Advanced Placement Courses Exams

“As more learners take extensive Advanced Placement Courses and pass the examinations that can earn them higher education credit, more schools and universities are scaling back those credits” writer Gregory A. Paterson wrote in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. It’s a proven reality that thousands of kids are taking Advanced Placement Courses this month in colleges and universities around the country. It’s also a proven reality that more of those kids are wondering why.  AP exams started as an experiment in secondary education. If you’re unfamiliar with their history, here is a quick explanation. It all started way back in 1952. That’s when Harvard, Yale and Princeton decided to let seniors at several famous preparatory schools take college-level courses while still in high school. Then in 1955, The College Board stepped in and started to manage tests to evaluate what learners had learned in Advanced Placement Courses.

Since then, the program has become an established part of United States school education.  Here are few of the reasons why:

  • Students are getting AP sessions not to generate credit, but to get into better schools. “I’m not involved with getting college credit for my AP sessions,” a bright high school junior from New Jersey informs us. “I am just getting them because all the best learners do, and I want to get into an excellent college.”
  • Students are getting comprehensive training to keep up in AP programs. Getting into AP programs is one thing, managing the amount of work is another. That is why another training industry has jumped up to instructor learners who cannot keep up with the innovative training.
  • Colleges are beginning to reduce the credit that they give for AP programs.

So why are an incredible number of United States learners getting Advanced Placement Courses and paying to take assessment exams? If we attempt to put words into their lips, we would say it’s because “Everybody who wants to get into a reasonable college is doing it, so I have to do it too.”