If your child went to a private school that does not offer AP classes, how did that affect their college outcomes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elite boarding prep school which offers no AP courses results were outstanding for almost all students.

+1 Our boarding school has what they call college level classes. They largely follow AP curriculum for classes like BC and physics (a students do well on AP exams) but do not follow AP at all for things like U.S. History and foreign languages. Placements are good across the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How would anyone truly know? It's not like the admissions officers provide feedback about why an applicant is accepted/rejected. It's not like there's a control group of students who do APs and don't within a private school that you can compare to those who don't do APs.

At best, you'll get private school parents saying that despite the lack of APs, plenty of students got into elite schools XYZ which proves that APs aren't necessary. Which it doesn't--it just proves that the applicants were sufficiently strong even without the APs.

The very best response I have ever heard. I'm going to start copying this for all the other similar type questions!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a selective private school, the lack of APs will not matter at all. In fact, admissions officers know that selective private schools often have much harder curriculums than public schools with AP. From my own personal perspective, my kids just switched from an elite private school to a very well regarded public due to a family move and are taking all AP classes, and the AP classes are infinitely easier than what they were taking in the private school.

This really just depends on region. We’ve had the opposite at a top private known for its college curriculum. Variation, it’s how the world turns.

[Anonymous]

I mean Philips Andover and Philips Exeter have no problems despite not subscribing to package APs. They do of course develop their own advanced honors curriculum designed by faculty. I would not consider a private school that doesn't have APs or bespoke versions they create in-house. Colleges in my experience do look at how many of these bespoke enriched/advanced/honors classes your kid takes. They treat it the same as APs, your kid just gets to take more interesting electives rather than the pre-packaged college board curriculum of APs.

[Anonymous]

Our small private that does not offer APs told us they have a data sheet that they send to schools. They regularly send kids to Ivys and NESCAC with no APs, so clearly it's not an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How would anyone truly know? It's not like the admissions officers provide feedback about why an applicant is accepted/rejected. It's not like there's a control group of students who do APs and don't within a private school that you can compare to those who don't do APs.

At best, you'll get private school parents saying that despite the lack of APs, plenty of students got into elite schools XYZ which proves that APs aren't necessary. Which it doesn't--it just proves that the applicants were sufficiently strong even without the APs.

No none of what you wrote is true.

Students who do not take AP courses are at a disadvantage at college. Once they get there taking just midterms and finals no other grading can be a huge leap for kids whose privates did not offer AP's .

Privates usually publish the colleges their graduates go to

[Anonymous]

No AP at our private and college emissions is exemplary, even amongst the unhooked. I personally think an unhooked kid has a better shot at t10/20/30 coming from a private school. Rigorous curriculum without the stress and competition of collecting max AP gpa boosting courses so prevalent in public schools today. More time to go deeper into a topic. Teaching focused on learning vs test prep. Colleges know the difference. I think private is most often an advantage, except when applying to public flagships. Without AP and weighted gpa's, a private school candidate may look weaker academically vs a public school kid - 3.9 vs 4.5, etc. I feel confident to say that my kid's college outcome was far superior to where they would have landed if they attended public. Due to many factors: curriculum, opportunities, teacher relationships, peer group...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would anyone truly know? It's not like the admissions officers provide feedback about why an applicant is accepted/rejected. It's not like there's a control group of students who do APs and don't within a private school that you can compare to those who don't do APs.

At best, you'll get private school parents saying that despite the lack of APs, plenty of students got into elite schools XYZ which proves that APs aren't necessary. Which it doesn't--it just proves that the applicants were sufficiently strong even without the APs.

No none of what you wrote is true.

Students who do not take AP courses are at a disadvantage at college. Once they get there taking just midterms and finals no other grading can be a huge leap for kids whose privates did not offer AP's .

Privates usually publish the colleges their graduates go to

Total BS. You couldn't be more wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP: no impact on admission at least for my DC. In at a T20…so far, waiting on the rest. Did not ED any school. EA and RD to a few…waiting.

Which T20 school has already released an EA result? My kid has applied to a few of these and has not received any results yet.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you all for taking the time to respond.

The main issue though is that how would these kids get college credit if they do not take the AP exam? You could be at a competitive private taking some very advanced calculus class, but if you do not take the AP, don't you have to start doing some basic intro to calculus class in college?

And if you do take the AP exam, now you have 2 separate curricula to study for. I get that the classes the privates are offering are very advanced, but I am sure there are differences in what is being taught and students wanting to take the AP exam, have to study on top of the already rigorous class curriculum. It seems like a lot!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a selective private school, the lack of APs will not matter at all. In fact, admissions officers know that selective private schools often have much harder curriculums than public schools with AP. From my own personal perspective, my kids just switched from an elite private school to a very well regarded public due to a family move and are taking all AP classes, and the AP classes are infinitely easier than what they were taking in the private school.

This really just depends on region. We’ve had the opposite at a top private known for its college curriculum. Variation, it’s how the world turns.

+1 This will vary by school and even by teacher. There isn't just one 'AP curriculum." AP in public systems usually have to use a single curriculum across all shcools in the system. A private school can teach the same AP any way they want to, ans some have multiple classes unter the same title that treat the subject differently, particularly for English, history, and social sciences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elite boarding prep school which offers no AP courses results were outstanding for almost all students.

Name it or it didn't happen.

Unless it's a school like Andover or Exeter, you are wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you all for taking the time to respond.

The main issue though is that how would these kids get college credit if they do not take the AP exam? You could be at a competitive private taking some very advanced calculus class, but if you do not take the AP, don't you have to start doing some basic intro to calculus class in college?

And if you do take the AP exam, now you have 2 separate curricula to study for. I get that the classes the privates are offering are very advanced, but I am sure there are differences in what is being taught and students wanting to take the AP exam, have to study on top of the already rigorous class curriculum. It seems like a lot!

No selective colleges accept AP credit anymore. As for placement, some have placement tests and some go off of transcripts.

[Anonymous]

If your kid doesn't take AP courses then college is going to take an extra year easy.

Are you ready to pay for that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you all for taking the time to respond.

The main issue though is that how would these kids get college credit if they do not take the AP exam? You could be at a competitive private taking some very advanced calculus class, but if you do not take the AP, don't you have to start doing some basic intro to calculus class in college?

And if you do take the AP exam, now you have 2 separate curricula to study for. I get that the classes the privates are offering are very advanced, but I am sure there are differences in what is being taught and students wanting to take the AP exam, have to study on top of the already rigorous class curriculum. It seems like a lot!

This really depends on the college and your kid's major. One may chose a college that gives a lot of credit and used AP for placement, so they are freed from nearlly all core requirements, another may chose a college that only gives elective credit for APs, but uses their own placement tests for math and language, anothe rmay chose a college that does nto accept AP for anything at all. So it may or may not help depending on which college they choose.