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University, college officials criticize high school AP courses
Janhavi Purohit
Issue date: 11/16/07 Section: News
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According to a recent article on insidehighered.com, there has been some criticism of the recent College Board audits of advanced placement courses.
A total of 134,000 syllabi were reviewed over the course of the year, according to a press release from collegeboard.com. Critics of the audit, however, argued that the audits do not prove that the courses under review are college level.
In an interview with insidehighered.com, Robert Tai, associate professor of education at the University of Virginia, commented that AP courses in high schools may not be providing adequate preparation for higher-level college courses.
"I think having students go through these courses is a good thing, but it's troubling to have these broad claims made without evidence. There's just no accountability," Tai said.
Vice Provost of Student Affairs at Drexel University John DiNardo also said that AP courses may not be sufficient background for some college courses.
"The reason our policy has stated that it requires a five and the approval of an academic advisor is that for the course, the student's background is reviewed in depth," DiNardo said. "There are two reasons; one is to make sure they're ready for course, and the other reason is that a lot of the major courses are very different from the standard AP course that might have been given, so that while the AP exam demonstrates knowledge in a range of particular areas that's well defined, sometimes, our freshman courses might actually address the topic differently to actually improve the curriculum."
DiNardo also said that while students with high AP scores may have subject knowledge, courses on a collegiate level may approach the topic differently, thus leaving the student deficient in areas that may not have been covered by the AP course.
"One might ask the question, is it a one-to-one correspondence from what the AP course covered to what we're covering in one of our introductory courses?" DiNardo said.
A total of 134,000 syllabi were reviewed over the course of the year, according to a press release from collegeboard.com. Critics of the audit, however, argued that the audits do not prove that the courses under review are college level.
In an interview with insidehighered.com, Robert Tai, associate professor of education at the University of Virginia, commented that AP courses in high schools may not be providing adequate preparation for higher-level college courses.
"I think having students go through these courses is a good thing, but it's troubling to have these broad claims made without evidence. There's just no accountability," Tai said.
Vice Provost of Student Affairs at Drexel University John DiNardo also said that AP courses may not be sufficient background for some college courses.
"The reason our policy has stated that it requires a five and the approval of an academic advisor is that for the course, the student's background is reviewed in depth," DiNardo said. "There are two reasons; one is to make sure they're ready for course, and the other reason is that a lot of the major courses are very different from the standard AP course that might have been given, so that while the AP exam demonstrates knowledge in a range of particular areas that's well defined, sometimes, our freshman courses might actually address the topic differently to actually improve the curriculum."
DiNardo also said that while students with high AP scores may have subject knowledge, courses on a collegiate level may approach the topic differently, thus leaving the student deficient in areas that may not have been covered by the AP course.
"One might ask the question, is it a one-to-one correspondence from what the AP course covered to what we're covering in one of our introductory courses?" DiNardo said.
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