Sara McCloskey and Dan Popper
Managing Editor and Sports Editor
There are many AP courses offered at the high school ranging from AP Music Theory to AP Physics. Each May, AP tests are offered by the College Board to students taking these courses. Prior to this year, students were strongly encouraged yet not forced by their teachers to take the classes respective AP test. However, at the beginning of this school year the administration implemented a policy stating that in order to receive the honors weighting that comes with taking an AP class, all students must register for an AP test through the school at a fee of $95 per test.
In January 2009 a committee of faculty members presented a solution to the Board of Education to address the large number of students who take AP courses but not the AP test. The committee, according to Assistant Principal Dawn Bartz, spent three years analyzing the correlation between the number of students who took AP courses and those who actually took the test as well as data colleges offered pertaining to which types of AP classes and AP test scores they accepted for credit. “After we looked at reasons why it would be good to increase the number of students taking the AP exam, we came to the conclusion that it was beneficial for students to take the exam,” Ms. Bartz said. “Colleges started to become more lenient towards awarding credit for AP courses taken in high school as well as waving basic intro classes for those high school students who took AP’s. Overall, colleges started to give students an option to jump ahead and get a head start on their college credits.”
According to Ms. Bartz, further research by the committee showed discrepancies between student classes in terms of the number of students who take an AP test compared to those who take the respective AP course. “We looked generally at who was not taking the exams and we found that while almost 100% of the juniors and sophomores were taking their respective AP exams, the grade where the issue as most prevalent was with the seniors, most likely due to the expense of the test and the fact that many students were taking three, four or even five AP’s,” she said. Because of this, the committee decided to give seniors the honors weighting for their first semester automatically, yet juniors and sophomores would lose the entire year of honors weighting if they decide not to take the AP exam.
Social Studies Department Chair Richard Webb indicated that it is important for students to take AP exams for the testing experience they offer. “The reason why AP students do better on the SAT is because they are familiar with standardized testing,” he said. “Later in a student’s life, they may want to go to medical school or law school where you have to take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) and the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) to get in.”
However, senior Brooke Singman took AP Music Theory because she wanted to have a background in the course material. “I’m not taking the exam for AP Music Theory because this is my first course in music notation and I would feel uncomfortable taking the exam,” she said. “I’m taking the AP Government and AP English tests because they are my best subjects and I have been preparing all year for them.”
Some students see a test as a major incentive to learn the courses’ material. “Teachers spend so much time [preparing]for it and it seems like a waste for some kids to take the test and others not,” said senior Roger Stone, who takes AP Government, AP English, and AP Spanish 5. “If some kids are planning on not taking the test, then they may disregard any preparation for the test. When a kid knows right off the bat that they aren’t going to take the test, then they may zone out and not learn the material.”
Roger, who is taking the exams for all of his AP courses, also mentions the honors weighting as a motivation to take AP tests. “I think the AP credit is a pretty big incentive for taking the test and I think that a lot of kids are willing to take the test because it is a pretty big boost to your grade,” he said.
Unlike Roger, senior Mike Kucharczyk says that because of the registration fees, better incentives should be offered to students who register for the AP test because of the fee. “I would be much more willing to pay the money if the school offered incentives, such as an extra absence, as opposed to making it totally mandatory,” he said.
“It’s a personal choice; if they don’t think that they need to grade boost I wouldn’t judge them for it,” Roger said. “It costs too much money to take the tests and, if someone is taking five AP courses, I would understand if they opted to not take the test because it would cost them hundreds of dollars.”
Mike, who takes four AP courses, is one of the few students that opted out of taking the AP English Exam. “[The new AP testing policy] is not a terrible idea because the school wants to see how we rank,” he said. “However, I do feel it’s unfair because of the one hundred dollar fee I would have to pay does nothing for me and is only for the school’s use.”
“I’m not taking the [AP] test so I am not getting my grades weighted, but, the whole [AP English] class was based around the test so I put in the work as if I was taking the test,” Mike said.
Another senior, Jamie*, is completely opposed to the new weighting policy. “My opinion on the policy is that it is ridiculous because the tests are $95 a test and students are putting the work in all year long. It is unfair for them to not receive the credit because they don’t want to pay $95 for the test,” she said.
Jim Kucharczyk, Board of Education member and father of Mike, believes that the push for AP testing is positive for the school community. “I absolutely think it is necessary that our students, teachers, administrators and community push ourselves to continue to improve and do better,” he said. “We have great schools in New Canaan but they won’t stay that way if we don’t continuously challenge ourselves to do better.”
In opposition with many newspapers, magazines and websites, Newsweek, according to Mr. Kucharczyk, looks more towards scoring on these exams than number of registered students. “If we were trying to game the Newsweek ranking, for example, we could just sign lots of kids up for AP exams and not care whether they scored 3 or better, which ironically is how many of Newsweek’s top ranked high schools do it,” he said. “It’s like judging a hospital on how many patients it admits and not caring how many lived or died while there. Our administrators decline to play this game, very rightly so, and have tried to make the AP program one of a range of options for students. We monitor not only the number of kids taking AP courses and exams, but also their performance in those courses as measured by their results on their exams. The objective isn’t to get the most kids into an AP class or test, it is to make sure all of our kids, whether in an AP, an honors, or a mainline class, are challenged to learn, are successful, and do their best.”
Even though his son is losing the honors weighting in his AP English class, Mr. Kucharczyk thinks that this policy is leading the school’s AP program in the right direction. “At this point, let’s get some data, see how the policy impacted the percentages of kids taking AP exams and their performance on them, and then evaluate potential changes to the policy if necessary,” he said. “Ms. Bartz and the AP committee have been very attuned to monitoring this issue and keeping the Board informed; I am impressed with the quality of their work and have confidence in their direction on this.”
Ms. Bartz agrees both that the policy is a good start and that it should be monitored for effectiveness. “The policy has the right intention and will help students with the college process,” she said. “Yet, we need to see how it plays out because this will be the first full year the policy has been implemented.”
*Names have been changed.
