This time of year I moonlight as application reader. At the end of the summer UC Santa Cruz alone hired 60 readers for $20 an hour. Extrapolate that for any of the more prestigious UCs. Let me tell you it is GPA above all, and no we do not spend a lot of time looking at school profiles. But we do look at number of AP classes.

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me (possibly heretical opinion) that the schools which most benefit from courses labelled AP are (a) privates which are small and not very well known [for example, an independent small evangelical Christian school] or (b) a public in a school system which either is small, rural, or widely known to be uneven from HS to HS (within the same system).

The Fairfax county school board really should eliminate AP in the county.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instagram accounts show kids at the privates without AP continue to be admitted at DCUM approved universities. Yes, even at the UCs! Even in STEM majors!
They seem to do just fine, AP or not.

And that proves that AP Statistics was not offered at your high school.

Where am I referring to anything related to stats? Kids are still getting in which according to the detractors is not happening. Just go take a look.

That’s a joke to point out that you looking at some kids instagram shows don’t know much about sampling and how to test a statistical hypothesis, ie how AP classes affect admission outcome.

Whatever. Statistical Sampling won’t really work in such a small population size. Go review your AP stats notes. Insta - data works pretty well in this instance.

My ancient private never had classes labeled AP and still does not. It also does not offer any “honors” classes. In the school profile provided to college admissions folks, they clearly say they believe all classes are at that level of rigor. For many decades, it has offered AP exams at school each Spring, open to any student who wanted to sit the exam.

Bottom line is that their college admissions and matriculations always have been very good. Lack of courses labeled AP has never been an issue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am more concerned that my kid who took all
the hard classes will have trouble getting into school in this tough environment. We assumed that the advanced classes would come across the same to colleges. They are very hard. I am not sure how you overcome missing the extra points given to AP classes.

I think if you compare the outcomes for kids from a school like GDS which has no AP’s with those of kids in public who took no AP’s or IB’s you will see the GDS kids do just fine.

You don’t pay 50k a year in tuition to do better than public school kids who took no APs.

They are doing very well and better than public school kids who took APs

Let us know later how your student did compared to those public school kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instagram accounts show kids at the privates without AP continue to be admitted at DCUM approved universities. Yes, even at the UCs! Even in STEM majors!
They seem to do just fine, AP or not.

And that proves that AP Statistics was not offered at your high school.

Where am I referring to anything related to stats? Kids are still getting in which according to the detractors is not happening. Just go take a look.

That’s a joke to point out that you looking at some kids instagram shows don’t know much about sampling and how to test a statistical hypothesis, ie how AP classes affect admission outcome.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am more concerned that my kid who took all
the hard classes will have trouble getting into school in this tough environment. We assumed that the advanced classes would come across the same to colleges. They are very hard. I am not sure how you overcome missing the extra points given to AP classes.

I think if you compare the outcomes for kids from a school like GDS which has no AP’s with those of kids in public who took no AP’s or IB’s you will see the GDS kids do just fine.

You don’t pay 50k a year in tuition to do better than public school kids who took no APs.

They are doing very well and better than public school kids who took APs

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instagram accounts show kids at the privates without AP continue to be admitted at DCUM approved universities. Yes, even at the UCs! Even in STEM majors!
They seem to do just fine, AP or not.

And that proves that AP Statistics was not offered at your high school.

Where am I referring to anything related to stats? Kids are still getting in which according to the detractors is not happening. Just go take a look.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am more concerned that my kid who took all
the hard classes will have trouble getting into school in this tough environment. We assumed that the advanced classes would come across the same to colleges. They are very hard. I am not sure how you overcome missing the extra points given to AP classes.

I think if you compare the outcomes for kids from a school like GDS which has no AP’s with those of kids in public who took no AP’s or IB’s you will see the GDS kids do just fine.

You don’t pay 50k a year in tuition to do better than public school kids who took no APs.

Anonymous wrote:Instagram accounts show kids at the privates without AP continue to be admitted at DCUM approved universities. Yes, even at the UCs! Even in STEM majors!
They seem to do just fine, AP or not.

And that proves that AP Statistics was not offered at your high school.

Instagram accounts show kids at the privates without AP continue to be admitted at DCUM approved universities. Yes, even at the UCs! Even in STEM majors!
They seem to do just fine, AP or not.

Anonymous wrote:I am more concerned that my kid who took all
the hard classes will have trouble getting into school in this tough environment. We assumed that the advanced classes would come across the same to colleges. They are very hard. I am not sure how you overcome missing the extra points given to AP classes.

I think if you compare the outcomes for kids from a school like GDS which has no AP’s with those of kids in public who took no AP’s or IB’s you will see the GDS kids do just fine.

Anonymous wrote:So far, top 3/5/7 privates in metro DC who stopped labeling courses “AP” but which kept offering the exams to their own students continue to have similarly good admissions outcomes to universities - including to T20, T50, and top publics, including to the UC system. Any school always has had a little admissions variation from year to year, depending on strengths of a particular cohort of students, but there seems to be no obvious downward trend across the top schools.

Each person ought to do what is best for their own DC. Different kids are different. Different families have different priorities. Different schools (whether public or private) are different.

If folks want courses labeled AP because they believe that is best for their family/ children, then by all means pick schools which offer those.

Sure, but we can also discuss the reasoning and the implications of these decisions for people that might consider these schools for their children.

The schools give this reasoning of having the freedom and flexibility on how to organize the class, and not to teach to the test, but in the end offer said test to their students. That seems kind of conflicting doesn’t it? On one hand they don’t teach to the test, but offer the test and use the student results as proof the course is still rigorous. Add to this the legal finding that the schools colluded to remove the AP classes and it all seems shady.

In the test optional era, colleges will look for ways to differentiate students and AP exams are one way to do this. I’d genuinely be interested to know how you determined that the outcomes are similar to past years.

It seems to me (possibly heretical opinion) that the schools which most benefit from courses labelled AP are (a) privates which are small and not very well known [for example, an independent small evangelical Christian school] or (b) a public in a school system which either is small, rural, or widely known to be uneven from HS to HS (within the same system).

The privates want to charge as much money as they possibly can and in return they have to pretend that they’re doing something special - but not in a way that permits quantitative comparisons that might embarrass them

The kids would probably get a better education with non copyrighted paper workbooks from 50 years ago - no iPads or new dining halls or social emotional stuff or curriculum revamps every few years

Just my opinion