Is today the Golden Age of the AP?
A program that began in 1951 as a selective niche test taken by fewer than 1,000 students has grown into a baseline of the higher education process. According to the Annual Report of the College Board, the non-profit organization that develops and administers the examinations, more than 60 percent of American high schools currently offer College Board Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Currently, 33 different AP courses are available, and two more will be offered in 2007.
The Bush Administration, which has made significant cuts to funding for other educational endeavors, has turned a favorable eye to the AP program. Under the president's AP incentive program, the government wishes to increase the number of students taking mathematics and science AP examinations from 380,000 today to 1.5 million by 2012.
Despite the proliferation of AP courses, tests and credits, disagreements still persist about whether successful completion of the tests can really stand in for college coursework.
Currently, students may use completed AP exams to count for Tufts credit, pass out of an introductory class or both, depending on their score on the examination and the requirements of the department.
But despite the number of exams offered and the number of students who take them, some students have been advised by either professors or advisors to drop their AP credits because they find the examinations' preparation insufficient.
Mathematics Professor Zbigniew Nitecki acknowledged that today's high school graduates have a much stronger background in calculus then he did before starting college.
He said, however, that "most students know the superficial material but not the nuts and bolts," causing him and many others to question the proliferation of AP courses in high school.
Two and a half years ago, the University's mathematics department, led by Mathematics Professor Christoph Borgers, elected to strengthen the rules regarding credit awarded to incoming freshmen for their AP exam results.
Borgers said he has heard contradictory stories from different faculty members on this issue. "The engineering faculty felt that people were skipping over Math 11 and Math 12 but didn't know the material," he said.
But he added that some first year students in Math 13 were perfectly able to comprehend the material and did well in class.
Freshman Pavan Nyama said that a math professor urged him to look over the syllabi for Math 11 and 12 to make sure he knew all the material before taking Math 13. Despite the fact that his AP credits enabled him to place into Math 13, Nyama elected to take Math 12 last semester instead.
He also dropped his physics credit and took Physics 11 as a refresher, although he said he "would have been fine going straight into Physics 12."
Freshman Joel Hoyte received credit for Chemistry 11 and 12 from his AP exam score, but his advisor suggested that he take both classes again.
"It kind of feels like a waste of time," Hoyte said.
Despite its seeming tendencies towards discouraging the use of AP credits, Borgers said that the math department has no plans to further strengthen its AP rules.
He said that "students who come in with a 5 on the BC Calculus exam are clearly good at math and don't need to take [Math 11 and 12]," but he added that his opinion was not based on any concrete evidence.
Not all students have been encouraged to drop their AP credits. Freshman Jeffrey D'Elia said that neither his advisor nor his professors objected to his decision to take an intermediate level English class. Pressure not to use his credit came from a different source: "My mom wanted me to take an introductory course," he said.
Freshman Nicholas Moy said that he was encouraged by his advisor to place into Spanish 4 with his AP Spanish credit. He said he will take the class next year, and he does not expect to have any problems with the material.
All four students interviewed agreed that the AP courses they took prepared them well for college, and they all felt that they could have taken intermediate level courses - sometimes against their advisors' suggestions.
"AP English prepared me a lot, as far as analyzing literature through papers and discussion," D'Elia said.
But Hoyte said that in his experience, "the science and math AP courses prepare you well for college, but the English and humanities ones don't."
