STA is keeping AP classes
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Anonymous
Exactly - what's inexcusable is that the 2022-23 college profile also highlights APs despite 3 years of telling the kids that they should not take them. Why? ADVANCED PLACEMENT EXAMS In May 2022, 80 GDS high school students sat for 113 Advanced Placement examinations; 38% earned scores of 5, 80% earned scores of 4 or above, and 91% earned scores of 3 or above. |
Anonymous
STA did the right thing answering to its parents and students over anyone else and they don’t need to get the approval of other schools in how they run their school. Clearly many parents and students would like AP classes offered and parents and students at other schools are also requesting to keep AP classes. |
Anonymous
I am confused. Does GDS offer the classes or not? |
Anonymous
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Because kids volunteer to take AP exam, they’re a self-selecting group of motivated students. These kids will score higher. Then GDS can turn around and report a bunch of high scores.
Like TO for colleges apps. |
Anonymous
Not this year. They might still have had Spanish and/or BC Calculus last year. They have been very heavy-handed about telling families students should not take them without disclosing that many students continue to do so. |
Anonymous
Exactly - they dont offer any AP classes at all any more but the let the students sign up for an take the tests. |
Anonymous
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I have not read the entire thread so perhaps someone has pointed this out but at NCS and I am sure other schools, you can take any AP exams you want.
The school sends out an email with the list and the girls select what they want. Just because they don’t call the class AP does not mean they aren’t capable of sitting the tests. Also NCS offers AP’s in languages, math and science and many if not most take the English and history AP tests even though the classes are not designated AP, so I am not sure what the debate is about. Take the AP exams if you want and if you don’t want to that seems fine as well. |
Anonymous
Right but the content that’s on the test isn’t necessarily covered in class and it makes it much more difficult to get a good score on the exam and means many more hours studying what May not have been covered. They should keep AP classes. Plus they look good on college apps. |
Anonymous
It does seem unfair to de-emphasize the test but then publish results to the colleges. The messaging here is wrong. The schools should be saying to the kids, we don’t call it an AP class but you should be taking the AP exams if you are striving to get into the most competitive colleges. It has nothing to do with getting college credit. |
Anonymous
Basically, either you kid (or the parent) has to be the one pushing to be competitive--the school administrators and teachers are very much into student autonomy, so it's really on the the student (or the parents) to do things like sign up for AP exams, prep for standardized testing, apply for competitive extra-curricular programs, etc. GDS's attitude unfortunately puts kids whose parents are not "in the know" at a disadvantage. I would urge the school to re-think how "equitable" their attitude of putting the kids in the driver's seat really is. Because behind the scenes, there are parents who are paying outside consultants to give specific and actionable advice starting in their sophomore year--unlike the GDS college counseling office, which seems to be prioritizing lowering the stress levels over actual truth about things like PSATs and AP exams. I was astonished to see that the GDS college counseling office didn't discuss PSATs and National Merit, for example. Instead, the GDS college counseling office emphasized that the PSAT was mostly practice for the SATs. Some kids didn't even bother to show up for the PSAT! Also, APs can be really beneficial for students once they're in college - getting a 4 or 5 on an AP exam, for example, could get you access into special freshmen seminars, which is an amazing way to start one's college career. Not to mention that for students who aren't "full pay," the ability to shave off a semester's worth of tuition and graduate early is a very big deal - but maybe GDS's college counselors are so used to working with wealthy families that they don't even bother to mention these things? It's just really unfortunate. The college counseling process at GDS, by withholding information under the guise of reducing anxiety over the process, is actually causing more stress when parents find out what other parents, who are more experienced, are doing for their own children. They should send an anonymous survey out to gauge parent satisfaction with the office. |
Anonymous
Is that really the case? 80 kids sitting for 113 AP exams is not even two exams per student. So if you extrapolate that, each student is taking, maybe 4-6 AP exams total. Compare that to the 10-15 AP exams that public school kids take. It doesn't appear that GDS students are being hampered in college admissions, so it seems the upshot is that competitive colleges don't care whether you take the AP exams - at least if you're at GDS. |
Anonymous
The issue is within the school; GDS students are not being compared to public school students at this level. But does a student who listens to the school and doesn't sign up for any AP exams--despite taking the "most challenging" classes--look like a slacker compared to those who do? I don't think anyone knows. |
Anonymous
It's not 4-6 per student because these private schools really don't allow kids to take APs in 10th grade (historically or now---the 10th grade curriculum is mostly standard across kids and doesn't include APs). APs have been a 11th and 12th grade thing only (unlike public). And each GDS class is about 150 kids. So out of 300 juniors/seniors, only 80 took tests and the average student in this 80 look 1.5 tests. |
Anonymous
It is 80 kids out of 300 juniors/seniors. The majority of GDS kids are not taking AP tests. |
Anonymous
By those numbers, most of the kids who take UL classes probably are. |