How is the elimination of APs going for your DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Forgot to mention - this was at a private school that never offered classes labeled AP.

[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.

In general only the elite private schools have eliminated AP classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools eliminated APs?

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

13 pages about 5 DMV schools that dropped APs and the 8 colleges that don’t give credit for them. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools eliminated APs?

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

13 pages about 5 DMV schools that dropped APs and the 8 colleges that don’t give credit for them. Got it.

No these are just examples, it is much more widespread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools eliminated APs?

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

13 pages about 5 DMV schools that dropped APs and the 8 colleges that don’t give credit for them. Got it.

No these are just examples, it is much more widespread.

It’s not…and it’s odd why people are so invested that it is.

Again, 90% of all private schools (it’s probably more) still offer AP classes and AP tests (including schools like Andover and other boarding schools in certain subjects). 99% offer AP tests even if they don’t technically have AP classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:What schools eliminated APs?

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

13 pages about 5 DMV schools that dropped APs and the 8 colleges that don’t give credit for them. Got it.

No these are just examples, it is much more widespread.

It’s not…and it’s odd why people are so invested that it is.

Again, 90% of all private schools (it’s probably more) still offer AP classes and AP tests (including schools like Andover and other boarding schools in certain subjects). 99% offer AP tests even if they don’t technically have AP classes.

New poster. Our school outside the DMV has eliminated AP classes and tests.

[Anonymous]

Two separate questions keep being confounded on this thread. Trying to tease them apart...

Probably a majority of good privates offer the AP exams at school.

Not at all sure that a majority of good privates have classes labeled AP though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two separate questions keep being confounded on this thread. Trying to tease them apart...

Probably a majority of good privates offer the AP exams at school.

Not at all sure that a majority of good privates have classes labeled AP though.

It’s close to 90% of good privates offering AP classes. They don’t usually offer the class in every subject but many stick with AP for Math and Science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two separate questions keep being confounded on this thread. Trying to tease them apart...

Probably a majority of good privates offer the AP exams at school.

Not at all sure that a majority of good privates have classes labeled AP though.

It’s close to 90% of good privates offering AP classes. They don’t usually offer the class in every subject but many stick with AP for Math and Science.

90% where? Not in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

AFAIK, the schools that don’t offer AP classes are only Landon, Holton, Maret, GDS, Potomac, and Sidwell. That’s more than 10% of area private schools (unless there really are 60 private high schools in the DMV), but not a majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two separate questions keep being confounded on this thread. Trying to tease them apart...

Probably a majority of good privates offer the AP exams at school.

Not at all sure that a majority of good privates have classes labeled AP though.

It’s close to 90% of good privates offering AP classes. They don’t usually offer the class in every subject but many stick with AP for Math and Science.

90% where? Not in the DMV.

Nobody limited it to the DMV, so no we are talking about nationwide (and again includes schools like Andover, Harvard Westlake et al)…but is the claim now that only like 4 private schools are good in the DMV?

I would argue there are at least 20 private schools that are good in the DMV which is a fairly large area and like 16 offer at least some AP classes (again this includes STA and NCS). So it’s 80% at a minimum?

[Anonymous]

Isn’t it closer to 50% at the elite privates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two separate questions keep being confounded on this thread. Trying to tease them apart...

Probably a majority of good privates offer the AP exams at school.

Not at all sure that a majority of good privates have classes labeled AP though.

It’s close to 90% of good privates offering AP classes. They don’t usually offer the class in every subject but many stick with AP for Math and Science.

90% where? Not in the DMV.

Nobody limited it to the DMV, so no we are talking about nationwide (and again includes schools like Andover, Harvard Westlake et al)…but is the claim now that only like 4 private schools are good in the DMV?

I would argue there are at least 20 private schools that are good in the DMV which is a fairly large area and like 16 offer at least some AP classes (again this includes STA and NCS). So it’s 80% at a minimum?

Now I’m curious which 2 of the 6 schools that don’t have APs you don’t consider good enough to include in your list of “at least 20 private schools that are good.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two separate questions keep being confounded on this thread. Trying to tease them apart...

Probably a majority of good privates offer the AP exams at school.

Not at all sure that a majority of good privates have classes labeled AP though.

It’s close to 90% of good privates offering AP classes. They don’t usually offer the class in every subject but many stick with AP for Math and Science.

90% where? Not in the DMV.

Nobody limited it to the DMV, so no we are talking about nationwide (and again includes schools like Andover, Harvard Westlake et al)…but is the claim now that only like 4 private schools are good in the DMV?

I would argue there are at least 20 private schools that are good in the DMV which is a fairly large area and like 16 offer at least some AP classes (again this includes STA and NCS). So it’s 80% at a minimum?

Now I’m curious which 2 of the 6 schools that don’t have APs you don’t consider good enough to include in your list of “at least 20 private schools that are good.”

I forgot the other 2…but there are at least 20 “good” private schools in all of the DMV.