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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Are there any AP courses that require a research paper, with elements like cited references and conformance with a specific style guide?

I know we wrote several in my own AP English class eons ago, before it was split into Lang and Lit, but even then it wasn’t a requirement for the AP course—we did it because the school system’s curriculum dictated it. The College Board never saw them.

But even back then, we didn't write research papers in AP history classes, just memorized facts and drilled endlessly on how to tick all the boxes and hit all the keywords in our exam essays. Similarly, the AP history classes my kid took in 9th and 10th didn’t require anything close to what they wrote in IB history for the IA.

So are there any APs that *do* require something like a research paper, something that might prep them for their college coursework? Maybe AP Seminar? (Not sure I have that name right— it’s not offered at my kids’ school.)[/quote]

There is AP Capstone Diploma that consists of AP Seminar (1st year, where you learn how to research and analyze a topic, and AP Research (2nd year where you write a 4000-5000 word paper). You also need to pass four AP exams to get the Diploma. It seems to emulate the IB diploma framework with AP courses.

It’s not that rare, likely depends on the local schools, about 60k students take Seminar each year, and that’s roughly comparable with AP Computer Science A or the number of students taking the IB Diploma. A large fraction of students don’t seem to follow through, because only 25k students take AP Research, still a significant number.

College credit wise, as an example, MIT gives 9 unrestricted credits to the AP Seminar and AP Research with scores of 5, but no credit to the IB Diploma.[/quote]

MIT currently gives the same 9 unrestricted credits to any Humanities HL IB course.

On the other hand I’m not really sure what the point of using AP/IB credits at MIT is— I guess it lets you graduate while taking fewer classes but I’m not sure that’s generally a good thing. [/quote]

With AP credit, a student can take one fewer semester-class each year and still graduate on time. It's an insurance policy for students who can't keep up with the MIT workload. [/quote]

There are also programs for Masters degree right after the Bachelor’s in one year by taking graduate level courses. Some students choose to use the AP credit for electives so they can get their Bachelor and Master degrees within four years, which in my view is the best use of non-restricted AP credit. You can use up to 48 credits, but since MIT doesn’t give credit to math and science APs it pays to take APs in humanities, social sciences and foreign language. You only need five APs to cover the non restricted electives, which could be a combination English, Spanish, History and the Capstone. Since many MIT students are not that strong in humanities, it may be easier for them to do the capstone if they choose a math or science topic, compared to for example AP English Literature.

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