James G. Ennis, chair of the committee and sociology professor, said that the past year has seen much debate among the faculty about the transfer value of AP credits. He said many faculty members have questioned whether the substance of an AP test can truly replicate the value of face-to-face coursework at Tufts.In other words, it's not enough to have a nationally normed standardized achievement test measuring a student's content knowledge in one of the 30 subjects now offered. No, a better way to ensure quality would be to have different Tufts faculty teach their own versions of the courses to small to medium sized classes, administer their own examinations, and submit their own subjective grades. And students can have access to this Tufts brand all for the low, low price of two annual payments of $25,700.
Or they could pick the version that's standardized across the country, that's graded rigorously against thousands of their peers, and which costs students exactly $86. Is the decision about quality, or is it about the Tufts brand?
5 comments:
Is there actually any evidence that AP tests prepare students as well as the equivalent college courses? My personal experience is that they do not - the only class I almost failed in college was the one I tested into through an AP test. I've heard similar anecdotes from other people. I know anecdotes aren't adequate data by any means, but is there actual evidence that AP tests are adequate?
Is there anything wrong with protecting the college brand? Many universities accept AP as placement credit-- you don't have to take material you have already learned, but view the degree as being X number of credit hours at that institution. If students are getting up to 1/4 or 1/2 of their credits before even entering a particular college, is their degree really evidence of having gained what a 4 year student at that institution would have gained?
I'm a senior in college now, and had I gone to a school that accepted my APs for credit, at some institutions I would have had nearly 80 credits. That's crazy. More importantly, I can honestly say that no AP course came close to the level or challenge that my college courses have. This nationally set standard was set by a third-party company, not each university which reserves the right to set their own standards, far higher or lower than that of the College Board's. In my experience, the schools that many students with AP credits attend have far higher standards, and that's ok.
I have to agree with Chad on this one. Certainly the quality of AP classes in high schools varies considerably, but that's the point of having a standardized exam to grant credit.
I would suspect that the reason a college was willing to accept 80 hours of AP credits from you (80 credits / 4 hours = 20 classes?!) was that they didn't have a very rigorous criteria for accepting AP scores. Did you really get 4's and 5's on all of those tests? Or was the college willing to accept 3's?
Rather than eliminating AP credits why not raise the bar?
I had 10 AP courses, 4s and 5s on all of the exams. Of those 10 AP courses, the sciences almost universally earned 8 credits at tier 2 schools (one year of science or one semester + lab credits), and some earned 12 credits. I also earned 12 credits at SUNY Albany through a special research program that would have been accepted many places (but definitely should not have).
AP work is simply not comparable to courses at top notch colleges, and I doubt you can make AP courses as difficult as a course at a top notch university because most students taking AP classes are not going to attend top notch schools. It would be far too resource intensive and would close out many students (already I, too often, see students who are unprepared taking AP courses these days).
The truth is, most AP courses are merely "college prep" level for students attending top schools, not college level. They serve a great purpose, we do have several thousand institutes of higher learning, but in order to be so broadly useful to high school students the bar has to be set lower than many schools would like to see it.
More than that, most of these AP courses are doing a semester of college level work over the course of an entire year. That's not the kind of instruction that most institutions want to reward-- half-paced learning is not what they're offering as freshman year for their students.
I think you've completely misinterpreted Prof. Ennis' quote.
He and his colleagues have challenged the substance of AP tests. And if you read the entirety of the Insider Higher Ed article, placing Ennis' quote in context, it's quite obvious that quality is what the debate is about. Ennis and his colleagues obviously believe that even a high AP score does not substantively equal a quality college course.
The logical end (if this is what Ennis believes) is to argue that no AP tests should earn credit. But as that's unlikely to pass his faculty senate, then limiting the number of accepted AP credits will limit the "harm" done to students who graduate with a less-rigorous academic background.
His argument is entirely about rigor. Not saying the "college time is college time" argument isn't out there... but Ennis isn't making it.
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