When it comes to the Advanced Placement or AP program offered by the College Board, parents and students have all sorts of questions. Are Advanced Placement courses good for college admission? Which AP courses should I take? How many should I take? When should I begin taking them? Do I have to take the exams?
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, and often colleges will offer credit or advanced standing for those who perform well in them. And in many respects this is all true. But it’s also true that not all students should take loads of AP courses, and in some contexts, an AP courses may not be all that rigorous or helpful preparation for college. Like everything in the college admissions process, there are no black and white truths. Every decision a student makes has to be taken within the student’s own context.
Let’s look at the value of the AP program and the reasons for its rapid adoption across the United States. Later we’ll look at some of the downsides of the program, as well as some of the other options that students might to consider instead of the AP program.
AP courses are a de facto national college prep curriculum
Globally, the United States is unlike any other when it comes to public education. We have no national curriculum. The authority for education is left to the 50 states and, more unusually, to the 14,000 some odd school districts. These districts set policies, establish curriculum, and provide the majority of funding for local public schools. This is what we call “local control” of our schools. Whatever one’s thoughts on the wisdom of this arrangement (and believe me, I have a lot of thoughts), the fact is that each district is allowed to set its own curriculum, its own standards, and its own educational policies.
The result is that these 14,000 districts and 50 states don’t agree on much (it turns out that letting legislatures and politicians decide what should be taught–or not taught–in our schools becomes a political feeding frenzy). There is no national curriculum. There are no national benchmarks for what students are supposed to learn. There is no standard for what students must know and be able to do to pass an an individual class, or even to graduation from high school.
This makes it difficult for colleges and universities to compare one student with another. Since no two students may follow the same curriculum or be assumed to acquire the same knowledge, colleges must come up with their own flexible, subjective (universities use the nicer, more positive term of “holistic”) system for evaluating candidates with wildly different credentials.
Enter the College Board with its structured curricula and college-level examinations to fill the void. Since our state and national governments cannot agree on a national curriculum, private enterprise has created one for us.
Today, the College Board offers this “national curriculum” in every major subject area taught in US high schools. It offers courses in English (2), math (6), history and the social sciences (9), natural science (7, including 4 different courses in physics), the arts (6), and a capstone program with its seminar and research courses. Other courses are being developed and introduced, including one on African-American history that has caused some political controversy.
AP tests are good college admission–if you have a high score
The value of the AP tests is quite clear. The AP tests are normed. In other words, the score that one student gets in one place is considered to have performed to the same standards. The AP tests (as well as the SAT and ACT) are the very definition of “standardized tests”.
In the the holistic (or subjective) realm of college admissions, these tests provide some sort of way to compare students across the country and across the world. Thus, those students with scores of 5 on the AP US History test will be judged to have masters the content from the AP US History curriculum, while those who score a 2 or 1 on the same test will be judged to have failed to masted that content. In that way, the high performing students will be considered more desirable by admissions officers.
AP courses in college admission
The syllabi for the AP program’s many course offerings are available for free for anyone who wants them. The College Board wants these courses to be accessible to all (the College Board makes its money by charging for the exams, not by the distribution of the curriculum or syllabi).
The good thing about these courses is that they are relatively rigorous. The syllabi make clear what should be taught (and learned) in the courses, and the content of the exams consistently mirrors what is supposed to be taught (and learned) in the classroom.
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. Generally speaking, the transparency of the curricula demonstrate that the courses expect a fairly high level of intellectual engagement.
This is why many, many colleges and universities across the country offer “advanced placement” credits for students who perform well on the exams. Universities consider AP courses to be “college level” and therefore reward students to take them by offering credits toward their college diplomas.
The problem is that while the exams are consistent from one place to another, the courses themselves are not. In some places, the teachers are unprepared to teach the rigorous content of the AP courses. For example, at an poorly-resourced urban school in the Denver area, nearly 75% of the teachers–every year–are first year teachers. These freshly minted teachers are barely older than the high school students themselves, and may not have the content knowledge themselves to teach these rigorous courses, and they are unlikely to have any specialized training in delivering AP curricula or preparing students for the examinations.
In other wealthy, suburban locations like Lexington, Massachusetts, or Boulder, Colorado, teachers are generally more senior, more highly paid, and better prepared with advanced degrees in their content areas. These teachers also have access to professional development funds to help them learn how to deliver the AP curriculum and help kids cram for the tests.
“Access” to AP courses does not mean that the AP courses are good for college admission
Statistics from North Carolina further illustrate the disconnect between the AP courses and success on the AP tests. North Carolina loves the AP program. In fact, the state pays for the administration of AP tests so that all students in North Carolina have access to a rigorous curriculum. But access, by itself, does not create a pathway to success. Even though North Carolina’s AP pass rate has increased over the past five years to 59.2% in 2022, it is still no better than the national pass rate of 60.2%.
Think about that for a second.
Nationwide, fully 40% of the students who attempt an AP exam fail it, even though–presumably–the students taking the class are prepared for a a college preparatory curriculum.
It’s great that more and more kids have access to rigorous AP courses, and certainly would not want to deny any child who wanted to challenge herself to enroll in a rigorous, college-level AP course. But if she enrolls, don’t we have a responsibility to support that student so she can perform well on the test, too?
Why do so many students fail AP tests?
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?
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 talented, passionate teachers like Jaime Escalante, who “stand and deliver” advanced calculus to black and brown students? (Answer: precious few: this is one of those schools in which the overwhelming majority of teachers are in their first year of teaching!)
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?
It’s complicated. But there is no way to escape the disconnect between providing “access” to Advanced Placement and providing the adequate resources to help students pass them. It’s great that North Carolina pays for the administration of the AP tests. But if we want to see pass rates go up, we’d have to examine how North Carolina is creating a system in which the statewide pass rates on AP exams surpass the national average.
How can you find out if Advanced Placement courses are good for college admission at your school?
Putting aside these real issues of educational equity, how can students and their families decide whether an AP course is good for college admission? But for now, I want to focus on what parents can and should be asking about their students’ AP courses.
Essentially, you need to be asking about pass rates. The fact that the AP course is not enough for it to be a “good” course. An AP course in which a high proportion of enrolled students fails the exam is not going to be good for those students when it comes time for college admission. Of course, the rigor of the AP course may be the the best way for the student to access a rigorous curriculum.
Parents should value the availability of AP courses in their schools. But parents should also be digging deeper.
Parents should be asking administrators and teachers some better, tougher questions about those AP courses.
What can I ask my school to learn if Advanced Placement courses are good for college admission?
Basically, you’re trying to find out how well your school supports the AP program and how well it prepares students enrolled in the AP program for success on the nationally-normed examinations. Here are some questions you might ask of administrators and teachers at your high school.
- 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. (Check out this post for more comparisons between the AP, IB, and dual enrollment options.)
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 your school’s ability to help students succeed in those courses before you encourage your student to sign up.
Still wondering if Advanced Placement courses are good for college admission in your particular circumstances?
The decision about whether to take AP courses–how many and which ones–is a big one for many students on the road to college admission. The professional college counselors at Great College Advice help individuals students make these decisions. We help you decide whether AP courses are going to be better for you than other options, like dual enrollment opportunities. We help you decide which AP courses would be best for you to take, and which ones you may not need. We want to help you get into college, and we also want you to take full advantage of all your educational opportunities while in high school. The AP program is a great way to challenge yourself and prepare for college. But as you enroll in those courses, you need to be sure that you have the tools to succeed–not only in the course but on those dreaded exams. Give us a call or contact us online if you’d like to discuss your personalized plan toward college success. We’d be happy to chat with you.
Mark Montgomery
Independent College Counseling
