[quote]By Rahul Tamta
Perspectives Editor
Graphics by Ana Bicolli[/quote]

Only a few days from now, one of the most feared phenomena amongst high schoolers nationwide will commence–AP testing. Each year, millions of students from around the country enroll in Advanced Placement classes in hopes of strengthening their college transcripts and earning college credit. As a high school student in his third year of taking AP classes, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that the AP “trend” is promoted heavily to high schoolers who are deemed to be gifted.

It is a system that kids are often pushed into before they enter high school, which is admittedly understandable—who wouldn’t want college credit? The problem is that while the AP program is useful for students and offers undisputed benefits, it is in some aspects fundamentally misguided, and in the big picture does not yield effective results for such an expensive and prestigious agenda.

The concept of AP courses goes back to the 1950s. It was designed to offer college level courses and exams to high school students. According to the College Board, the courses provide students the sort of strenuous academic experience that they will inevitably encounter in college as well as an opportunity to earn college credit for their work.

Most colleges that accept AP scores for college credit require a score of at least a three, and many demand at least a four. However, according to the Chicago Tribune in Jan. 6, 2016, around 40 percent of the approximately 176,000 exams taken in Illinois last May scored below a three. The fact that passing rates have slipped is alarming in comparison to how AP participation has doubled in Illinois over the past five years. According to a U.S. News and World Report article from Oct. 7, 2014, just more than 1 in 8 high school juniors and seniors nationwide who took an AP exam in 2014 received a score higher than a two.

These statistics would hardly be an issue if it weren’t for their economic implications. The meager results yielded is extremely notable considering just how much money goes into the AP program. In addition to individual students’ families having to cover the expensive expenses of their kids’ AP tests, an increasing amount of students enrolling to take the test has signalled a economic burden on taxpayers as well.

In August 2013, the U.S. Department of Education announced the awarding of more than $28 million in grants to 42 states to cover a portion of that year’s AP exams due to an increased amount of students enrolling. On Aug. 13th, 2013, The Baltimore Sun noted that state and federal taxpayers had poured over $400 million into AP since 2005.

With its massive expansion, AP should be the gold standard for public high school performance and academic rigor, with many struggling schools now offering at least one AP course. Its declining success rate is a cause for concern.

The College Board earns over half of all its revenues from its Advanced Placement program—more than all its other revenue streams (SATs, SAT subject tests, PSATs) combined. The College Board’s profits for 2009 were 8.6 percent of revenue, which would be respectable even for a for-profit corporation. The fact that the AP program generates a huge amount of revenue for the College Board gives the organization an implicit motivation to expand the program the way they have been without adhering to the principles that the program was founded upon.

[quote]The College Board’s profits for 2009 were 8.6 percent of revenue, which would be respectable even for a for-profit corporation.[/quote]

A reasonable conclusion to draw from this is that the Advanced Placement approach to education is troubling. Schools get higher marks for enrolling more AP students, particularly low-income and minority students. The College Board then draws large amounts of revenue from the Department of Education and is able to further propagate and advertise their high-end product to continue the cycle. The growth of the program has not been mirrored by an upward trend in the scoring. The focus seems to have shifted away from actually cultivating growth in students.

Further, AP test scores are proving to be a false indicator of college readiness. In 2013, Dartmouth College announced that it would no longer be giving college credit for good AP scores. The New York Times of January 13th, 2013 explained their rationale, noting that the head of Dartmouth’s Committee of Instruction decided to give a condensed version of the school’s Psych 1 final to incoming students instead of giving them the credit solely based off of their AP score. Of over 100 students who scored a five on the AP Psychology exam, over 90 percent failed the Psychology I final. This is shocking, and somewhat ludicrous. AP test scores are seen by many schools as an accurate indicator of a student’s understanding of a certain subject at a collegiate level – they clearly are not.

The false rigor of AP courses is further evidenced by the testimony of former college professor and AP Government teacher John Tierney, highlighted in his op-ed appearing in The Atlantic on October 13th, 2013. “AP courses are not, in fact, remotely equivalent to the college-level courses they are said to approximate,” Tierney said. “I taught for almost 25 years at the college level, and almost every one of those years my responsibilities included some equivalent of an introductory American government course. The high-school AP course didn’t begin to hold a candle to any of my college courses. My colleagues said the same was true in their subjects.”

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This is not to suggest that AP classes aren’t valuable for students, but they really aren’t an accurate reflection of a college classroom environment. “I took AP Macroeconomics and AP Microeconomics my senior year, but then chose to take it again here at U of I,” said Metea Valley alumni and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student Emily Rodriguez said. “Those AP classes helped me do well in the class I’m in now because I was presented with the material before. The structure of the classes is not similar though. Overall, I would say that AP classes prepare you as far as basic material. However, your work ethic and study habits are something that you need to instill on your own in order to be successful in college.”

While the AP program still provides an extremely rewarding experience for students, it doesn’t replicate a college classroom’s structure or rigor the way that students are led to believe that it does. Metea Valley alumnus and Purdue University student PJ Archey confirmed this belief. “There’s a lot more ‘teach it to yourself’ in college,” Archey said. “ I decided to take three classes that I tested out of already because I knew their college equivalent would be harder and I didn’t want to jump up to to the next level of math and physics having only taken it in high school, and it’s been a huge advantage.”

The way the College Board has been running the AP program is not fundamentally immoral or inherently harmful, but there are definitely ways it could be improved. The evidence would indicate that the organization’s priorities in regards to the program have become muddled. There seems to be an increasing amount of focus placed on expanding the program to generate increasing revenue rather than on helping students grow in the way that the students are told that they will grow. Students are told that they are getting a college experience through taking AP classes (and taking AP classes definitely helps students once they get to college), but this really doesn’t prove to be completely accurate. Advanced Placement was built upon extremely idealistic principles, so it’d be a shame to see the program lose sight of what its focus should be. Bottom line: reform is needed.