Our
View: CSULB students get AP credit, Harvard
doesn’t
Remember high school, anyone? “I gotta get a 5.” “I gotta get
a 4.” “I just gotta pass.”
For some of us here at Cal State Long Beach, such thoughts were ringing through
our heads come May as the infamous, dreaded and scandalous, yet useful, Advanced
Placements (AP) tests arrived to intellectually kick our butts.
AP tests are nationwide exams created by the non-profit College Board (who is
also responsible for such educational “novelties” like the SATs and
PSATs) that, if passed, provide college credit at many universities including
ours.
The tests, usually accompanied with a coinciding high school AP course, are meant
to prepare exceptional students for their future college courses while possibly
earning them a few college units along the way. These units may be applied to
count toward introductory general education courses.
Now that the system has grown exponentially larger, a few educators aren’t
buying into the whole AP thing anymore. According to an article published in
the USA Today last Tuesday, some schools are re-evaluating the value of the AP
tests and, ultimately, the role of the AP program to predict future college success.
The USA Today quoted Bruce Johnstone, a higher education professor at the University
of Buffalo and former chairman of the College Board trustees, as saying, “There
is something about a good undergraduate general education that can’t be
easily replicated by a terrific high school course.”
What exactly is that “something,” professor Johnstone? Is this education
professor saying high school teachers are incompetent when compared to college
professors? Is he implying high school teachers, who generally have only a bachelor’s
degree, cannot teach as well as college professors from whiz-bang universities
decked in ivy and who sport a Ph.D. in their back pockets?
We believe he’s giving too much credit to our higher education universities
in regards to the general education and too little to our high school teachers
who go the extra mile to teach an AP course to help students pass the corresponding
AP exam.
It’s “higher” academic elitism at its worst.
According to the USA Today, “…a number of colleges are re-evaluating
whether to exempt students with AP credit from certain classes. Already, several
highly selective schools, including Harvard, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology [MIT], require many students to take introductory courses in certain
subjects, even if they passed an AP exam in the same subject.”
These schools clearly don’t trust the AP program in a manner similar to
what Johnstone was implying. Can only Ivy League professors teach introductory
English, Spanish or chemistry, just to name a few of the AP exams, in ways AP
tests cannot?
Maybe these schools are really just worried the high-achieving students accepted
into those universities already passed many AP tests. Giving them their due credit
would make the introductory general education courses as empty as the school
library on Saturday night. Professor egos would inevitably sink and they just
can’t have that.
Another idea the USA Today discussed was a possible correlation between high
school AP exam success and success in college. When will researchers discover
that how students did in high school, including AP tests, is and never will be
a predictor for how well they do in college given the ballpark of variables the
college scene flaunts?
A quiet, studious student stuck at home with nothing better to do than study
around watchful parental eyes may not be the same in college. Dorm life, alcohol,
sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll are variables researchers may never
be able to accurately measure that affect college success. They should stop wasting
their time and money and just join the party or something.
Besides, if you ask students around here who took AP courses in high school,
you’re likely to discover those courses not only were more challenging
to them, but those students learned more in AP than general education courses
at the collegiate level.
To end this tirade, we salute our own prestigious university, affectionately
known as The Beach, for bypassing the bull regarding AP credit. We may not be
in the Ivy League but at least students here get the credits they earned because
of those demanding tests. For that, we say Go Beach!
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