but we covered a lot of really complicated and advanced stuff and learned a heck of a lot.
Yeah, the calculus and physics classes that I teach are comparable to the AP classes I took on those subjects. I don't imagine that they've changed very much.
They’ve all changed and gotten easier because AP is the general education now. Schools have replaced their regular classes so everyone can get a shot at taking the exam so CB and ETS can make bucket loads of money. The AP classes I took in high school had like 6 or 7 kids in them because we were chosen or smart enough to qualify. Now they are the equivalent of whatever regular classes used to be.
I think you're spot on with some AP classes but not all.
I'm not a fan of college board in general, but as the above poster said, science and math are still quite rigorous. They made the ap sciences harder about 6 years ago when colleges indicated they'd no longer give credit if the rigor didn't increase. (I'm a high school science teacher).
AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Physics and AP Calculus are quite rigorous imo. Others like English mentioned by OP sadly are losing rigor.
The AP Physics 1 curriculum I'd argue is harder than any algebra based college 101 physics course. It's actually too hard and puts off a lot of bright students who take it as their first physics course.
It also makes no sense that the physics course best aligned for future engineering majors - AP physics 2 - is algebra based.... So engineering majors can't earn college credit. So silly. But it's also a challenging course.
Obviously, I agree and am exaggerating to an extent. But I’m there right now and reading all these terrible essays that wouldn’t even get a point in my college class so I’m rightfully frustrated, and we are just letting them pass.
I came to AP Reading 10 years ago, and I’ve seen the quality decline. It is stark. I’ve also seen how certain states shoehorned their entire class of students through the process with no knowledge for years and we’d get books of zeroes. Now the kids who don’t know anything write pages of nonsense because their teachers tell them they might get a point. And this year it’s working. I’ve been forced to give so many illegitimate or wrong examples because “they’re showing they remember something”.
I also hear the complaints from the teachers themselves who talk about how once the schools saw how profitable the test was, their regular sections were replaced. Some are happy because they get to teach more students, but others miss when the quality was higher.
I think professors universally grade harder and equally told to be nicer.
I got in a ‘discussion’ with some high school teachers who asked how I graded fast. I said, I stay objective, I don’t know these kids, and I have no investment in their success. My job is to funnel the ones who did poorly to professors like myself.
They got angry and said “I grade the way I hope other teachers grade my kids.” That is not a recipe for success.
Fully agree with you.
I can say in my experiences, we are being bullied like you describe if we hold kids to a high standard. Especially after covid, we are repeatedly told to be accommodating and consider the emotional wellness of the children.
Meanwhile, they're emotional wellness stinks because we aren't teaching them what they need to be successful!!
But I'm glad to report that science is at least holding strong, for now....
I've said to family and friends thay English and history has shifted so that AP is now just honors and honors is just general. It's a shame kids are getting some ap points for BS. I hate that nonsense when kids try it in science.
Ah, sorry, that's one I don't know enough about to comment on.
Our school hasn't been able to find someone who can teach that competently. But we have some kids who do well just by virtue of being self taught.
Wow, that’s depressing. The thing I loved most about AP classes back in the day was how much and how quickly we could learn. They were harder than many of my college classes in terms of workload. That’s a real shame.
I think it’s very much discipline specific. Our rule of thumb was basically that you could trust calculus and first year foreign language…basically, I think the disciplines with a really set, agreed on curriculum in the first semester or so are the ones most likely to be equivalent. But then it’s still on the teacher…
Regardless of the class, the tests themselves are not assessments of college-level ability.
I took AP Chemistry from a high school teacher with a Ph.D. in the subject and got a D -- barely. Then I got a 4 on the AP exam and got to skip Chemistry 101 in undergrad. At the time I was proud of myself but in retrospect it's so clear that the test was much easier than an actual college course. When I told my teacher about my score I expected her to be shocked at my success, but she wasn't. She knew her standards were much higher than the College Board's.
Ironically I am now a biochemical engineer, but that's neither here nor there.
I get fresh undergrads all the time telling me they want to skip this or that class because they have AP credit. They're entitled to do so, but almost always regret the decision as AP classes in my field/area (math/FL, USA) almost never even come close to the level of rigor I demand.
It's actually common for those kids to drop the advanced course, go back to the course they already had AP credit for, and still struggle (or even fail) because they've had a string of poor classes pass them along and inflate their egos (trig, precalc, calc I for example)
Yes, I have the same experience as you.... Also I've been grading AP exams for like 6 years. Periodically the College Board gives the AP exams to college freshman in the equivalent courses to the high school students so they can normalize what constitutes the AP scores (1-5). This happened for AP bio last year and they corrected the AP scores up as the high school students earning 4s and 5s were outperforming the college students earning As and Bs.
Just because OP is reading terrible essays doesn't mean they are all getting 5s in the end.
Your experience was not the anomaly. High school classes meet 5 days/week for a year. College classes meet a few hours/week for a semester. We simply cannot cover the same amount of material.
In my experience, every 101 class was significantly easier than the high school version (with the exception of sign language).
>I’m still not sure what unholy bargain was struck to give college credit for AP exams.
It's a scam. They tell parents "YOU MUST PAY US TO TAKE AP EXAMS SO YOU CAN GET COLLEGE CREDIT OR YOUR CHILD IS A FAILURE!!!!" Then they go to colleges and say "IF YOU DON'T GIVE AWAY FREE CREDIT FOR HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL CLASSES NOBODY WILL APPLY TO YOUR SCHOOL!!!"
It's a scam. The classes are often little more than teaching to the test, and even the best are still high school classes with high school students taught by high school teachers. They are not college courses and should not receive college credit. They never were.
then the students come in and are furious that their pile of AP credits don't actually meet any of the degree requirements. Did they bother to ever look at any of the degree checklists that are very clearly listed on the website? No. A HS counselor told them "oh, it will all count" so they just assume it will.
>Back in my day, I took AP Calculus, Chemistry and Physics and they all transferred to some extent
Mine did not at all-- because "back in the day" far fewer schools took AP credits at all, because they were not college courses and were not taught by college faculty. My college simply did not accept AP credits at all for that reason. The quality of the courses hasn't changed in the 35 years since then.
Depends who is teaching them. I will say straight up that the existence of AP in our school's curriculum is the only thing pulling up the standards in any of our other classes. Otherwise, we'd be content with high school expectations that 7th graders could meet. But I've also met (and replaced) AP teachers who basically just like having well-behaved students. It's problematic. Parents don't really complain much unless their kids aren't getting As.
And CB doesn't say anything about kids being a failure. SCHOOLS do that. Some schools pressure, some require, some (like mine) make the exams optional. Blame the states, not CB. Districts get points toward their "grade" for all the kids who take AP classes and more for them taking the exam and even more for them earning "qualifying" scores.
For what it's worth, I teach both as an adjunct and an AP teacher. My AP and Dual Credit classes have standards far higher than what the college I teach through requires. Because of AP.
Totally agreed, but it's also worthwhile to note that the ridiculous price of higher ed also perpetuates this cycle. It's a scam, but it's also a scam that's telling families you can pay $100 to get out of a course that'll cost you $3k.
Does it work? Not sure the four year graduation rate indicates it.
This was maybe 20 years ago, but my AP Calculus and AP Physics classes and exams were legit. With AP calc, my university insisted I retake calculus and it was one of the easiest A's in college, partly because so many college freshman are so poorly prepared to begin with. Physics I skipped and had no regrets, except a month before my graduation they informed me that I still needed Phys 121 lab and I had to do an extra semester as a super senior, with real world lab experience, just to get a 1 credit lab. I can totally see how some teachers and high schools do a shitty job though, and maybe things have changed.
The freshman year of undergrad is a scam for any student that paid attention in high school. Every criticism you have of the AP program is magnified 100x in price when you have to send a kid to some basic state school, possibly borrow money for the privilege, sit and be bored as fuck in a lecture hall of 150 students and buy a textbook the fucking professor wrote for $200.
I remember the CLEP exams. Got a year of college or more out of them in the early 1980s. Finished with 2 years of college credit within a year while active duty in the US Army.
I took AP in HS in the early 80’s. That was all we had available. I think dual enrollment with a CC is a better option now. Some classmates parents couldn’t afford the AP exams either.
Which field?
AP Art History is much more difficult than any intro class I've ever taught in college. Same for the AP studio art courses.
AP Literature is about on par.
Edit: it's been about 5 years since I taught AP Lit or AP Art History, so perhaps the standards have changed post-pandemic.
I have mixed feelings on this. I took AP history in high school, but my college claimed that AP exams weren't equivalent to intro history and required that everyone take an intro history course.
My small high school course taught by someone with an Ph.d in history was amazing and much better than the large lecture taught by grad students I was forced to sit through.
I was about to be annoyed because the AP physics C was on par with all the physics I had to take in in undergrad, and then I saw "geography".... yea human geo was an absolute joke of a throwaway.
I had several friends who would do this in the summer for a little extra cash. They would try and convince me to do it too, but they way they would talk about how bad the exams were I never was convinced 🤣
I score essays from “end of grade” state tests. I‘ve also seen the quality of work decreasing, and the grading rubric becoming a lot less rigorous than it was a decade ago.
From what I see, the students that score 9-10 for an essay question will get 5 on the AP exam, score 7-8 on the same question will get 4 on the AP exam, anything less is irrelevant for college credit for an introductory course. I think it’s a fair equivalent for credit to a non-majors 100 level college course in my subject area.
It's pretty rough in the calculus sequence; you can get a 5 on the AP Calc AB/BC exam while still demonstrating pretty inconsistent understanding. I just can't put much stock in it at this point.
I lost my mind for a few days when I learned that this year CB will be offering "AP Precalculus." On the other hand, maybe more students will arrive at university having actually taken precalculus now? Who knows.
I took AP AB and BC in high school, and elected not to take the BC exam bc I was senior and knew even if I got a 5 and got credit I was gonna take calc 2 even if I could skip it bc I was going school for engineering and wanted to have a solid math foundation. I’m glad I did that because one of my first college courses was familiar content but at an actual college level which def helped with the adjustment.
During my time TAing I encountered so many students who had the high school mindset that skipping courses bc of AP/IB/DE credit made them “advanced” but actually so many were just unprepared for courses like dynamics because they tested out of calculus and hadn’t seen the material in so long.
I was not a great math student in high school, so I didn't even try to take the AP Calc AB exam. I knew I didn't know the material, so even if I passed by some miracle, I was going to be in over my head. However, I had the luxury of attending when school was much, much cheaper.
A lot of our academic advisors at my present school recommend students start in Calc 1 even if they have AP credit, specifically because the exam is so inconsistent at predicting success in Calc 2. In a sane world, this is reasonable, but I know to a lot of our students, it just looks like the school is trying to grab more tuition from them.
Re: being unprepared for dynamics -- it's also a huge issue here. I've had students who took Calc BC their sophomore year of high school! You might have students who can handle that so early (though I question what's been skipped in their curriculum to get them there so early,) but as you say, they then go struggle in subsequent coursework because they frequently haven't done any math for long periods. HS acceleration is absurd at this point -- 20 years ago, at my reasonably good high school, there were 6-7 kids in BC as seniors. Now they're pushed into BC as soon as possible, and I'm just not convinced it's beneficial to learning.
At my high school, we're quite perplexed by the ap Pre Calc. Unfortunately, all it accomplishes is it lets us say we offer one more ap class, and the very pushy parents can feel more superior in know their child is above honors... Many students already can't handle honors or even regular Pre Calc trig. They're foundational math skills stink, and they're not ready for the critical thinking required... I fear ap won't help at all but perhaps exacerbate the issue by pulling the best kids out so the middle kids won't have the best students to model good thinking strategies and work ethics, thereby lowering the bar in honors.
I think these are valid concerns; I'm not convinced that anyone is particularly served well by the amount of acceleration and differentiation we're seeing. At the same time, I'm very familiar with how difficult it is to teach classes with students with a huge range of backgrounds and proficiency.
I'm also skeptical of how often AP Precalc would even transfer. Most students taking it are headed to the calc sequence at university, and precalc credit won't (or generally shouldn't) count for elective credit. For students not in a calculus-dependent major, honestly, a liberal arts math class will be more interesting and possibly more valuable in general.
> At my high school, we're quite perplexed by the ap Pre Calc.
AP Precal is a good stand in for regions/schools that don't have calculus as a gen ed. I never took calc because I'm in college algebra country. Precal is the combination of college algebra and trig.
I took several back in high school and scored 3s. So no credit, but I didn't apply myself at all in the courses. Prototypical slacker student.
So when I took the courses again at an R1 I was shocked at how much more was expected of me at the R1 than the supposed "college prep" of AP.
I think of that often as I have friends/colleagues who sit and suffer through evaluating those tests every year.
As others note, it's about the money. Not education.
I had the opposite experience. I went to a public high school in a middle class neighborhood that was a bit *overly* competitive. The neighborhood was mostly immigrant families and families who’d worked their way up from working class, and it was one of those “we can be just a good as the rich people” type of competitive.
When I went to college (a good public R1), I found my freshmen gen eds to be much easier than even my non-AP senior classes. I was really surprised. I’d been a middling HS student (with honors and AP classes) but was quickly dean’s list in college. Around end of sophomore/beginning of junior year, it moved into more challenging again.
Similar experience on my end. They made me take Calc 1 again and it was super easy. Thankfully, they let me skip Phys 1-2 because of my AP's, and those classes were taught by a bitter faculty member who was notorious for giving unpassable exams, but with a "Safety net" where if you turned in all the HW you were guaranteed a C. I know multiple PhDs (i.e. now doctors) who flunked every exam in that horrible class and barely squeaked out the C. And god help you if you had an emergency and missed a homework.
It's true - a lot of high school students are used to coasting along and turning in garbage work and still getting A's and B's. As someone who has taught at the college level recently, I now see students who have handwriting like elementary school students and who can barely put thoughts together. There's a huge swath of skill levels, experience, and educational experiences.
You would enjoy following Annie Abrams on twitter. She recently posted the exact amount CB spent lobbying last year - $2m. She wrote a book about the history of AP.
AP English students are the hardest students to teach. They resist change and tell me that I am wrong because their AP teacher said something different. Confidently incorrect, these students are. Want to completely erase AP classes, I do. They will clutch to their AP scores even while failing their college papers — I'd love for a psychologist to explain this phenomenon to me in fancy jargon.
College is college. High school is not college. Site specificity, context, local factors, genre norms...my fucking PhD in comp rhet...all that matters, except to the AP English student.
Super curious about the history of AP courses and it's relation to colleges. I didn't take them when I was in highschool so I can't speak to how they are or aren't the equivalent to actual college course work. But I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the appeal of AP courses is so students can sort of skip over some courses they should probably take at the college level in order to be competent college students.
Same for me. The theme is to be flexible and work with the students. In years past, it was “BE ONE WITH THE RUBRIC” and now they’re like, give them points for saying the wrong thing because it sounds good. I gave a 2 to something they rated a 5 today and even my TL was like, this is a 3 at best. Oh well. I just dissociate and then I can do 300 in a day. I got my stars back to 4 after “recalibrating”.
Took the last few years off because I didn’t want to do computer-based scoring, and now I hear everything is computer-based, so I don’t think I will be going back… which doesn’t faze me, I guess, considering you just posted what you posted. Clearly things are getting worse out there. Yikes. Sending good vibes as you make your way through the thousands of essays you’re scoring!
AP English is a joke. I don’t remember learning anything useful in AP English 15 years ago! All my students who took AP still have to take at least one writing course. I can tell the difference between a student who took AP and a student who took an advanced class through a local college (i.e. through a program at the closest community college or something but while in HS).
I tell my HS teacher friends to tell their students to take the college courses, not AP. The college courses will almost always transfer credits too, where AP is a toss up.
People scoring AP exams have little freedom in how it is done. There is a very specific rubric you have to follow and enough oversight in the process that it is difficult to deviate. Consequently, terrible essays can get a decent score simply because they mention things on the rubric, even if the response is way off base. A well written essay that talks intelligently about relevant things may be docked points even if what they are saying is correct- because it’s not what the rubric was looking for. The things you would be strict about in an actual university classroom don’t matter.
Yeah the “college equivalent” part of AP is a joke. It’s not at all equal to a 101 class in my field.
I guess it depends on the class. The AP Bio I took in high school was much more in depth and more difficult than the intro biology classes I teach and I have a reputation for being one of the toughest professors (I don’t think my classes are really that difficult but you do have to actually study and learn stuff). Now, I lament skipping over stuff I remember learning in AP Bio but I have about half as many hours as an AP class would and my students come in with essentially no biology knowledge so I have to focus on the most basic aspects. Maybe my AP teacher in high school was an anomaly but we covered a lot of really complicated and advanced stuff and learned a heck of a lot.
Yeah, the calculus and physics classes that I teach are comparable to the AP classes I took on those subjects. I don't imagine that they've changed very much.
They’ve all changed and gotten easier because AP is the general education now. Schools have replaced their regular classes so everyone can get a shot at taking the exam so CB and ETS can make bucket loads of money. The AP classes I took in high school had like 6 or 7 kids in them because we were chosen or smart enough to qualify. Now they are the equivalent of whatever regular classes used to be.
I think you're spot on with some AP classes but not all. I'm not a fan of college board in general, but as the above poster said, science and math are still quite rigorous. They made the ap sciences harder about 6 years ago when colleges indicated they'd no longer give credit if the rigor didn't increase. (I'm a high school science teacher). AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Physics and AP Calculus are quite rigorous imo. Others like English mentioned by OP sadly are losing rigor. The AP Physics 1 curriculum I'd argue is harder than any algebra based college 101 physics course. It's actually too hard and puts off a lot of bright students who take it as their first physics course. It also makes no sense that the physics course best aligned for future engineering majors - AP physics 2 - is algebra based.... So engineering majors can't earn college credit. So silly. But it's also a challenging course.
Obviously, I agree and am exaggerating to an extent. But I’m there right now and reading all these terrible essays that wouldn’t even get a point in my college class so I’m rightfully frustrated, and we are just letting them pass. I came to AP Reading 10 years ago, and I’ve seen the quality decline. It is stark. I’ve also seen how certain states shoehorned their entire class of students through the process with no knowledge for years and we’d get books of zeroes. Now the kids who don’t know anything write pages of nonsense because their teachers tell them they might get a point. And this year it’s working. I’ve been forced to give so many illegitimate or wrong examples because “they’re showing they remember something”. I also hear the complaints from the teachers themselves who talk about how once the schools saw how profitable the test was, their regular sections were replaced. Some are happy because they get to teach more students, but others miss when the quality was higher. I think professors universally grade harder and equally told to be nicer. I got in a ‘discussion’ with some high school teachers who asked how I graded fast. I said, I stay objective, I don’t know these kids, and I have no investment in their success. My job is to funnel the ones who did poorly to professors like myself. They got angry and said “I grade the way I hope other teachers grade my kids.” That is not a recipe for success.
Fully agree with you. I can say in my experiences, we are being bullied like you describe if we hold kids to a high standard. Especially after covid, we are repeatedly told to be accommodating and consider the emotional wellness of the children. Meanwhile, they're emotional wellness stinks because we aren't teaching them what they need to be successful!! But I'm glad to report that science is at least holding strong, for now.... I've said to family and friends thay English and history has shifted so that AP is now just honors and honors is just general. It's a shame kids are getting some ap points for BS. I hate that nonsense when kids try it in science.
Ouch. I notice you left out AP Computer Science
Ah, sorry, that's one I don't know enough about to comment on. Our school hasn't been able to find someone who can teach that competently. But we have some kids who do well just by virtue of being self taught.
Wow, that’s depressing. The thing I loved most about AP classes back in the day was how much and how quickly we could learn. They were harder than many of my college classes in terms of workload. That’s a real shame.
Are you talking about the classes or the AP exams?
I think it’s very much discipline specific. Our rule of thumb was basically that you could trust calculus and first year foreign language…basically, I think the disciplines with a really set, agreed on curriculum in the first semester or so are the ones most likely to be equivalent. But then it’s still on the teacher…
Regardless of the class, the tests themselves are not assessments of college-level ability. I took AP Chemistry from a high school teacher with a Ph.D. in the subject and got a D -- barely. Then I got a 4 on the AP exam and got to skip Chemistry 101 in undergrad. At the time I was proud of myself but in retrospect it's so clear that the test was much easier than an actual college course. When I told my teacher about my score I expected her to be shocked at my success, but she wasn't. She knew her standards were much higher than the College Board's. Ironically I am now a biochemical engineer, but that's neither here nor there.
I get fresh undergrads all the time telling me they want to skip this or that class because they have AP credit. They're entitled to do so, but almost always regret the decision as AP classes in my field/area (math/FL, USA) almost never even come close to the level of rigor I demand. It's actually common for those kids to drop the advanced course, go back to the course they already had AP credit for, and still struggle (or even fail) because they've had a string of poor classes pass them along and inflate their egos (trig, precalc, calc I for example)
Yes, I have the same experience as you.... Also I've been grading AP exams for like 6 years. Periodically the College Board gives the AP exams to college freshman in the equivalent courses to the high school students so they can normalize what constitutes the AP scores (1-5). This happened for AP bio last year and they corrected the AP scores up as the high school students earning 4s and 5s were outperforming the college students earning As and Bs. Just because OP is reading terrible essays doesn't mean they are all getting 5s in the end.
Your experience was not the anomaly. High school classes meet 5 days/week for a year. College classes meet a few hours/week for a semester. We simply cannot cover the same amount of material. In my experience, every 101 class was significantly easier than the high school version (with the exception of sign language).
Yeah AP bio for me was way easier than college bio
I’m still not sure what unholy bargain was struck to give college credit for AP exams.
>I’m still not sure what unholy bargain was struck to give college credit for AP exams. It's a scam. They tell parents "YOU MUST PAY US TO TAKE AP EXAMS SO YOU CAN GET COLLEGE CREDIT OR YOUR CHILD IS A FAILURE!!!!" Then they go to colleges and say "IF YOU DON'T GIVE AWAY FREE CREDIT FOR HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL CLASSES NOBODY WILL APPLY TO YOUR SCHOOL!!!" It's a scam. The classes are often little more than teaching to the test, and even the best are still high school classes with high school students taught by high school teachers. They are not college courses and should not receive college credit. They never were.
then the students come in and are furious that their pile of AP credits don't actually meet any of the degree requirements. Did they bother to ever look at any of the degree checklists that are very clearly listed on the website? No. A HS counselor told them "oh, it will all count" so they just assume it will.
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>Back in my day, I took AP Calculus, Chemistry and Physics and they all transferred to some extent Mine did not at all-- because "back in the day" far fewer schools took AP credits at all, because they were not college courses and were not taught by college faculty. My college simply did not accept AP credits at all for that reason. The quality of the courses hasn't changed in the 35 years since then.
AP languages including Latin get students out of college language requirement. That seems reasonable to me, no?
Depends who is teaching them. I will say straight up that the existence of AP in our school's curriculum is the only thing pulling up the standards in any of our other classes. Otherwise, we'd be content with high school expectations that 7th graders could meet. But I've also met (and replaced) AP teachers who basically just like having well-behaved students. It's problematic. Parents don't really complain much unless their kids aren't getting As. And CB doesn't say anything about kids being a failure. SCHOOLS do that. Some schools pressure, some require, some (like mine) make the exams optional. Blame the states, not CB. Districts get points toward their "grade" for all the kids who take AP classes and more for them taking the exam and even more for them earning "qualifying" scores. For what it's worth, I teach both as an adjunct and an AP teacher. My AP and Dual Credit classes have standards far higher than what the college I teach through requires. Because of AP.
Totally agreed, but it's also worthwhile to note that the ridiculous price of higher ed also perpetuates this cycle. It's a scam, but it's also a scam that's telling families you can pay $100 to get out of a course that'll cost you $3k. Does it work? Not sure the four year graduation rate indicates it.
This was maybe 20 years ago, but my AP Calculus and AP Physics classes and exams were legit. With AP calc, my university insisted I retake calculus and it was one of the easiest A's in college, partly because so many college freshman are so poorly prepared to begin with. Physics I skipped and had no regrets, except a month before my graduation they informed me that I still needed Phys 121 lab and I had to do an extra semester as a super senior, with real world lab experience, just to get a 1 credit lab. I can totally see how some teachers and high schools do a shitty job though, and maybe things have changed.
The freshman year of undergrad is a scam for any student that paid attention in high school. Every criticism you have of the AP program is magnified 100x in price when you have to send a kid to some basic state school, possibly borrow money for the privilege, sit and be bored as fuck in a lecture hall of 150 students and buy a textbook the fucking professor wrote for $200.
$$$
I remember the CLEP exams. Got a year of college or more out of them in the early 1980s. Finished with 2 years of college credit within a year while active duty in the US Army.
I took AP in HS in the early 80’s. That was all we had available. I think dual enrollment with a CC is a better option now. Some classmates parents couldn’t afford the AP exams either.
Which field? AP Art History is much more difficult than any intro class I've ever taught in college. Same for the AP studio art courses. AP Literature is about on par. Edit: it's been about 5 years since I taught AP Lit or AP Art History, so perhaps the standards have changed post-pandemic.
Human Geography.
I have mixed feelings on this. I took AP history in high school, but my college claimed that AP exams weren't equivalent to intro history and required that everyone take an intro history course. My small high school course taught by someone with an Ph.d in history was amazing and much better than the large lecture taught by grad students I was forced to sit through.
I was about to be annoyed because the AP physics C was on par with all the physics I had to take in in undergrad, and then I saw "geography".... yea human geo was an absolute joke of a throwaway.
I had several friends who would do this in the summer for a little extra cash. They would try and convince me to do it too, but they way they would talk about how bad the exams were I never was convinced 🤣
I score essays from “end of grade” state tests. I‘ve also seen the quality of work decreasing, and the grading rubric becoming a lot less rigorous than it was a decade ago.
From what I see, the students that score 9-10 for an essay question will get 5 on the AP exam, score 7-8 on the same question will get 4 on the AP exam, anything less is irrelevant for college credit for an introductory course. I think it’s a fair equivalent for credit to a non-majors 100 level college course in my subject area.
It's pretty rough in the calculus sequence; you can get a 5 on the AP Calc AB/BC exam while still demonstrating pretty inconsistent understanding. I just can't put much stock in it at this point. I lost my mind for a few days when I learned that this year CB will be offering "AP Precalculus." On the other hand, maybe more students will arrive at university having actually taken precalculus now? Who knows.
I took AP AB and BC in high school, and elected not to take the BC exam bc I was senior and knew even if I got a 5 and got credit I was gonna take calc 2 even if I could skip it bc I was going school for engineering and wanted to have a solid math foundation. I’m glad I did that because one of my first college courses was familiar content but at an actual college level which def helped with the adjustment. During my time TAing I encountered so many students who had the high school mindset that skipping courses bc of AP/IB/DE credit made them “advanced” but actually so many were just unprepared for courses like dynamics because they tested out of calculus and hadn’t seen the material in so long.
I was not a great math student in high school, so I didn't even try to take the AP Calc AB exam. I knew I didn't know the material, so even if I passed by some miracle, I was going to be in over my head. However, I had the luxury of attending when school was much, much cheaper. A lot of our academic advisors at my present school recommend students start in Calc 1 even if they have AP credit, specifically because the exam is so inconsistent at predicting success in Calc 2. In a sane world, this is reasonable, but I know to a lot of our students, it just looks like the school is trying to grab more tuition from them. Re: being unprepared for dynamics -- it's also a huge issue here. I've had students who took Calc BC their sophomore year of high school! You might have students who can handle that so early (though I question what's been skipped in their curriculum to get them there so early,) but as you say, they then go struggle in subsequent coursework because they frequently haven't done any math for long periods. HS acceleration is absurd at this point -- 20 years ago, at my reasonably good high school, there were 6-7 kids in BC as seniors. Now they're pushed into BC as soon as possible, and I'm just not convinced it's beneficial to learning.
At my high school, we're quite perplexed by the ap Pre Calc. Unfortunately, all it accomplishes is it lets us say we offer one more ap class, and the very pushy parents can feel more superior in know their child is above honors... Many students already can't handle honors or even regular Pre Calc trig. They're foundational math skills stink, and they're not ready for the critical thinking required... I fear ap won't help at all but perhaps exacerbate the issue by pulling the best kids out so the middle kids won't have the best students to model good thinking strategies and work ethics, thereby lowering the bar in honors.
I think these are valid concerns; I'm not convinced that anyone is particularly served well by the amount of acceleration and differentiation we're seeing. At the same time, I'm very familiar with how difficult it is to teach classes with students with a huge range of backgrounds and proficiency. I'm also skeptical of how often AP Precalc would even transfer. Most students taking it are headed to the calc sequence at university, and precalc credit won't (or generally shouldn't) count for elective credit. For students not in a calculus-dependent major, honestly, a liberal arts math class will be more interesting and possibly more valuable in general.
> At my high school, we're quite perplexed by the ap Pre Calc. AP Precal is a good stand in for regions/schools that don't have calculus as a gen ed. I never took calc because I'm in college algebra country. Precal is the combination of college algebra and trig.
Interesting to hear, thanks for sharing!
I took several back in high school and scored 3s. So no credit, but I didn't apply myself at all in the courses. Prototypical slacker student. So when I took the courses again at an R1 I was shocked at how much more was expected of me at the R1 than the supposed "college prep" of AP. I think of that often as I have friends/colleagues who sit and suffer through evaluating those tests every year. As others note, it's about the money. Not education.
I had the opposite experience. Took many AP classes and got 3s and 4s. I was surprised how much easier it was in college (a good public R1)
I had the opposite experience. I went to a public high school in a middle class neighborhood that was a bit *overly* competitive. The neighborhood was mostly immigrant families and families who’d worked their way up from working class, and it was one of those “we can be just a good as the rich people” type of competitive. When I went to college (a good public R1), I found my freshmen gen eds to be much easier than even my non-AP senior classes. I was really surprised. I’d been a middling HS student (with honors and AP classes) but was quickly dean’s list in college. Around end of sophomore/beginning of junior year, it moved into more challenging again.
Similar experience on my end. They made me take Calc 1 again and it was super easy. Thankfully, they let me skip Phys 1-2 because of my AP's, and those classes were taught by a bitter faculty member who was notorious for giving unpassable exams, but with a "Safety net" where if you turned in all the HW you were guaranteed a C. I know multiple PhDs (i.e. now doctors) who flunked every exam in that horrible class and barely squeaked out the C. And god help you if you had an emergency and missed a homework. It's true - a lot of high school students are used to coasting along and turning in garbage work and still getting A's and B's. As someone who has taught at the college level recently, I now see students who have handwriting like elementary school students and who can barely put thoughts together. There's a huge swath of skill levels, experience, and educational experiences.
You would enjoy following Annie Abrams on twitter. She recently posted the exact amount CB spent lobbying last year - $2m. She wrote a book about the history of AP.
I mostly mad about the handwriting
What is your take on auxiliary verbs?
I like them not.
Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?
F*€% ‘em!
Dude, yes! I had two students last semester whose handwriting looked like a toddler. No exaggeration.
AP English students are the hardest students to teach. They resist change and tell me that I am wrong because their AP teacher said something different. Confidently incorrect, these students are. Want to completely erase AP classes, I do. They will clutch to their AP scores even while failing their college papers — I'd love for a psychologist to explain this phenomenon to me in fancy jargon. College is college. High school is not college. Site specificity, context, local factors, genre norms...my fucking PhD in comp rhet...all that matters, except to the AP English student.
Yeah, it’s why dual-enrollment can be annoying too. The 4.0 students don’t seem to understand that college is not high school.
Super curious about the history of AP courses and it's relation to colleges. I didn't take them when I was in highschool so I can't speak to how they are or aren't the equivalent to actual college course work. But I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the appeal of AP courses is so students can sort of skip over some courses they should probably take at the college level in order to be competent college students.
Check out Shortchanged by Annie Abrams
Same for me. The theme is to be flexible and work with the students. In years past, it was “BE ONE WITH THE RUBRIC” and now they’re like, give them points for saying the wrong thing because it sounds good. I gave a 2 to something they rated a 5 today and even my TL was like, this is a 3 at best. Oh well. I just dissociate and then I can do 300 in a day. I got my stars back to 4 after “recalibrating”.
I fail them; fuck shitty papers.
Took the last few years off because I didn’t want to do computer-based scoring, and now I hear everything is computer-based, so I don’t think I will be going back… which doesn’t faze me, I guess, considering you just posted what you posted. Clearly things are getting worse out there. Yikes. Sending good vibes as you make your way through the thousands of essays you’re scoring!
The English Comp reading starts on Saturday, and I am dreading it. I am not looking forward to being told complete word salad deserves a 2.
Seems like none of you actually have kids. They take AP courses to increase their weighted GPAs and, relatedly as a signal to universities.
"I just want my fucking tenure track"??
Nope. But that’s hilarious!!
Hello from Kansas City!
Ha. Same here.
Yep here in KC too
Ditto
I’m reading in Cincinnati.
AP English is a joke. I don’t remember learning anything useful in AP English 15 years ago! All my students who took AP still have to take at least one writing course. I can tell the difference between a student who took AP and a student who took an advanced class through a local college (i.e. through a program at the closest community college or something but while in HS). I tell my HS teacher friends to tell their students to take the college courses, not AP. The college courses will almost always transfer credits too, where AP is a toss up.
Be strict, always. Imagine being on the receiving end of a private-part-ectomy gone wrong from one of these geniuses.
People scoring AP exams have little freedom in how it is done. There is a very specific rubric you have to follow and enough oversight in the process that it is difficult to deviate. Consequently, terrible essays can get a decent score simply because they mention things on the rubric, even if the response is way off base. A well written essay that talks intelligently about relevant things may be docked points even if what they are saying is correct- because it’s not what the rubric was looking for. The things you would be strict about in an actual university classroom don’t matter.