AP Panic - what's going on with elimination of Ap's at Elite Privates

[Anonymous]

My kid went to a private with no (or almost no) APs. He sat for a few of the tests anyway, got 5s. He went to an Ivy that wouldn't grant credit for them but did let him advance beyond the English 101 level and avoid an intro class. There was no reason in the end to have sat for the others. And it's untrue that you have to report your scores to the colleges. That's optional. His classes were so rigorous that he sailed through the APs with no extra prep. That being said, he told his younger sibling not to bother with them. To save the time and money. On a tour at Yale last year, the admissions officer confirmed that APs only matter if it's the most rigorous course track at your school. Most privates don't weight grades and few kids take the advanced courses they do offer. Those who do are standouts in the subject. It's just a different approach. The schools want to go deep and give teachers more flexibility, not adhere to someone else's curriculum. At public schools, they want to ensure even quality across the board and AP does that. They're not totally worthless. But in the end, unless you're at a school that offers an AP course track or you plan to attend a college that takes AP credits and want to save money or graduate early, it's kind of pointless to worry about it. Equally pointless to worry if you're at a public school that only offers one or two APs. Those kids are not getting compared to kids from McLean or Chevy Chase.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe PP. when I was touring colleges they made a big deal about AP and AP credits. Said kids who come in with credits are often top students and can graduate a year early or pick up a double major. If you don’t think those are excellent points whatever- enjoy your fancy private school.

Narrator: The "fancy private school" kids are still taking 5+ AP exams. The courses are just relabeled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe PP. when I was touring colleges they made a big deal about AP and AP credits. Said kids who come in with credits are often top students and can graduate a year early or pick up a double major. If you don’t think those are excellent points whatever- enjoy your fancy private school.

Narrator: The "fancy private school" kids are still taking 5+ AP exams. The courses are just relabeled.

and some 3rd party is not making billions on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having sat through many a college tour recently- most have said they want to see you are taking challenging courses offered by your school. They don’t care if it’s AP, IB or Honors. There are admissions officers assigned to each region and they are familiar with what your school offers.
Personally, I would be happy. And I’m the parent of a Wootton student who doesn’t see the benefit of the multiple AP classes (my junior has five this year).

Good post and largely agreed. But no benefit compared to what? Taking regular courses? It’s hard to know because your student only chose this path. I understand the doubt - I share it - but I just don’t have anything with which to compare it. And at our school the regular classes are filled with less academically ambitious kids (I say that without judgement - I have two of those myself), so the whole point of taking AP classes is being with the driven, ambitious student cohort (and often the better teachers).

[Anonymous]

And once the exam is over, teaching virtually stops. AP’s are not good for education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t believe PP. when I was touring colleges they made a big deal about AP and AP credits. Said kids who come in with credits are often top students and can graduate a year early or pick up a double major. If you don’t think those are excellent points whatever- enjoy your fancy private school.

Narrator: The "fancy private school" kids are still taking 5+ AP exams. The courses are just relabeled.

If the kids could do better than top public schools they would want that information published.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted here before. I have a dd at Harvard. She took 17 APs (went to a public HS) National AP scholar of course. Private schools don't have the budget to have 2 tracks and offer 23 AP classes. And, you have to post your scores on AP classes on college app. Privates don't want their kids compared to kids who score higher. So just don't offer them. Problem solved.

You have been bought. AP exams is a corrupt Billion $$ business and those that are actually intelligent won't play their BS game anymore.

AP Tests are not easy. I don’t put my kids in them for the credit though that’s nice. It’s a way to gauge the rigor of the classes my DD is taking. 100 dollars is a small price to pay for verification of the quality of her school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted here before. I have a dd at Harvard. She took 17 APs (went to a public HS) National AP scholar of course. Private schools don't have the budget to have 2 tracks and offer 23 AP classes. And, you have to post your scores on AP classes on college app. Privates don't want their kids compared to kids who score higher. So just don't offer them. Problem solved.

You have been bought. AP exams is a corrupt Billion $$ business and those that are actually intelligent won't play their BS game anymore.

AP Tests are not easy. I don’t put my kids in them for the credit though that’s nice. It’s a way to gauge the rigor of the classes my DD is taking. 100 dollars is a small price to pay for verification of the quality of her school.

Not a good test of quality of coursework. More an indicator of quantity of info exposed to and recognition of need/willingness to write to a formula.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted here before. I have a dd at Harvard. She took 17 APs (went to a public HS) National AP scholar of course. Private schools don't have the budget to have 2 tracks and offer 23 AP classes. And, you have to post your scores on AP classes on college app. Privates don't want their kids compared to kids who score higher. So just don't offer them. Problem solved.

You have been bought. AP exams is a corrupt Billion $$ business and those that are actually intelligent won't play their BS game anymore.

AP Tests are not easy. I don’t put my kids in them for the credit though that’s nice. It’s a way to gauge the rigor of the classes my DD is taking. 100 dollars is a small price to pay for verification of the quality of her school.

Not a good test of quality of coursework. More an indicator of quantity of info exposed to and recognition of need/willingness to write to a formula.

BS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted here before. I have a dd at Harvard. She took 17 APs (went to a public HS) National AP scholar of course. Private schools don't have the budget to have 2 tracks and offer 23 AP classes. And, you have to post your scores on AP classes on college app. Privates don't want their kids compared to kids who score higher. So just don't offer them. Problem solved.

You have been bought. AP exams is a corrupt Billion $$ business and those that are actually intelligent won't play their BS game anymore.

Well, if you have kids in private, I am not sure it's the PP who's been bought.

[Anonymous]

If I were paying for private, why would I want them to turn all responsibility over to the corrupt College Board?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I were paying for private, why would I want them to turn all responsibility over to the corrupt College Board?

What?

[Anonymous]

I can't believe people have actually bought into the global testing scam that is the APs to the point where they are defending it. Has varsity blues taught you nothing? It is a corrupt system and a lot of colleges are moving away from it on their own, so the private schools are following suit.

[Anonymous]

http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2019/10/course-rigor-and-curriculum-strength.html

There's a whole section about APs in this blog.

Plenty of people want to know how many AP courses a student should take to be competitive in our process. We don't approach applications this way. First of all, not everyone goes to a school with APs as an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe people have actually bought into the global testing scam that is the APs to the point where they are defending it. Has varsity blues taught you nothing? It is a corrupt system and a lot of colleges are moving away from it on their own, so the private schools are following suit.

I like your tinfoil hat, but what would you have public school parents do? AP’s or IB’s are what’s on offer, and if you don’t take a challenging course load you have zero chance of getting into a T20 uni or LAC. So great, it’s corrupt. Do you expect me to just sell my house and move to a non-AP school state? Take regular classes with the burnouts and phone-starers?

Okay, you should take off. Time to go lay in some more toilet paper and cheese for your bunker.