Speed Gibson

I have long been a critic of high school "Advanced Placement" (AP) courses on a couple of fronts. Supposedly they teach college level material. Supposedly they can help you get accepted at the more prestigious schools. But an article in US News & World Report asks "Is AP too good to be true?"

Let me put my cards on the table first. I think a large number of schools are simply pandering to parents' vanity by "offering" these courses to their above average if not outright "gifted" offspring. Against a steady backdrop of dumbing down the existing curriculums, I suspect many of these AP courses are on par with the standard offerings of 40 years ago. The colleges know this, and they know about grade inflation, too. If you insist on going to a high-end university, your best weapon is a cashiers check for the full out-state tuition. The article supports a number of my assertions.

[S]ome experts wonder whether the program's wild proliferation has begun to dilute its quality. Several new academic studies indicate that simply taking AP classes--as opposed to passing the end-of-year examinations run by the College Board--isn't a very good predictor of college success. Some high schools are complicating matters by pasting the AP label onto subpar existing courses. And a few highly selective schools have become sufficiently alarmed over the quality of AP classes that they are getting picky about awarding credit even to those who have passed the exams.

I also object to overloading students like the one profiled with so much homework that there's no time for sports and other extra-ciricular activity.

So he pushed his nonacademic life aside and signed up for a total of five AP courses as a junior--Spanish, calculus, statistics, European history, and chemistry. The workload made him miserable, of course. He had five hours of homework most every night and scaled back his commitment to his beloved tennis team to just one weekly practice.

It's not time to panic. These programs, properly implented, can be of value as the article indicates. The point is to be careful in choosing these options for your student. The additional effort is significant, good or bad. Make sure it's worth it.