Opinion of Advanced Placement (AP) program

[Del Tachi]

Very, very horrible program.

Somehow the college admissions/higher education industry got together and found out a way to create a multi-billion dollar industry by turning BS college courses into high school classes.  Nice move, education industry.

Additionally, the fact that the program is not offered equally at all public schools (with extremely rural schools and minority students not having any access to the program) put those students at an extreme disadvantage in the dog-eat-dog world of competitive college admissions.

Most importantly, there's not much use in teaching high schoolers college-level content.  The learning curve for first semester college students is not the difficulty of the curriculum, but rather having to adapt to the way the content is presented in the more libertine environment of college campuses.  Teaching high schoolers college-level material will not prepare them for college any more than it would otherwise.

IMHO, the program should be banned and high schools should not be able to offer AP/dual enrollment programs to their students.         

[ElectionsGuy]

I think its probably a good idea but terrible side effects and unintended consequences. I'll go with HP, even though I've never taken an AP class before.

[MalaspinaGold]

Not perfect, but pretty good. Haven't heard from any college students that it hurt them. Overall, ffp

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I just got my AP English books .

[Storebought]

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I always thought that the curricula of the general education courses in college were better presented in high school. Or, stated in another way, the typical high-school curriculum could be made stronger if lectures/assignments were given at the level of presentation equivalent to typical gen-ed courses of a four year degree program.

As it stands now, high schools function, for the greater part, as a holding cell for adulthood, whether for the college-bound, for those destined for what-was-once-manufacturing-but-now-in-all-but-name-low-wage employment, or even a place for idle adolescents to legally loiter.

High school has lost its point, and the AP Program has taken advantage of the institutional disarray to offer (biased) selection of quasi college-level courses to a (biased) selection of students.

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You could ask the reasonable question: just how much do AP courses and tests reflect what one is expected of a typical first- or second-year college student? For some courses, say calculus, the answer is pretty good, and a student who passes the AP Calculus BC test can be reasonably assumed to have been prepared for a course in freshman Calculus I. For other courses, like organic chemistry or mechanics, I think the AP courses are worthless and should be suppressed. Students who use a passing grade in the AP tests in these subjects to test out of the college course are in fact cheating themselves out of a basic prerequisite.

I understand the rationale that students use free (when available) AP courses and AP tests paid for with a nominal (to a middle class person) fee to avoid paying high tuition for expensive general education courses. AP test scores are also an alternative to increasingly expensive community college credits that may or may not be transferable to a four-year institution. But, even here, I would still suspect that community colleges present college-level material better than high schools do through AP courses.

[Kushahontas]

could be worse, voted FP

[RI]

I prefer Running Start-esque programs, personally.

[MalaspinaGold]

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I always thought that the curricula of the general education courses in college were better presented in high school. Or, stated in another way, the typical high-school curriculum could be made stronger if lectures/assignments were given at the level of presentation equivalent to typical gen-ed courses of a four year degree program.

As it stands now, high schools function, for the greater part, as a holding cell for adulthood, whether for the college-bound, for those destined for what-was-once-manufacturing-but-now-in-all-but-name-low-wage employment, or even a place for idle adolescents to legally loiter.

High school has lost its point, and the AP Program has taken advantage of the institutional disarray to offer (biased) selection of quasi college-level courses to a (biased) selection of students.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You could ask the reasonable question: just how much do AP courses and tests reflect what one is expected of a typical first- or second-year college student? For some courses, say calculus, the answer is pretty good, and a student who passes the AP Calculus BC test can be reasonably assumed to have been prepared for a course in freshman Calculus I. For other courses, like organic chemistry or mechanics, I think the AP courses are worthless and should be suppressed. Students who use a passing grade in the AP tests in these subjects to test out of the college course are in fact cheating themselves out of a basic prerequisite.

I understand the rationale that students use free (when available) AP courses and AP tests paid for with a nominal (to a middle class person) fee to avoid paying high tuition for expensive general education courses. AP test scores are also an alternative to increasingly expensive community college credits that may or may not be transferable to a four-year institution. But, even here, I would still suspect that community colleges present college-level material better than high schools do through AP courses.

Just a minor quibble, AP chemistry does not replace OChem, it replaces (I believe) inorganic chemistry.

[Vosem]

Yeah, AP Chemistry doesn't include any organic chemistry. Anyway, since classes that fall under the program were a majority of my schedule last year and will be an overwhelming majority next year, I'd feel like a self-hater if I didn't vote Freedom Program.

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

Bad replacement for real Dual Enrollment.

[Mr. Illini]

Helps students out considerably in reducing coursework in college and oftentimes gives them to opportunity to finish early.

[Orser67]

Personally I think the opportunity to get college credit outside of college is a really good idea (this also includes CLEP and a few other tests). Most colleges still require you to spend 3 years in residency, and I don't think spending a few less semesters at college is the end of the world. If you're going to spend thousands of dollars a year on college, you should be able to skip areas in which you have already demonstrated a solid understanding.

I'm not sure if the AP program is perfectly executed, but I do think it's a good idea.

[RR1997]

Helps students out considerably in reducing coursework in college and oftentimes gives them to opportunity to finish early.

[bedstuy]

I took a bunch and along with taking a couple college classes at my local college during high school, I graduated from college in 3 and a half years.

I didn't go to one of these fancy high schools either.  I just signed up for the AP test after I took the relevant class.  It's not like the AP classes have some secret information.  I also took the US Government test without taking any relevant class.  I had followed the 2004 campaign and knew politics pretty well so it was simple to get a 5.  It's that simple.  If you know US History well, you can easily get a 5 on the AP test and an 800 on the SAT subject test.  If you know intro college calculus, you can get a 5 on the test.  This isn't some secret rich kid code, if you learn the material and work hard, you can get this cheap college credit too.

As for AP tests being a bad replacement for a real college class, I think it depends on the university and particular subject .  Hard sciences and Math at a real university are generally very difficult and it's questionable to skip to an advanced level based on high school.  On the other hand, I took a lower level medieval history course at a big state college when I was in high school.  It was kind of shocking how easy a big state U humanities class can be.  I was totally prepared by having taken a European history class when I was 14 or 15.

[IceSpear]

Dual enrollment is preferable.