How Good are Advanced Placement (AP) Courses? Are They Worth Taking?
Several recent client questions have centered upon the value of Advanced Placement (AP) tests and their importance in the college admissions process.
Conventional wisdom holds that AP courses are excellent preparation for college. They are considered to be rigorous. The general idea is that they are the equivalent of college-level, introductory survey courses.
(The Advanced Placement program, created by the College Board, does have its critics who decry the amount of rote memorization or brute calculation that the exams tend to emphasize. I do not necessarily disagree with these critiques. For today’s purposes, however, I’m going to set aside these criticisms.)
The second value of the AP program is that the tests provide a norm. Or a standard. A score on the AP test is a relatively accurate assessment of a student’s relative performance. The tests themselves may not be perfect; but a student’s score does provide admissions officers (among others) to usefully compare a student’s abilities with those of his peers across the country.
So much for the test. What is the value of an AP course?
In my opinion, the value of an AP course can be measured only by how well the course prepares students to take the AP test. If most students in the said course pass the test, the course must be good. If the majority fail the exam, the course is not all that great.
Across the country, the curriculum for an AP course is consistent: the aim is to “teach to the test.” (I hear the criticisms, but I’m ignoring them.)
So if the curriculum is held constant, what’s the variable?
We have only two possible answers. Either we blame the students or we blame the teacher.
I work on a pro bono basis for several students at an inner-city high school in Denver. One of my students is ranked second in her class of over 500 students. Academically, she is a stand-out. She is beloved by administrators, teachers, and peers. She has been singled out as a rare talent in a school with more than its fair share of problems.
She is enrolled in AP classes. And she even got to take one during her sophomore year.
She received a score of 1 out of 5 on the AP test.
How did that happen?
And whose fault is it? Perhaps students at this school are simply not as bright as the students across town in the wealthy suburbs, where it’s relatively routine for students to score 4 or 5 on the same test. Perhaps this poor girl simply doesn’t have the same preparation, so there is no way she—or any of her peers at this school—could perform on the same level as her peers across the city boundary.
Or is it the teacher? Is it that the teacher of this class in this school does not have the content expertise or the teaching skills to push the students hard enough and far enough to pass the test? How many inner-city high schools are full of Jaime Escalantes, who “stand and deliver” advanced calculus to black and brown students? (Answer: precious few.)
Or, is this young girl’s failure on the AP test a symptom of something more insidious at work in our educational system? It is simply the culture of low expectations that allows us to offer a course with an AP label, and then neglect to push poorer, browner students in the same way we push their richer, whiter peers?
I have my opinions. But for now, I want to focus on what parents can and should be asking about their students’ AP courses.
To the question, “are AP courses valuable?” my answer is “absolutely.” But the questions should not stop there. Parents should be asking administrators and teachers some better, tougher questions about those AP courses.
For example:
- How long has this course been taught in this school?
- How long has this teacher been teaching this course?
- Has the teacher received special training to teach this course? If so, what kind of training, and from whom?
- Are students who take the course required to sit for the AP exam? If not, why not?
- What percentage of those who take the course attempt the test?
- What is the teacher’s pass rate? If the teacher taught the course at a different school, what was his or her pass rate there?
- Of those who passed, how many received a 4 or 5 on the test?
- Are the teacher’s grades for the course related, in any way, to anticipated performance on the AP test?
- What sort of assessments does the teacher use in the course? How similar are those assessments to the actual AP tests?
- How much is writing emphasized in this AP course? (Many of the tests require substantial writing, not just multiple choice questions.)
These sorts of questions will help you better assess the value of a particular AP course at a particular school.
If you find that the answers to these questions are unsatisfactory, there might actually be better options for your college-bound student. Perhaps one of the best is to seek out dual enrollment options at a local college or community college, where your student can take a bona fide college course—at no cost in most states—and be guaranteed of receiving college credit if the student passes the course.
As with most everything else in this world, you cannot judge something merely by its label. The AP brand is generally pretty good. But you’d better look carefully at that individual course before you encourage your student to sign up.
Mark Montgomery
Independent College Counseling
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17 Responses to “How Good are Advanced Placement (AP) Courses? Are They Worth Taking?”
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I agree with the post, however, I think that students should not eliminate choosing an AP course because the course taught at the school is unsatisfactory. If the student has his own drive to achieve or he loves the subject, he can sometimes learn the material on his own, even if the teacher isn’t as helpful. In this case, the AP course will look fabulous on the transcript and the student can perform well on the exam.
Thanks for participating in this week’s Carnival of Family Life by contributing this post! The Carnival is at ice cream is not for breakfast this week and will be live on Monday, May 19, 2008, so drop by and check out some of the other excellent articles included in this edition!
The reality of AP is a bit more complex than your set of questions. For example, in my first year of teaching AP, I had a 100% pass rate. Am I a brilliant teacher? No, my students were well prepared as underclassmen by my colleagues. I was simply competent enough to run with that good base.
Although I do some test prep, my exams do not resemble the AP exam. I also do not tie grades to anticipated scores or, for that matter, practice tests. AP Lit is a skills test, but the course itself is content-based, so they don’t align as neatly.
All AP teachers must have at least 18 graduate credits in their subject area (not education). We must also submit a syllabus to be approved by The College Board. This syllabus follows the teacher. Most AP teachers also must attend the CB seminars.
Community college courses are a good option, but AP is still almost always a better option than the “regular” high school course. Even if the student doesn’t score the 3, he or she will still have had better preparation for college.
Dear Lightlyseasoned,
First, thanks for commenting on my site. I’m much obliged.
I concede your points, though I think you are probably being too modest about your teaching abilities. You are right that the “raw material” that your students enter the classroom with makes a difference.
However, the sad fact is that there are many AP teachers with College Board-approved syllabi who have the proper number of credit hours who are absolutely abysmal in their ability to prepare students adequately for the AP tests. My guess is that you have met some of these teachers in your career.
I also mourn the fact that some of the students I work with in an inner city high school are taking AP courses (from approved teachers using approved syllabi) and getting only a “1″ on the test.
Are these students stupid? Are they incapable of making a 5 on the test?
If you are saying that it is all a matter of preparation long before a student enters that AP classroom, and that poorly prepared students cannot hope to be competitive with their peers, aren’t we lying to them that the course they will take at this inner city school is “proof” that they are ready for college?
My point is that your well-prepared students would do just fine with or without you. But my poorly-prepared students might–just might–have a better chance of passing the exam if you were their teacher.
Thanks again for visiting my blog.
[...] Montgomery presents How Good are Advanced Placement (AP) Courses? Are They Worth Taking? posted at Great College Advice, saying, “Choosing the right classes is both important and [...]
[...] Montgomery presents How Good are Advanced Placement (AP) Courses? Are They Worth Taking? posted at Great College [...]
I am in Florida and the advice that I have received from the guidance counselors of my two sons is that AP courses are accepted nationwide, but the dual enrollment courses are usually only accepted by other Florida universities. Because of this, I have chosen to have my sons take AP classes. Do you agree with this statement?
Greetings, and thanks for visiting my blog. Your question is an excellent one.
The advice you are receiving from your guidance counselors in Florida is mostly incorrect. Briefly and to the point, I contacted two state universities in Colorado who told me they would gladly accept PSEO credits from a community college in Florida, as long as the courses were general in nature and the student received a grade of C- or better. I also learned at that in Colorado, at least, there is NO LIMIT to the number of credits that may be transferred—as long as they were all earned before the date of graduation from high school.
Compare this with the AP, which offers a high-pressure curriculum and a high stakes test, and college will only offer credit if the student achieves a requisite score (often a 4 or 5).
Based on this information, I would guess that most public universities in the US would transfer PSEO credits from Florida.
Private colleges and universities are another matter. Some will grant “advanced standing” to students with PSEO credits or AP credits. Some will waive prerequisites. The policies will vary depending (to a large degree) on the selectivity of the college: the more selective, the less likely the institution is to grant advanced standing. Most, however, will use either PSEO or AP courses to waive prerequisites.
So here is the dirty secret: it is in some ways better to do use PSEO options if you want to reduced the total cost of college at a public university. As long as the student earns a decent grade (the minimium is C- in Colorado), the student can transfer the credit into that public university. Guaranteed. No questions asked.
But the AP is more of a roll of the dice. Take the course. Get a grade. Maybe pass the test. Maybe pass it with a high enough score to possible get credits—if the college or university will accept them.
So dollar for dollar, the PSEO option is the better deal.
However, one caveat. Colleges are looking for rigor. They want to know that your student took the most rigorous courses possible, and achieved the highest possible levels of proficiency and knowledge. In some cases, I’d prefer that my own children take a course with an excellent AP teacher who has a terrific track record of getting his or students to get scores of 5 on the AP test, rather than take a lackluster community college course that is not all that rigorous or at an advanced intellectual level.
So it depends on your aims. If you want to save money, go the PSEO route, because it is more of a sure thing. If you want to prepare your child for the most selective colleges in the United States, then you might want to do some more investigating and figure out which option(s) will provide your student with the greatest intellectual challenges and opportunities.
I hope this answers your question. Thanks again for visiting my blog, and please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
I think the points you make are not limited to inner-city schools and people of color. I am caucasian as are my two boys and we are in a very typical middle class school in Northern California. My son took two AP classes last year during his sophomore year and had even had an A in AP Statistics, but scored a 1 on the test. The AP Euro experience was a bit different - he had a B in the class and scored a 2 on the test probably as the result of the DBQ - I think he really knew the topics well. He also has taken 3 courses now at the local community college - Italian 1 and 2 during his freshman & sophmore year and Trigonometry this summer between 10th and 11th grade. Students are not allowed to double-dip with these college credits because he’s allowed to count them on his high school transcript to count as honors grades - but the fact remains that he has successful scored B’s and A’s on college level courses even if he can’t count them for college credit toward GE. He has a college transcript for them which he can simply forward to any college that accepts those courses.
As far as the AP, I’ve asked the principal for the distribution of scores and a breakdown of student scores per class for which I feel justified asking for since those classes are the ones he should be taking in school and the exams get expensive for no real ROI. I think it is definitely the teachers who are lacking in delivering rigorous courses of study. It’s not necessarily their credentials as much as it is their methods of teaching which lack the rigor necessary for the students to have a course that is similar in weight to a college course. They give credit for homework without grading it, for one, and they give a lot of extra credit to bring the grade up when they should be focusing on content and ensuring students have mastered the topics. STAR scores (California State standardized scores) at this high school are abysmally low - only 20% of a student body of 2000 students score in proficient of advanced in Math subjects of Geometry, Algebra II, and Summative Math whereas scores on English and Biology tend to be higher - the same kids, but diffferent teachers. It seems to be the teachers, but I guess it could be the test. I lean toward the teaching.
As a side note, they’ve started the International Baccalaureate (IB) program this year at my son’s school with the comment from my son’s IB history teacher (at last night’s back to school night) that more and more colleges are becoming jaded against AP because they feel that the tests don’t prove that students are prepared to handle the rigor - I don’t know what to believe at this point. My son is enrolled in two of those IB classes, but truth be told - I’m feeling very skeptical. I find that the end result is that the skills of the teachers is lacking. Your thoughts?
Jane,
Thanks for visiting my blog and sharing your experiences as a parent.
First, if the school scores on the STAR tests are low, there could be several explanations. First, how academically “ready” are the majority of kids coming into the school? Are there lots of non-native speakers of English? Are there any other explanations–other than teaching–for the below average scores? If there are no other extenuating factors, then I ‘d be likely to agree that the teaching is a major source of the problem.
Second, it is s dubious claim that students who do AP are “not ready” for college. It is true that some of the most selective colleges in the country are not accepting calculus scores for college credit. But students who score a 5 on the test are certainly much more prepared than students who score a 2. By claiming that the colleges are to blame for the switch away from AP is perhaps a mask for the fact that the teachers are unprepared to lift their students up over the AP hurdle. Your question to the school must focus on the pass rates. Is your son the only student who received 1s and 2s on the tests? Did any students get 5s? If so, what was the score distribution? There are teachers out there who consistently have a 100% pass rate (3 or above) and who have 50-75% of their students who get perfect 5s–my sister is one of them.
Third, if the school is now moving toward IB, that is great–as a curriculum. But the mere fact of offering IB courses doesn’t mean that students will pass the IB courses with high scores–which is what is necessary for entry to selective colleges.
My question, as a parent and educator, would be the following: it’s all well and good that you are implementing rigorous curriculum at our school. But what are you doing to ensure that teachers are extremely well-prepared to teach the content? How many of them have Masters’ degrees in their content area (as opposed to Master’s of education and/or pedagogy)? How many hours of content training have they received from the IB organization? Also, for the principal, you can ask about the goals: how many of the kids in this school do you envision will receive top scores on the IB exams? What are the goals?
In the end, changing the curriculum does not guarantee student success and academic preparation. A great curriculum necessitates great teaching. And the rigors of the AP and IB curricula are, to be quite frank, beyond the capability of a great many teachers in the US.
As my commenter, Yingna, notes above, it is very possible that brilliant students can get high scores on the AP or IB exames, with our without their teachers’ help. But most of use require some sort of instruction in order to attain high levels of competency.
So, my thoughts amount to this: you are right to call into the question the ability of your sons’ teachers to deliver the AP or IB curriculum in a way that will ensure their success on the exams.
Finally, your use of community college credits to count as honors courses is a good one. As I said earlier in response to a previous comment, these are “sure bets,” as opposed to a roll of the dice on the AP test. Not all community college courses are super rigorous. But they are college-level courses. And generally speaking, colleges are pleased to see them on your sons’ transcripts.
I hope this is helpful. Please do not hesitate to write again with questions or comments. Many thanks for visiting my blog.
[...] A reader recently wrote in to ask my opinion about dual enrollment courses, and to compare them to the Advanced Placement (or AP) options at her sons’ school. The question came on a post I wrote analyzing the worth of AP courses. [...]
Balderdash. The quality of teaching may have something to do with whether students succeed on the AP exam, but it is hardly the most important determinant. I taught AP psychology at a college preparatory school. 90% of my kids passed the exam. Big deal. I had smart kids. I also had motivated kids. Put me back into the public school scenario where I taught regular (not AP) psychology for 10 years and relatively few of my kids would have succeeded. Amazing how teachers get good or bad depending on the quality of their students. Go back and read the sentence about Jaime Escalante. It rings truer than anything else in this column.
Dear Mr. Mattimore,
Thanks for visiting my blog. You are right that having motivated, prepared kids makes any teacher’s job easier. But I have seen even experienced teachers fail to prepare kids for the AP exam. A previously high performing school may have a record of good pass rates that suddenly drop when a new, inexperienced teacher steps into a new roll. Teaching can make a difference.
I’m confused about your reference to Jaime Escalante: my point was that strong teachers with a workaholic attitude can get poorer, less prepared kids to pass AP calculus. Poor kids are not born stupid: they can achieve under certain conditions.
We can disagree (as many do) as to the role of a teacher in student success. Settling this disagreement is not one that educational researchers will be able to prove one way or another with statistical certainty.
My experience has been that poorer schools have less prepared teachers than richer schools. This is part of the inequality of American education. My sister teaches in the richest school in town, with at least one Ivy League educated teacher in every department. I volunteer at a predominantly black school across town that has a disproportionate number of 24 and 25 year olds who barely got their education certificates. Clearly the student demographics are different in the two places. But so are the teacher demographics.
Again, which is the dependent variable and which is the independent? We can agree to disagree because no statistical proof exists: my feeling against yours. But it’s a sad truth that the poor performance and poorly trained teachers exist in the same school more often than not.
You ask how many schools teaching poor kids are full of Jaime Escalante’s? You answer, darn few. You could also ask the same question of the Exeter’s and Andover’s of the world and you get the same answer. Darn few. It is a myth to believe that we have lots of great teachers out there who just happen to have ended up at the most prestigious high schools. Yeah the Ivy League credentialed teacher may end up at the high-end school. Gal may have a 140 IQ and be able to put it out there for kids who can sop it up. But it is many times tougher to teach in a hard scrabble urban school. It takes a different personality than the academic. I don’t accept your conclusion- that poor performance teachers and poorly trained teachers exist in the same (minority) schools more often than not. If by poorly trained, you mean, less and sometimes even inadequate training, I’ll buy that. But, I would not equate performance with training. At the school where you volunteer do a little experiment with the kids. Ask them who their best teacher is. And worst. Get some consensus in your own mind as to the tops and bottoms. You might also ask the kids why. See how well the best through the worst equate with that teacher’s credentials.
BTW Mark, I think it’s admirable that you have chosen to help disadvantaged kids. We need more people like you.
Dear Mr. Mattimore,
I have a couple of questions for you.
First, to what do you attribute poor academic performance in our urban, public high schools?
Second, the request to ask my urban student about their best and worst teachers is worth a try. But since kids in any high school cannot compare educational experiences across town, what would I hope to learn from this exercise? In other words, what’s your prediction?
I agree wholeheartedly that teaching in an urban public school is a different proposition than teaching at Andover. Your line of reasoning, it seems, is that teachers don’t really make a difference in a student’s success one way or another. So what it is, then? Is academic capability and achievement determined by one’s economic class? Further, if we want to close the achievement gap, how do we do that? Or is there no hope?
Thanks again for visiting and for commenting. I enjoy the conversation.
Mark,
Call me Pat or Patrick please.
Question #1. Well this could go on for a while but… No great surprise that kids show up for that first day of K in vastly different places. In a more homogeneous society some of those differences would get ironed out as kids got older. In America that doesn’t happen and kids give up. Why? Well we tend to pursue things we are good at. Meredith Phillips, UCLA researcher has estimated that about half the difference we see between black and white kids at hs graduation (and remember there is about a four-year difference then and those are the kids who are graduating) is attributable to differences when they enter school. So I would look at putting resources into the early years gap.
2. My prediction has nothing to do with comparing the kids with your sister’s classes though she could certainly do the experiment independently. I would predict two things:
A. You will find a fairly weak positive correlation between a person’s academic preparation and that person’s classroom effectiveness (now I realize we are getting subjective judgments from kids about teachers but they are as good as anyone to do the judging)- correlation may be slightly stronger in an advantaged school.
B. When kids cite what makes a good teacher, it won’t have much or anything to do with the person’s academics/intelligence- I would predict you’ll get kids talking about a teacher’s empathic qualities- she really understands me, he’s always there to help, etc.
3. Closing the achievement gap… I don’t have the answer but let me propose instead a thought experiment. Imagine that beginning tomorrow every baby born in the U.S. is randomly assigned to another one of that day’s birth mothers. A Native American child born on a reservation in Montana might end up with a single mother in New York or a main line couple from Philadelphia, whose baby went to Seattle, might receive twins born to a mother in Iowa.
Consider what tomorrow’s cohort of babies and each day’s subsequent groups of babies might mean in terms of our schools ten years down the line. A private elementary school in California would likely be indistinguishable from a Chicago inner city grammar school, at least in terms of the faces of the children. Certainly, our true melted pot would provide researchers a wonderful laboratory to explore the relative effects of nature versus nurture, but regardless of their findings, we could expect a radical societal transformation.
Because no mother would know in advance which baby she would receive, all our expectant mothers and families would have a stake in insuring that each fetus got the best possible pre-natal care. These groups would likely lobby to make sure that hospitals and governmental assistance programs provided extra services to those most in need, high risk babies born to crack or alcohol addicted mothers, for example. Although our babies would never enter the world with precisely equal chances, every parent-to-be would have an enormous stake in trying to give every newborn the best start in life she could possibly have.
Now let’s assume that we could channel that communal goodwill spirit into our schools today. Instead of the largely selfish approach that looks out for our own children but neglects other children, we substitute a sense that we all have a responsibility and interest to insure that each of our children succeeds.
But without a fundamental reordering of priorities, I think the achievement gap will remain largely intractable.
This is a fascinating discussion, I’m sorry it is not still active.
My two cents: There is plenty of blame to spread around, and fingers can be rightfully pointed at admin, teachers, students, and parents.
So, what to do given the cards we as students and parents are dealt ? I recommend that the mother of the child who failed the AP test purchase AP prep/test books, and encourage her son to form a study group. The books are exactly the level that the test is at, and can be purchased very cheaply used at half.com or other places on the internet. Don’t worry about buying a previous edition — It’s fine, and usually less than $5. Between the kids in the group and a parent who can help, the kids will be able to close any gap their class studies have opened, at least within the reasonable limits of the student’s abilities.
Don’t trust me though, both my kids give these books their strong recommendation.
The blame game is well and good, but it will not help the student today.