High school biology in DCPS
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Is it true that all DCPS freshmen are placed in biology?
Does your school offer honors, accelerated, pre-AP, or other biology tracks to freshmen? Do kids at your school who took freshman biology go on to take AP Biology in later years? Is it possible for a freshman to take AP Biology at your HS? |
Anonymous
| At our HS all freshman take biology. Students can choose to take AP bio in 11 or 12th grade. College board strongly discourages AP bio before a HS bio class. In contrast AP physics was split into physics 1 and 2 by college board a number of years ago and explicitly does not require a prior HS physics class. |
Anonymous
| All freshman at our DCPS take pre-AP biology in 9th. |
Anonymous
Same. |
Anonymous
| Parent of a freshman placed in a regular, non-pre-AP biology class. How can I tell if the school offers both? Website is not specific. |
Anonymous
You can actually look up which schools offer AP and Pre-AP courses on the College Board website (I think it’s called the “course ledger”). But in DCPS Pre-AP courses are weighted the same as honors courses, so if you have Honors Bio (as everyone does at JR) it comes out to the same thing. |
Anonymous
This site is not complete -- My kid's DCPS HS does not show up, and they are enrolled in a pre-AP (English) class there |
Anonymous
| Please don’t assume Pre AP Biology is so much better than Biology. College Board started pre AP as a money grab. Much like AP PreCalculus. They assume, correctly, that parents will buy into something if the name sounds rigorous. |
Anonymous
| At Walls all freshman take biology. I don't recall/don't think it is called anything else (neither "honors" nor "pre-AP"). Walls only seem to offer AP Biology once every 2-3 years .. . SAD! |
Anonymous
| Unless your HS has more than 1 level of 9th grade bio (I.e. regular and pre-AP or regular and honors) it probably doesn’t matter what it is called. |