How is the elimination of APs going for your DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

My kid got 10 credits at a top 10 private school which is almost a full year of tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

It depends. Calculus AP often doesn't help you get credit if you are STEM major, but if you are in liberal arts it may. Often AP History is accepted. Look into it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

Can you name one high performing public school that isn't a wealth bubble? Ignore the magnets.

Why ignore the magnets? They are not by-right schools. They have an admissions process and are not geographically bounded. Same as privates. Granted they don’t cost $30k-$60k/yr and are more socioeconomically diverse than the privates that have dropped APs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

Most top colleges annd universities offer credit and/or acceleration for 4s/5s, potentially saving students time and money. These privates may think APs are unimportant but they are not unimportant to students with limited resources. Perhaps it is those students that are unimportant to those private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

My kid got 10 credits at a top 10 private school which is almost a full year of tuition.

Did they graduate a year early?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

There are 8 colleges where you get no credit…but plenty of top schools like MIt, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, etc. where you do.

Mainly for STEM and language and you generally need a 5.

MIT awards many humanities credits as well as some STEM.

[Anonymous]

We took multiple AP exams (starting before senior year). Those 4s and 5s recorded before start of senior year helped us get into a reach. For us, it was about the admissions boost, not saving money.

[Anonymous]

What schools eliminated APs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What schools eliminated APs?

Sidwell, GDS, Potomac, Holton, and Landon. Also a bunch of boarding schools in New England.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What schools eliminated APs?

Several privates stopped labeling classes as AP but most still actively offer AP exams to their students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

My kid got 10 credits at a top 10 private school which is almost a full year of tuition.

Did they graduate a year early?

dp: Why would you want to graduate early?! Getting to go to college at a top university is a great life experience that you can never repeat. A student is foolish not to take full advantage of the experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

My kid got 10 credits at a top 10 private school which is almost a full year of tuition.

Did they graduate a year early?

dp: Why would you want to graduate early?! Getting to go to college at a top university is a great life experience that you can never repeat. A student is foolish not to take full advantage of the experience.

Some students with limited resources don’t have that luxury. Not the concern of the $$ privates, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fascinating. You save a fortune by going off to college with a bunch of APs and coming from public school my child was offered quite a few scholarships which also save us a lot of money. I cannot imagine paying private school tuition not to have the level of rigor guaranteed that is needed to pass an AP exam. I also cannot imagine colleges won't look down on this unless these are families that could potentially be massive donors. Who came up with this idea?

I myself went to private school and we had plenty of APs. I didn't send my own kids because I don't want them in a wealthy bubble.

You may save money or you may not. At most top schools, you get no credit for APs, so if you are a strong student at a top private looking to a top college, APs are unimportant.

My kid got 10 credits at a top 10 private school which is almost a full year of tuition.

Did they graduate a year early?

dp: Why would you want to graduate early?! Getting to go to college at a top university is a great life experience that you can never repeat. A student is foolish not to take full advantage of the experience.

Kids going to top schools also want to start companies. My kid was accepted into Y Combinator and likes the flexibility of being able to take up to a year off to make a go of it and it’s nice to know that they won’t be off with their class if returning after a year.

His co-founders are all from the same school…which is a reason to attend and would also fit the definition of “taking advantage of the experience.”

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Public high school counselor here- why are some privates doing away with APs? I don’t understand.
Other than the fact that college board is making a killing with all of the test administrations.

Private schools need to be able to say they are offering something more or more rigorous than high achieving publics. Privates want to tout the freedom to create deeper curricula when it freed from the AP label, and while that may be true, the need to distinguish is what drives those decisions. Why pay $30k+ to take the same classes and matriculate to the same colleges as a public school student. As noted by a PP, APs are still coin of the realm in college admissions. Having a full suite of those course offerings was not hurting private school kids’ options any more than those courses being described as honors would now.

This is partly true, however a really top notch private school with small classes of highly motivated students and teachers with advanced degrees in the subject area can certainly offer classes that more closely resemble the courses taught at the college level. Particularly in the humanities, AP courses do not give students a true seminar, college-level experience. Independent schools can instead offer Advanced courses that are described to colleges on their school profiles.

You can also do that with a course approved as AP. So that's not the answer to why some schools dropped it.

Perhaps the company that runs AP is trash and has no business controlling high school education?

I too think college board is awful. But that’s not why privates are dropping them. I would take several tests at least anyway if it were my kid. If your kid can’t score 4 in a few APs like US or world history after a 100k investment you really didn’t get your moneys worth unless some learning disabilities involved.

Anything less than a 5 would be surprising from at least a semi-decent private.

That's silly.

Actually quite accurate. My kid and their friends have only received 5s if they took an overlapping course. One 4 occurred after just 2 days of studying and no class.

That’s lovely for your children and their friends. But the comment was not about your children and their friends. The comment was that “Anything less than a 5 would be surprising from at least a semi-decent private.” That claim is inconsistent with the Phillips Exeter school profile, https://exeter.edu/app/uploads/2024/10/2024-25_PEA_College_Profile.pdf, which states that a quarter of students who attempt APs have an average score of 3 or less. (I trust we can all agree that Phillips Exeter is “at least semi-decent.”)

Why look at broad data directly from the source when you can make a poor generalization based on a handful of examples though?

I'm going to strongly agree that it would be surprising for students at a decent private school to get less than a 5 on APs if they took the course.

Ah, but the point is that the private schools don’t teach AP courses. So the kids who take the exams and do well get all the credit, while the kids who take the exams and do poorly have a ready-made excuse.

It would be like taking an AP Econ exam without taking an Economics class.

Kids at decent private schools get 5s when the coursework is there.

One example is my kid took the AP physics exam without a corresponding physics course and scored a 5. Usually kids can score at least a 3 without taking a related class.

This is pretty strong evidence that AP is a worthless program.

This is one anonymous comment on the internet. It’s not evidence of anything.

Your local public school is the crime scene if you want more evidence.

Lol another comment that makes no sense.

Some of you need to be attending school in place of your kids.

The worthlessness of the AP program is on display at public high schools across the country. It appeals to low achieving and low effort people.

AP is still the standard at 90% of all private schools as well. It’s a small group that eliminated.

Yeah but the previous poster is a dumb troll so don’t expect this point to resonate.