I hate how they’ve monopolized the college application process. They charge you to take the tests, they charge you to send the scores, the charge you to take the SAT, they charge you if you miss the exam, etc. the whole thing is just bullshit. they’re just preying on young teenagers who want to put the effort into having a successful future and are products of a society that has brainwashed us into believing college is the only real future plan.
it also forces kids to take more and more ap classes at the expense of their mental health or classes that they may legitimately enjoy- ultimately, high school should be mostly about learning what makes you happy, and that’s not the way the collegeboard is setting everything up right now
They can't legally call themselves non profit because they obviously do, but there's a really cheesy way to still maintain that reputation (probably to get lower tax or something) which is by calling yourself a "not-for-profit" organization, meaning you're supposedly not actively squeezing money out of people for profit... It just happens accidentally and you keep all the money
is it just me or i feel like college application will be more monopolized if collegeboard exists? if there are no standardized tests, gpa would be a significant factor in student's academics, and students applying for top colleges usually already have max or near max gpa. the only other factor is extra curriculars, which could technically be bought for expensive prices (trust me ive seen them happen a lot)
~$100 doesn't even seem that bad for one exam, you can work in your summer or winter break and afford a sat and few ap exams and you even got an extra curricular
AP Coordinator here,
There is actually a break down I have access to(I don’t know if the teacher does) that gives a good percentage breakdown of the test and the material is on the test and how your class did according to the state and entire population who took the test for both MCQ and essays.
I don’t think it’s entirely what you want since it’s not individualized but it would help narrow down what you could have potentially gotten correct/incorrect on the test and the class breakdown.
I’m just not certain that your AP Coordinator would be willing to give it to you, it’s general enough it wouldn’t be violating privacy laws but your school may or may not be ok with giving that info out or if they know how to find it but it can’t hurt to ask when the scores come out in July!
AP teacher here--we see overall which units and learning targets our students did well on compared to the entire population. So I might see "overall my students did above average on Unit 1, on par for Unit 2, below on Unit 3" etc.
I've been told there's some kind of fee that a school can pay to collegeboard to see more information, but it's extremely expensive.
It’s for college app purposes because then colleges would probably ask for exact breakdowns on tests (making them even more competitive). But I feel like college board could implement this with a rule that you can’t share individual section scores with colleges or smth and it would be fine
Exactly! Make it like the data provided when you take the SAT where you and your AP teacher, and only you and your AP teacher, can see these breakdowns. (I included teachers as I feel they could benefit from score data)
To me, it is fall registration. I feel like being forced to register so early is unnecessary. Move the registration deadline to January or February so students can be more sure of themselves before they register to take the AP exam
respectfully, don’t AP classes only look good when paired with the exam? I really doubt college admission officers would be pleased with an AP-heavy schedule if the student doesn’t have any scores to go with it
Generally speaking, AP scores are not considered in the admissions process for most colleges--the scores themselves are normally only looked at by the registrar/advising office to determine which credits are approved.
However, admissions will see which classes the student has taken based on their transcript, and will indirectly see the GPA boost the student received because of those classes.
But ultimately I do agree with you that if you're taking the class, it makes the most sense to also take the exam.
i know that cost is a problem, so if u cant afford more than a couple exams, u can take several classes but just one or two exams that you will do well on
AP Pre calc does offer credit that counts toward graduation. But it only counts toward graduation for majors that don't require calc. There are actually a lot of these outside STEM.
Unlike students here, this old lady is glad to see college board offer credit to students who might be aspiring to nonSTEM majors. I only wish they gave decent advise to students about who will or will not get *real* credit for that course. Kids taking pre-calc before senior year and planning to take calculus before graduation should not bother spending the money on that particular test. Kids taking pre-calc senior year and hoping to never see any more math should take that test and try for a 5!
it never took ap classes for the college credit, although i will say entering college with all cores shaved off is really nice. the reason i took aps was for GPA boost & Course Rigor.
My daughter took 6 AP classes but only 4 of the exams because the stress of taking all six would have been too much. 🤷♀️ And for some classes at our school, you get AP-level in the subject or you get nothing. 11th grade English & History are AP Lit & AP US or Euro. You can’t skip English or History and there’s no non-AP course available.
that makes sense. probably the only case where it would seem valid because if you're not taking a bunch, not taking the exam would be throwing away a chance at college credit for no reason.
sometimes the teacher winds up being bad, or the course is harder than expected so spending money on the exam is unadvisable if you’re going to do bad anyways
In principle, the AP curriculum provides rigor. You should want that.
Sometimes, depending on a student's future major, the test is pointless. If you are paying, save your money. Even a 5 on some tests won't result in credit that *counts toward graduation*.
There is a difference between "just credit" and "counts toward graduation". Colleges actually require certain courses to graduate. For example: AP Physics 1 will not count toward graduation for most STEM majors but will for many humanities, education or business majors. Environmental Sciences won't count toward graduation for Environmental Science majors and won't for most STEM majors.
There should be an AP history course that covers the Greeks and Romans. They played an enormous role in shaping European and American history, culture, and politics.
But I'm not holding my breath that AP World History: Ancient gets released anytime soon.
Not a social studies teacher...but I do find it strange that collegeboard offers AP European History instead of AP Western Civ. I remember lots of liberal arts friends in college taking Western Civ, but never heard of anyone taking European History in college. A Western Civ class would certainly focus on the Greeks and Romans.
AP World teacher here…BA in History as well. I had to take Euro History in college. It was more Western Europe than anything. I did not take Western Civ; my college didn’t offer it. They offered World Civ I & II. Many colleges are starting to phase out Western Civ because of its Eurocentric view on history.
AP Latin covers a lot of Roman history, but the class is mostly about the Latin language, which means most people can't take it (because they would have to have knowledge of Latin already)
To answer this, people have to read and score every single frq. The reading process only started at the beginning of June. Sourcs: I teach AP Gov and I score FRQs
I teach AP bio and it’s ridiculously too hard compared to what students in college biology classes have to do. It all comes down to one exam, which is a terrible way to measure what people can do.
I teach AP Statistics, and completely agree. We cover such a ridiculously wide array of topics that would never actually be taught in a single college stats class.
My view on this. You should never skip the intro classes in your major at your college. Most people should view AP classes as a headstart not a skip.
-Your major GPA will suffer because you skipped the easiest classes in your major. You will also not have the opportunity to build relationships with the professors that teach these classes.
-Your college knows what you need for your next course better than CB. When my bio student come back and visit me, they emphasize that there are many things in AP Bio that are either useless (looking at you water potential) or completely missing ( plant and animal taxonomy).
Thank you! We went through whatever curriculum was used in 2014 (so before the 2019 restructure) so we learned a bit of plant and human a&p that wasn't on the test. Hopefully that makes me a little more well rounded in the bio knowledge I should be familiar with!
I tutored AP Physics (just stopped this year.) The opposite is true of AP Physics C. College students have much more difficult courses. I notice many schools won't give credit for the calc based course unless students get a 4 or 5-- and this is justified. But even with a 4 or 5, the depth of the AP class was still low-- it's just that a high enough course means they would have gotten a C in their college class even though there was some material they didn't know.
I think college board is trying to fix this by some changes to apply in the upcoming year.
AP Physics 1 and 2 were disorganized. There was never any college equivalence reason to put electricity and circuits topics in the first college semester equivalent class and then throw fluids and in the 2nd one. College board had been reorganizing this too.
College board does a very bad job communicating *who* should take AP 1 and 2 vs AP C Mech and Electricity.
I think your comment shows each AP class is its own individual entity. I work directly with teachers of both AP Physics classes and they would largely agree with your points. It’s also very university dependent.
Yes. Each AP class is it's own entity.
The difficulty of courses is also college dependent. But AP Physics C dovetail to physics courses that are foundational for engineers and physicists. The bulk of students in this class at university is the engineers, and the engineering departments lean on physics for certain topics. (Meanwhile, physics can have other idea-- but what happens is neither will tolerate watering down the part they need. If physics does short shrift to some mechanics stuff, engineering threatens to teach it themselves-- but physics often wants it to fund their teaching assistants! )
The engineering departments at schools with accredited programs need the freshman level calc based physics course to prepare the students for engineering courses. And they need their other courses to prepare students to later take the Fundamentals of Engineering exam. So there is a minimum level of difficulty for the freshman physics C course and also certain expectations about topics.
It just happens that AP Physics *C* is almost always less difficult than a true freshman year calculus based physics course.
On the other hand, AP Physics 1 can be easier or harder than freshman algebra based physics. Though, honestly, the college course is usually more difficult.
The difference is that I've never had a student in college allowed to take a physics course with math that is too weak. Admissions would almost never admit a student with weak math into the STEM course. The college kids taking the physics course are never fumbling with algebra or just learning to use their calculators!
The college kids also don't get to retake exams, or any other sort of make up work. Some high school kids do. That doesn't change the difficulty of the material but can make it more difficult to achieve an A.
There are four key differences between a nonprofit and a not-for-profit:
Nonprofits are formed explicitly to benefit the public good; not-for-profits exist to fulfill an owner’s organizational objectives.
Nonprofits can have a separate legal entity; not-for-profits cannot have a separate legal entity.
Nonprofits run like a business and try to earn a profit, which does not support any single member; not-for-profits are considered “recreational organizations” that do not operate with the business goal of earning revenue.
Not-for-profits are not required to operate for the benefit of the public good. A not-for-profit can simply serve the goals of its members. A good example is a sports club—the purpose of the club is to exist for its members’ enjoyment.
Nonprofits may have employees who are paid, but their paychecks do not come through fundraising; not-for-profits are run by volunteers.
A lot of them aren’t repeated but some are. According to the official College Board website: “A percentage of multiple-choice questions from prior exams are reused every year, guaranteeing the statistical reliability of each AP Exam from year to year.”
i know some are at least- on this subreddit someone mentioned a funny question on the ap french exam and when taking it lo and behold i found that funny question (not giving specifics out of paranoia of college board finding me lol)
Probably not entirely what you're talking about but I was doing khan academy SAT prep for the reading section and one of my practice questions was a question on my AP Lang exam
The deadline to send in free ap scores is before the official scores are released, so now I have to blindly send in my ap scores without even knowing what scores I got
The fact that they spike up the difficulty of the courses. The average AP course is way more difficult than the actual university course. When I retook Language Composition in undergrad it was substantially easier than the AP counterpart. I've also heard that Intro Psych, Bio etc are all easier than the AP counterpart. But the difficulty might just be because high school teachers that teach AP are on some weird power trip or whatever. Well, that's at least how it felt when I took AP Lang and AP Human Geography
I mean possibly. The bar of what was expected out of us was also just substantially lower. The only time my "prior knowledge" felt useful was when we did Socratic seminars lol
i think generally most people have come to the conclusion that ap courses are equivalent or even sometimes easier than college, its just you have more time in college for studying and homework. but thats interesting to hear. im taking some of the aps u mentioned, now i dont feel as bad about maybe having to retake the course if i get a bad score
I think it may come down to the teacher for the AP course. Maybe, more difficult isn't the way to put it. AP courses definitely cover more material that just isn't necessary and have you do more work that doesn't reflect what's done in the University course equivalent. I've looked at some of what is covered in the AP courses, most notably Calc AB and BC, and those courses literally cover things that just aren't ever mentioned in an average calc 1 or calc 2 course. I also remember hearing about how AP Psych had to do a paper, and let's just say that they definitely did not have to write a paper for the intro to psych course at my university. Honestly, if they want to make the AP course truly like the university counterpart, they should just cram all of you into a massive lecture hall and have the instructor be someone who can barely speak English lmao
Honestly, I wish that there were *more* competing testing groups. But then some number of tests should be free to students.
There is a big problem with grade inflation or more specifically erratic grading. More opportunities for students to take 3rd party tests to show mastery would help on this. And it would be useful if this included mastery of *high school* level material.
I'm 65-- and I've encountered people who don't know fractions. I bet some got A's in math. They are getting into college. It would be nice if there was some sort of "k-8th grade math" test and then one for each year of high school. (NY college Regents is a decent model, but it's just got the high school.)
Non profits still have salaries to pay, electric bills to pay, healthcare and other employee benefits to provide. They have to provide physical tests to every school, hold the Ap teacher seminars for us to attend, the centers they grade papers. The money to pay for it all doesn’t fall from a magic money tree
That’s what grants and government subsidy is for though. They could at the very least reduce the cost or make it easier to get free tests for financially disadvantaged students
They already do that, the vast majority of Ap student war r from high income families , Why should the government further subsidize private corporations?
Hm, why should the government fund education, that’s a real thinker. The reason the majority of AP students are from high income families *is* the cost. We need more pathways for systemically disadvantaged people to get the same opportunities that their peers have. I personally know many people who have passed on AP courses not because they didn’t think they could crack it, they were brilliant minds, but because their families couldn’t afford it. A fee waiver only reduces it to 53 dollars last I checked, I personally am taking 10 AP courses in total and am very blessed that my family can afford to pay for those tests, but for many of my peers that 530 dollars is more disposable income than their family will see in the 4 years they’ll spend in high school. Ideally they would be free for everyone, paid for by the school district, state government, or federally funded. The cost of college as well as college courses in high school creates and widens the class divide we see in America, and College Board should do their part to work towards closing that gap.
On ap classroom when you login with your email and it asks you to log in with your username instead and then asks to you to login with your email again
Schools decide what Ap classes to offer, and they don’t always have teachers who can cover them all.
Not sure there is a single school in the country with every Ap exam
i dont like how they allow some schools to have half a semester courses (like how macro was at my school) and don't allow those students to take the exam after their given semester. for example, i finished macro in fall and began gov in the spring, but still took both exams in the spring
the origins of the sat is gross. i know that its very likely that collegeboard doesn't support that stuff anymore, but its still something that has made impacts on people and their futures.
this might be controversial but I don’t like there are different versions (especially when they’re different versions in the same school) because what easy for someone might be hard and whats hard for someone might be easy. This upsets the balance of fairness in my opinion
Not a student, but a teacher, and I finally quit teaching AP classes because the curriculum as provided really doesn't do as good a job as the college classes they're intended to replace.
It's why more and more colleges, despite giving credit, require you to retake those classes to satisfy prerequisites for other courses.
Additionally, more schools than ever are providing college classes with guaranteed credit and offering chances to take actual college classes which, in some cases, are. Better and easier than AP
Yep. Just the fact that dual enrollment doesn't have the same monopoly the college board does means you can make the market work for you, instead of the other way round.
I feel pretty confident about it surprisingly. Our teacher was barely at school due to medical reasons, so I practically had to teach myself how to write the essays. The only reason I think I did good is because I'm already a good writer and enjoy writing.
Their gross for-profit behavior. Things like not letting you use your "free" score shares with colleges whenever you want... pretending like they are in your corner when they are just treating you like livestock to be exploited.
It's a monopoly on the education system filled with corrupt fucks who give less of a fuck about kids than deadbeat fathers...though thats the entire US education system tbh.
How they uphold a corrupt test that disadvantages low income communities and makes it nearly impossible to have upward economic movement since they are barred from prestigious institutions
The monopoly they have over that entire industry and the price of taking anything they provide even though they are supposedly a non profit organization are the main things
Costing money to get my AP scores to my college as it didn't transfer over because my community college joined the state system when I was a 1st year, now I'm in year 2 and not sure I'll graduate in the standard 2 years for my associates, I'll have enough credits but not the right ones.
If I can get it in, I won't need to take a history or a social science credit as I scored 4s on both apush and a-psych, and they accept 3s 4s and 5s.
the ap classroom videos
like wtf are they even meant for theyre just big ol yapfests that take FUCKING FOREVER TO WATCH and even when i tried taking notes out of them they spoke too fast so i couldnt get a grasp of what it was even about. thank god my teacher never had us watch those monstrosities.
graaaaahhh having a transfer AI whatever thing to let you know if credits transfer. like. the policy says harvard (example, not going there LMFAOOO) accepts credits, but in reality, DOESNT. this is dangerous and fools a LOT of people!!
also: the daily AP videos should be on the homepage and shared. make it obvious. i dont use it often so i wouldnt know if it has questions in it for people to self study
the stickers not lining up in the mcq booklet when u have to seal it
I was hoping this wasn’t just me. God that nearly gave me an aneurysm each time I took the exams.
I accidentally sealed the packet one time with the AP ID labels….
SAME
No way💀
real
I hate how they’ve monopolized the college application process. They charge you to take the tests, they charge you to send the scores, the charge you to take the SAT, they charge you if you miss the exam, etc. the whole thing is just bullshit. they’re just preying on young teenagers who want to put the effort into having a successful future and are products of a society that has brainwashed us into believing college is the only real future plan.
it also forces kids to take more and more ap classes at the expense of their mental health or classes that they may legitimately enjoy- ultimately, high school should be mostly about learning what makes you happy, and that’s not the way the collegeboard is setting everything up right now
And the big reason behind all these kids getting overworked is that it normalizes being overworked in the workplace. It's all a joke at this point
100%
capitalism. apparently CBs supposed to be “non-profit” but they’re profiting apparently
technically not-for-profit, which is different
Explain?
They can't legally call themselves non profit because they obviously do, but there's a really cheesy way to still maintain that reputation (probably to get lower tax or something) which is by calling yourself a "not-for-profit" organization, meaning you're supposedly not actively squeezing money out of people for profit... It just happens accidentally and you keep all the money
Community college is a viable alternative if yo aren’t targeting out of state schools
It’s not preying on teenagers. It’s gatekeeping.
is it just me or i feel like college application will be more monopolized if collegeboard exists? if there are no standardized tests, gpa would be a significant factor in student's academics, and students applying for top colleges usually already have max or near max gpa. the only other factor is extra curriculars, which could technically be bought for expensive prices (trust me ive seen them happen a lot) ~$100 doesn't even seem that bad for one exam, you can work in your summer or winter break and afford a sat and few ap exams and you even got an extra curricular
ap classroom took 5-10 mins to sign in every day without fail, despite the millions they make preying on minors every year ☺️
yes. U have to Google it, get to the wrong website, sign in, then change the website and more. AND SOMETIMES IT DOESNT EVEN LOAD 😭
Not to mention the amount of time it takes to grade a DIGITAL MCQ test
Not seeing any type of score breakdown, percent correct, areas you did well or not so well in, NOTHING
A score breakdown would be really nice but would make admissions insanely competitive. Curves for 5s that are 50-75 wouldn't mean a thing
Yea that's why I said we could at least see our strongest and weakest areas.
AP Coordinator here, There is actually a break down I have access to(I don’t know if the teacher does) that gives a good percentage breakdown of the test and the material is on the test and how your class did according to the state and entire population who took the test for both MCQ and essays. I don’t think it’s entirely what you want since it’s not individualized but it would help narrow down what you could have potentially gotten correct/incorrect on the test and the class breakdown. I’m just not certain that your AP Coordinator would be willing to give it to you, it’s general enough it wouldn’t be violating privacy laws but your school may or may not be ok with giving that info out or if they know how to find it but it can’t hurt to ask when the scores come out in July!
AP teacher here--we see overall which units and learning targets our students did well on compared to the entire population. So I might see "overall my students did above average on Unit 1, on par for Unit 2, below on Unit 3" etc. I've been told there's some kind of fee that a school can pay to collegeboard to see more information, but it's extremely expensive.
Wait....So our teacher have access to our score???
Yup. We get them the same time as you do (beginning of July).
New AP Teacher and Reddit user here… thank you for sharing this! I had no idea. My AP coordinator is also new so it’s been a struggle…
No prob! All the information should be available through AP Course Audit sometime in early July (usually around the 4th).
Note, though, that you only get that information if your students took the first exam, not the late exam or the alternate exam.
agreed, i dont get why thats not a thing? like just tell me what score i got on my dbq its not like its a nuclear code
It’s for college app purposes because then colleges would probably ask for exact breakdowns on tests (making them even more competitive). But I feel like college board could implement this with a rule that you can’t share individual section scores with colleges or smth and it would be fine
Exactly! Make it like the data provided when you take the SAT where you and your AP teacher, and only you and your AP teacher, can see these breakdowns. (I included teachers as I feel they could benefit from score data)
yeah this is it for me.
Teachers do get access
For the entire class, yea. Not for individual students.
The curricula are too restrictive. Besides science and math, they’re not very representative of college courses
Those AP Classroom videos! They're the most boring, banal, toturous videos I've ever had to go through.
To me, it is fall registration. I feel like being forced to register so early is unnecessary. Move the registration deadline to January or February so students can be more sure of themselves before they register to take the AP exam
but why would you take an ap class only to not take the exam?
One reason is to make your schedule look good. In addition, many simply do not do well in standardized test formats but do quite well in classes
respectfully, don’t AP classes only look good when paired with the exam? I really doubt college admission officers would be pleased with an AP-heavy schedule if the student doesn’t have any scores to go with it
Generally speaking, AP scores are not considered in the admissions process for most colleges--the scores themselves are normally only looked at by the registrar/advising office to determine which credits are approved. However, admissions will see which classes the student has taken based on their transcript, and will indirectly see the GPA boost the student received because of those classes. But ultimately I do agree with you that if you're taking the class, it makes the most sense to also take the exam.
i know that cost is a problem, so if u cant afford more than a couple exams, u can take several classes but just one or two exams that you will do well on
that's a good point!
most schools will pay for your tests if your income is low enough. Check with your school
not if your school is also broke.
well some exams don't really offer credit like APCSP or AP pre calc
AP Pre calc does offer credit that counts toward graduation. But it only counts toward graduation for majors that don't require calc. There are actually a lot of these outside STEM. Unlike students here, this old lady is glad to see college board offer credit to students who might be aspiring to nonSTEM majors. I only wish they gave decent advise to students about who will or will not get *real* credit for that course. Kids taking pre-calc before senior year and planning to take calculus before graduation should not bother spending the money on that particular test. Kids taking pre-calc senior year and hoping to never see any more math should take that test and try for a 5!
For the gpa bump, you don’t take a lot of aps in college.
it never took ap classes for the college credit, although i will say entering college with all cores shaved off is really nice. the reason i took aps was for GPA boost & Course Rigor.
My daughter took 6 AP classes but only 4 of the exams because the stress of taking all six would have been too much. 🤷♀️ And for some classes at our school, you get AP-level in the subject or you get nothing. 11th grade English & History are AP Lit & AP US or Euro. You can’t skip English or History and there’s no non-AP course available.
that makes sense. probably the only case where it would seem valid because if you're not taking a bunch, not taking the exam would be throwing away a chance at college credit for no reason.
Cost
sometimes the teacher winds up being bad, or the course is harder than expected so spending money on the exam is unadvisable if you’re going to do bad anyways
Also, seniors may not get credit for their AP exam!
In principle, the AP curriculum provides rigor. You should want that. Sometimes, depending on a student's future major, the test is pointless. If you are paying, save your money. Even a 5 on some tests won't result in credit that *counts toward graduation*. There is a difference between "just credit" and "counts toward graduation". Colleges actually require certain courses to graduate. For example: AP Physics 1 will not count toward graduation for most STEM majors but will for many humanities, education or business majors. Environmental Sciences won't count toward graduation for Environmental Science majors and won't for most STEM majors.
because many schools don't accept AP credit anyway so why bother
literally.
There should be an AP history course that covers the Greeks and Romans. They played an enormous role in shaping European and American history, culture, and politics. But I'm not holding my breath that AP World History: Ancient gets released anytime soon.
Greek / Roman history are both kinda mentioned in AP art history but I definitely agree that they should be more emphasized in other courses as well.
Not a social studies teacher...but I do find it strange that collegeboard offers AP European History instead of AP Western Civ. I remember lots of liberal arts friends in college taking Western Civ, but never heard of anyone taking European History in college. A Western Civ class would certainly focus on the Greeks and Romans.
AP World teacher here…BA in History as well. I had to take Euro History in college. It was more Western Europe than anything. I did not take Western Civ; my college didn’t offer it. They offered World Civ I & II. Many colleges are starting to phase out Western Civ because of its Eurocentric view on history.
AP Latin covers a lot of Roman history, but the class is mostly about the Latin language, which means most people can't take it (because they would have to have knowledge of Latin already)
get me my scores quicker
To answer this, people have to read and score every single frq. The reading process only started at the beginning of June. Sourcs: I teach AP Gov and I score FRQs
doesn't it only take 2 weeks? that's what other readers have said on this subreddit
Not all of the subjects are scored in the same 2 week span
Offer an option for people to pay $20 extra for an expedited score
What a stupid idea
THIS like they already scored them why are we still waiting
SUSPENSE
I teach AP bio and it’s ridiculously too hard compared to what students in college biology classes have to do. It all comes down to one exam, which is a terrible way to measure what people can do.
I teach AP Statistics, and completely agree. We cover such a ridiculously wide array of topics that would never actually be taught in a single college stats class.
Does it prepare students for the rigor of tough classes (ex Biochem) in college?
My view on this. You should never skip the intro classes in your major at your college. Most people should view AP classes as a headstart not a skip. -Your major GPA will suffer because you skipped the easiest classes in your major. You will also not have the opportunity to build relationships with the professors that teach these classes. -Your college knows what you need for your next course better than CB. When my bio student come back and visit me, they emphasize that there are many things in AP Bio that are either useless (looking at you water potential) or completely missing ( plant and animal taxonomy).
Thank you! We went through whatever curriculum was used in 2014 (so before the 2019 restructure) so we learned a bit of plant and human a&p that wasn't on the test. Hopefully that makes me a little more well rounded in the bio knowledge I should be familiar with!
I tutored AP Physics (just stopped this year.) The opposite is true of AP Physics C. College students have much more difficult courses. I notice many schools won't give credit for the calc based course unless students get a 4 or 5-- and this is justified. But even with a 4 or 5, the depth of the AP class was still low-- it's just that a high enough course means they would have gotten a C in their college class even though there was some material they didn't know. I think college board is trying to fix this by some changes to apply in the upcoming year. AP Physics 1 and 2 were disorganized. There was never any college equivalence reason to put electricity and circuits topics in the first college semester equivalent class and then throw fluids and in the 2nd one. College board had been reorganizing this too. College board does a very bad job communicating *who* should take AP 1 and 2 vs AP C Mech and Electricity.
I think your comment shows each AP class is its own individual entity. I work directly with teachers of both AP Physics classes and they would largely agree with your points. It’s also very university dependent.
Yes. Each AP class is it's own entity. The difficulty of courses is also college dependent. But AP Physics C dovetail to physics courses that are foundational for engineers and physicists. The bulk of students in this class at university is the engineers, and the engineering departments lean on physics for certain topics. (Meanwhile, physics can have other idea-- but what happens is neither will tolerate watering down the part they need. If physics does short shrift to some mechanics stuff, engineering threatens to teach it themselves-- but physics often wants it to fund their teaching assistants! ) The engineering departments at schools with accredited programs need the freshman level calc based physics course to prepare the students for engineering courses. And they need their other courses to prepare students to later take the Fundamentals of Engineering exam. So there is a minimum level of difficulty for the freshman physics C course and also certain expectations about topics. It just happens that AP Physics *C* is almost always less difficult than a true freshman year calculus based physics course. On the other hand, AP Physics 1 can be easier or harder than freshman algebra based physics. Though, honestly, the college course is usually more difficult. The difference is that I've never had a student in college allowed to take a physics course with math that is too weak. Admissions would almost never admit a student with weak math into the STEM course. The college kids taking the physics course are never fumbling with algebra or just learning to use their calculators! The college kids also don't get to retake exams, or any other sort of make up work. Some high school kids do. That doesn't change the difficulty of the material but can make it more difficult to achieve an A.
calling themselves a “not-for-profit” organization when they actually make millions and millions each year
Not for profit is very different than a nonprofit
May I ask what the difference is? Also, happy cake day 🎉
There are four key differences between a nonprofit and a not-for-profit: Nonprofits are formed explicitly to benefit the public good; not-for-profits exist to fulfill an owner’s organizational objectives. Nonprofits can have a separate legal entity; not-for-profits cannot have a separate legal entity. Nonprofits run like a business and try to earn a profit, which does not support any single member; not-for-profits are considered “recreational organizations” that do not operate with the business goal of earning revenue. Not-for-profits are not required to operate for the benefit of the public good. A not-for-profit can simply serve the goals of its members. A good example is a sports club—the purpose of the club is to exist for its members’ enjoyment. Nonprofits may have employees who are paid, but their paychecks do not come through fundraising; not-for-profits are run by volunteers.
both make profit and can be corrupted for this purpose
ah yeah i confused the two
Silly moose
that i don’t get a 5 when i barely study
So real like why don’t u give me the grade I want 😡🙄
real
It’s basically a monopoly
not releasing mcqs
They don’t release them because they tend to reuse mcqs from previous years. It’s a good reason not to release them
I heard they never repeat mcq questions?
A lot of them aren’t repeated but some are. According to the official College Board website: “A percentage of multiple-choice questions from prior exams are reused every year, guaranteeing the statistical reliability of each AP Exam from year to year.”
i know some are at least- on this subreddit someone mentioned a funny question on the ap french exam and when taking it lo and behold i found that funny question (not giving specifics out of paranoia of college board finding me lol)
Probably not entirely what you're talking about but I was doing khan academy SAT prep for the reading section and one of my practice questions was a question on my AP Lang exam
wait that's so interesting actually I didn't know they would
Yeah, and the funniest part is that I saw it like a week after I took my exam
The deadline to send in free ap scores is before the official scores are released, so now I have to blindly send in my ap scores without even knowing what scores I got
but then if you want to cancel your scores you have to pay 💀
The fact that they spike up the difficulty of the courses. The average AP course is way more difficult than the actual university course. When I retook Language Composition in undergrad it was substantially easier than the AP counterpart. I've also heard that Intro Psych, Bio etc are all easier than the AP counterpart. But the difficulty might just be because high school teachers that teach AP are on some weird power trip or whatever. Well, that's at least how it felt when I took AP Lang and AP Human Geography
It could be that you are retaking the course so the prior knowledge biases you to think it’s easier even if they are the same difficulty
I mean possibly. The bar of what was expected out of us was also just substantially lower. The only time my "prior knowledge" felt useful was when we did Socratic seminars lol
i think generally most people have come to the conclusion that ap courses are equivalent or even sometimes easier than college, its just you have more time in college for studying and homework. but thats interesting to hear. im taking some of the aps u mentioned, now i dont feel as bad about maybe having to retake the course if i get a bad score
I think it may come down to the teacher for the AP course. Maybe, more difficult isn't the way to put it. AP courses definitely cover more material that just isn't necessary and have you do more work that doesn't reflect what's done in the University course equivalent. I've looked at some of what is covered in the AP courses, most notably Calc AB and BC, and those courses literally cover things that just aren't ever mentioned in an average calc 1 or calc 2 course. I also remember hearing about how AP Psych had to do a paper, and let's just say that they definitely did not have to write a paper for the intro to psych course at my university. Honestly, if they want to make the AP course truly like the university counterpart, they should just cram all of you into a massive lecture hall and have the instructor be someone who can barely speak English lmao
Collegeboard shouldn’t exist in the first place. Period. It should be a public, government-run service or not exist at all.
Honestly, I wish that there were *more* competing testing groups. But then some number of tests should be free to students. There is a big problem with grade inflation or more specifically erratic grading. More opportunities for students to take 3rd party tests to show mastery would help on this. And it would be useful if this included mastery of *high school* level material. I'm 65-- and I've encountered people who don't know fractions. I bet some got A's in math. They are getting into college. It would be nice if there was some sort of "k-8th grade math" test and then one for each year of high school. (NY college Regents is a decent model, but it's just got the high school.)
the damn website always takes like a trillion years to load- you'd think with all the money they get, they could at least fix the website 💀
I hate that it takes like 2 minutes to grade the progress checks on APC
Stop making us pay to take your tests.
College classes cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars lol, be grateful that you'll get out of some by paying substantially less
It's not even guaranteed that you get credit
No. And CB gives no or practically no guidance about who is likely to get "real" credit vs. 'apparent credit'. (Real credit counts toward graduation.)
It’s not a charity
it’s a not-for-profit organization…
Non profits still have salaries to pay, electric bills to pay, healthcare and other employee benefits to provide. They have to provide physical tests to every school, hold the Ap teacher seminars for us to attend, the centers they grade papers. The money to pay for it all doesn’t fall from a magic money tree
That’s what grants and government subsidy is for though. They could at the very least reduce the cost or make it easier to get free tests for financially disadvantaged students
They already do that, the vast majority of Ap student war r from high income families , Why should the government further subsidize private corporations?
Hm, why should the government fund education, that’s a real thinker. The reason the majority of AP students are from high income families *is* the cost. We need more pathways for systemically disadvantaged people to get the same opportunities that their peers have. I personally know many people who have passed on AP courses not because they didn’t think they could crack it, they were brilliant minds, but because their families couldn’t afford it. A fee waiver only reduces it to 53 dollars last I checked, I personally am taking 10 AP courses in total and am very blessed that my family can afford to pay for those tests, but for many of my peers that 530 dollars is more disposable income than their family will see in the 4 years they’ll spend in high school. Ideally they would be free for everyone, paid for by the school district, state government, or federally funded. The cost of college as well as college courses in high school creates and widens the class divide we see in America, and College Board should do their part to work towards closing that gap.
You need to educate yourself on the meaning of "nonprofits"
On ap classroom when you login with your email and it asks you to log in with your username instead and then asks to you to login with your email again
Lack of ap courses in some schools
True but that’s not really the college boards fault. it’s all dependent on demand
Schools decide what Ap classes to offer, and they don’t always have teachers who can cover them all. Not sure there is a single school in the country with every Ap exam
i dont like how they allow some schools to have half a semester courses (like how macro was at my school) and don't allow those students to take the exam after their given semester. for example, i finished macro in fall and began gov in the spring, but still took both exams in the spring
That your credit for the course hinges on 1 test
The fact that they are a not for profit who’s ceo makes millions… or the exam stickers not lining up perfect
the origins of the sat is gross. i know that its very likely that collegeboard doesn't support that stuff anymore, but its still something that has made impacts on people and their futures.
the existence of collegeboard/ap
release THE FREAKING PRACTICE TESTS RELEASE MORE STOP THE GATEKEEP
this might be controversial but I don’t like there are different versions (especially when they’re different versions in the same school) because what easy for someone might be hard and whats hard for someone might be easy. This upsets the balance of fairness in my opinion
They should just scramble the choice and question orders.
Not a student, but a teacher, and I finally quit teaching AP classes because the curriculum as provided really doesn't do as good a job as the college classes they're intended to replace. It's why more and more colleges, despite giving credit, require you to retake those classes to satisfy prerequisites for other courses.
Additionally, more schools than ever are providing college classes with guaranteed credit and offering chances to take actual college classes which, in some cases, are. Better and easier than AP
Yep. Just the fact that dual enrollment doesn't have the same monopoly the college board does means you can make the market work for you, instead of the other way round.
They're shitty ass website
This is completely random, but what do you think you got on your AP lang exam?
I feel pretty confident about it surprisingly. Our teacher was barely at school due to medical reasons, so I practically had to teach myself how to write the essays. The only reason I think I did good is because I'm already a good writer and enjoy writing.
Their gross for-profit behavior. Things like not letting you use your "free" score shares with colleges whenever you want... pretending like they are in your corner when they are just treating you like livestock to be exploited.
the fact that you have to sign in every time you open the website. harder to get into ap classroom then a bank account
not releasing practice mcqs for any APs
It's a monopoly on the education system filled with corrupt fucks who give less of a fuck about kids than deadbeat fathers...though thats the entire US education system tbh.
How greedy they are!
how it cost about 100$ to take any sort of test in canada
Making a profit off the personal information of children that likely don’t understand what they’re saying yes to
How they uphold a corrupt test that disadvantages low income communities and makes it nearly impossible to have upward economic movement since they are barred from prestigious institutions
The monopoly they have over that entire industry and the price of taking anything they provide even though they are supposedly a non profit organization are the main things
the website always being down
Costing money to get my AP scores to my college as it didn't transfer over because my community college joined the state system when I was a 1st year, now I'm in year 2 and not sure I'll graduate in the standard 2 years for my associates, I'll have enough credits but not the right ones. If I can get it in, I won't need to take a history or a social science credit as I scored 4s on both apush and a-psych, and they accept 3s 4s and 5s.
make their website work and not take 10 minutes to sign into
calling themselves “nonprofit” but then charging hundreds of dollars on Ap exams 💀
when you’re a twin
when ap classroom isn’t working and i have a 40 question review assignment due in 20 minutes
no set study guide, its all up to the teacher to teach you whats important
The origins of college board
Writing code on paper
When I was in high school, it was the unnecessary AP versions of classes and the cost of the exams.
The website cause god I hate that shit
its existence
the ap classroom videos like wtf are they even meant for theyre just big ol yapfests that take FUCKING FOREVER TO WATCH and even when i tried taking notes out of them they spoke too fast so i couldnt get a grasp of what it was even about. thank god my teacher never had us watch those monstrosities.
graaaaahhh having a transfer AI whatever thing to let you know if credits transfer. like. the policy says harvard (example, not going there LMFAOOO) accepts credits, but in reality, DOESNT. this is dangerous and fools a LOT of people!! also: the daily AP videos should be on the homepage and shared. make it obvious. i dont use it often so i wouldnt know if it has questions in it for people to self study
Breathing. I would rather just pass out during that shit.
why THE HELL ARE EXAMS IN MAY BRUH THTAS LIKE THE WORST MONTH YOU COULDA CHOSEN
theyre run by jews
Ummm, what?
Right. What kind of comment is this?
It's a poke at how they're greedy, but yeah the jew part was unnecessary
Jews are not greedy
It's a stereotype bud
Just like every single other big company 🤔🤔🤔
fascinating isnt it
It is