Unless your HS has more than 1 level of 9th grade bio (I.e. regular and pre-AP or regular and honors) it probably doesn’t matter what it is called.

At Walls all freshman take biology. I don't recall/don't think it is called anything else (neither "honors" nor "pre-AP"). Walls only seem to offer AP Biology once every 2-3 years .. . SAD!

Please don’t assume Pre AP Biology is so much better than Biology. College Board started pre AP as a money grab. Much like AP PreCalculus. They assume, correctly, that parents will buy into something if the name sounds rigorous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a freshman placed in a regular, non-pre-AP biology class. How can I tell if the school offers both? Website is not specific.

You can actually look up which schools offer AP and Pre-AP courses on the College Board website (I think it’s called the “course ledger”). But in DCPS Pre-AP courses are weighted the same as honors courses, so if you have Honors Bio (as everyone does at JR) it comes out to the same thing.

This site is not complete -- My kid's DCPS HS does not show up, and they are enrolled in a pre-AP (English) class there

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a freshman placed in a regular, non-pre-AP biology class. How can I tell if the school offers both? Website is not specific.

You can actually look up which schools offer AP and Pre-AP courses on the College Board website (I think it’s called the “course ledger”). But in DCPS Pre-AP courses are weighted the same as honors courses, so if you have Honors Bio (as everyone does at JR) it comes out to the same thing.

Parent of a freshman placed in a regular, non-pre-AP biology class. How can I tell if the school offers both? Website is not specific.

Anonymous wrote:All freshman at our DCPS take pre-AP biology in 9th.

Same.

All freshman at our DCPS take pre-AP biology in 9th.

At our HS all freshman take biology. Students can choose to take AP bio in 11 or 12th grade. College board strongly discourages AP bio before a HS bio class. In contrast AP physics was split into physics 1 and 2 by college board a number of years ago and explicitly does not require a prior HS physics class.

Is it true that all DCPS freshmen are placed in biology?

Does your school offer honors, accelerated, pre-AP, or other biology tracks to freshmen?

Do kids at your school who took freshman biology go on to take AP Biology in later years?

Is it possible for a freshman to take AP Biology at your HS?