AP

[Connections]

Anyone else have DC that will attempt AP exam(s) prior to the "official" start of high school? (It is my understanding that students cannot take an AP class prior to high school- the only thing that will make it to the high school transcript will be the AP exam.)

 

Anyone BTDT and want to express any lessons learned (or encouragement)??

 

 

[WinsomeCreek]

In what sense do you mean 'cannot take an AP class before high school' -on the transcript?

[Connections]

I am referring to this document put out by the College Board.

 

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/Appropriate-Grade-Levels-for-AP-Courses.pdf

 

 

[WinsomeCreek]

Interesting. I did not know that. Thanks.

[8filltheheart]

I have never done it, and personally I wouldn't, but I think you have misinterpreted what that document is stating. Students can take the AP exam and report the score prior to 9th grade. You simply cannot call the course AP whatever on the transcript. That is not a big deal. Schools don't care what the course is called. All they care about is the score on the test.

 

AoPS cal, for example, is not an AP class. I put the AP scores right on the page of the transcript.

[snowbeltmom]

Anyone else have DC that will attempt AP exam(s) prior to the "official" start of high school? (It is my understanding that students cannot take an AP class prior to high school- the only thing that will make it to the high school transcript will be the AP exam.)

 

Anyone BTDT and want to express any lessons learned (or encouragement)??

 

There are homeschoolers who take AP exams prior to the official start of high school and list the classes on their transcripts. 

 

[Connections]

Hi 8Fill-

 

Actually, what you explained is exactly what I meant. A student cannot report an AP course on a high school transcript prior to 9th grade but they can sit for and report a AP exam. Perhaps I did not explain it clearly. Sorry.

 

Thanks for making sure I had it straight.

 

 

[Connections]

There are homeschoolers who take AP exams prior to the official start of high school and list the classes on their transcripts. 

 

I certainly would not claim to be an expert on what the College Board allows. But, my interpretation of the document I linked is that, with the exception of AP World Languages, students cannot list an AP course taken prior to 9th grade on a high school transcript but they can sit for and list the AP exam.

 

I came across this document when researching whether or not to pursue an AP audit for a class being offered to a homeschool student prior to 9th grade. Again, my interpretation of the College Board document is that such a course would not be reviewed and authorized.

 

Edited to add: Of course, one may choose to list the course subject taken prior to high school on the high school transcript, but my interpretation is that they could not identify the course as AP.

[snowbeltmom]

I certainly would not claim to be an expert on what the College Board allows. But, my interpretation of the document I linked is that, with the exception of AP World Languages, students cannot list an AP course taken prior to 9th grade on a high school transcript but they can sit for and list the AP exam.

 

I came across this document when researching whether or not to pursue an AP audit for a class being offered to a homeschool student prior to 9th grade. Again, my interpretation of the College Board document is that such a course would not be reviewed and authorized.

 

I think you are correct that the College Board would not approve a class if it were going to be offered to students in middle school. My situation was different as I was not trying to get a course approved by the College Board.  My son took an AP class at our local high school when he was in 8th grade. 

 

The transcript my son has from the public school lists the course as an AP course. Since I want the course titles on my son's master transcript to align exactly with the course titles listed on the outside transcripts I also provide, I am listing the course as AP on my master transcript.  (This class is also listed on his AP exam report issued by the College Board) 

 

I don't bother getting the AP classes that are self-studied at home approved by the College Board.  Those classes I simply list as XXX with AP exam to communicate to the adcoms that the class was studied at the AP level. 

 

[SeaConquest]

My question is: how well do accelerated 7th and 8th graders tend to fare taking AP exams? Do they have the maturity?

[WinsomeCreek]

I am very curious about how you handle this. Mine are considering an AP course at the high school prior to 9th. I don't really care about the AP designation, but it would be weird for the school to have to modify the course description for you when reporting. Or maybe it's easy? I'd appreciate it if you can update with how it works out.

[snowbeltmom]

My question is: how well do accelerated 7th and 8th graders tend to fare taking AP exams? Do they have the maturity?

 

Imo, like everything else, it depends on the kid.  For my kids, the AP English classes would not be a good fit at that age.

 

[Connections]

I think you are correct that the College Board would not approve a class if it were going to be offered to students in middle school. My situation was different as I was not trying to get a course approved by the College Board.  My son took an AP class at our local high school when he was in 8th grade. 

 

The transcript my son has from the public school lists the course as an AP course. Since I want the course titles on my son's master transcript to align exactly with the course titles listed on the outside transcripts I also provide, I am listing the course as AP on my master transcript.  (This class is also listed on his AP exam report issued by the College Board) 

 

I don't bother getting the AP classes that are self-studied at home approved by the College Board.  Those classes I simply list as XXX with AP exam to communicate to the adcoms that the class was studied at the AP level. 

 

 

Mind sharing which AP exams your son took prior to high school? Was the experience a positive one?

 

[snowbeltmom]

Mind sharing which AP exams your son took prior to high school? Was the experience a positive one?

 

 

He took AP Physics B which is the algebra based physics class.  The class consisted of one junior and the rest seniors.  My son ended up being selected as the AP Physics Student of the Year at the high school.  He received a 5 on the AP exam and an 800 on the SAT II.

 

 

[Connections]

He took AP Physics B which is the algebra based physics class.  The class consisted of one junior and the rest seniors.  My son ended up being selected as the AP Physics Student of the Year at the high school.  He received a 5 on the AP exam and an 800 on the SAT II.

 

 

 

Awesome! I am glad he was not denied the opportunity!

 

That is very encouraging!

[Dmmetler]

We will probably try the AP Music theory exam in the next year or two. It's basically useless for college credit (most schools grant credit, if at all, for the music appreciation non-major distribution requirement), but would help to document college readiness, and the music department wouldn't be a bad one for DD to take an on-campus class in, since I know the classes and faculty well.

 

The hard part will be finding a place to take the test-music theory isn't offered all that widely at the high school level, let alone AP theory.

[Nart]

My question is: how well do accelerated 7th and 8th graders tend to fare taking AP exams? Do they have the maturity?

Here is a link that lists scores by grade level for all AP tests.

http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/2013-Score-Dist-by-Grade-Level.pdf

[SeaConquest]

Here is a link that lists scores by grade level for all AP tests.

http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/2013-Score-Dist-by-Grade-Level.pdf

That's very interesting. Thank you!

[snowbeltmom]

That's very interesting. Thank you!

 

:iagree:

I had never seen that report before. I found it interesting that over 6000 students not yet in high school took AP exams that year.  These middle school kids, when compared to 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders had the highest mean, the highest percentage of passing scores, the highest percentage of 5's and the highest percentage of 4's. 

 

It seems rather silly that the College Board would have a policy that prevents these kids from having the class listed as AP on their transcripts.  While I understand why a traditional school would need to follow this policy, as a homeschooler, I feel no obligation to comply.

 

[ccolopy]

Ds13 (7th grade) will be taking the AP Physics B exam this year. A friend of ours is teaching physics to a small group of boys, and suggested after just a few weeks that Ds consider taking the AP exam along with her own son. This is the last year Physics B will be offered, and I couldn't think of a good reason not to have him take the exam. I doubt he'll take any others before 9th grade. 

 

I haven't thought too much about what his transcript will look like, but I imagine it will have a section for high school-level courses taken before 9th grade, where we'll list "Physics" along with his math and foreign language courses, and a section for test scores, where we'll list "AP Physics B - his score (2014)". 

[snowbeltmom]

Ds13 (7th grade) will be taking the AP Physics B exam this year. A friend of ours is teaching physics to a small group of boys, and suggested after just a few weeks that Ds consider taking the AP exam along with her own son. This is the last year Physics B will be offered, and I couldn't think of a good reason not to have him take the exam. I doubt he'll take any others before 9th grade. 

 

I haven't thought too much about what his transcript will look like, but I imagine it will have a section for high school-level courses taken before 9th grade, where we'll list "Physics" along with his math and foreign language courses, and a section for test scores, where we'll list "AP Physics B - his score (2014)". 

 

Just in case you do not know, the College Board has old free response questions with solutions posted for free on its website.  Going through these FRQs was a huge benefit for my son.  The phrase "show your work" took on a whole new meaning for my son after realizing that despite arriving at the correct answer, he would have only been awarded about 1/3 of the possible points on the problem.  He realized that what he thought was so obvious that didn't need to state, needed to be stated. :D

 

Good luck to your son.

 

[TiaTia]

Would love to ask anyone here if you've had experience with AP Music Theory:  self-study, vendor course, exam, or any combination.

 

We're trying to see how well ABRSM training (UK) lines up with the College Board exam & do realize many terms will be different.  We'll be combing through the Course Description to try and answer our real question:  what kind of prep time is required for a student with strong theory background and composition skills? 

[Muttichen]

Three of my kids took AP language exams (French or German) in 8th grade, and my youngest dd took AP Computer Science as well.  They all got 5s on all of them.  We didn't include ANY 8th grade classes on the transcript, because we have heard that colleges care about what students are doing in grades 9-12, but we did list the exams.

 

My middle ds took AP Music Theory with PA Homeschoolers, but we weren't thrilled with the course.  The teacher was very knowledgeable about music theory, but pretty clueless about the AP exam.  That was her first year teaching it though, so it may have improved.  As far as prep time, it's hard to say.  This teacher gave a lot of what ds felt was busy work.  Still, he didn't put all that much time into it -- definitely not more than an hour a day.

[SuperCrissy]

Our daughter self-studied for the AP Human Geography exam in 8th grade. She struggled with the recommended college text for the first three weeks. It was super interesting but very dense with unfamiliar technical language. She grew so much as a reader through that class. I would recommend AP Hum Geo as a first humanities AP because there are many past prompts with rubrics available for the writing portion which makes it easier for a less experienced writer to prepare for that section.

 

We almost had her take the AP Physics B exam as well, but thought two APs might be too stressful so we pushed Physics to the next year. I'm glad we did because one AP was plenty for her. The amount of memorization and learning how to write to a rubric were the two most challenging aspects of prepping for the exam. Testing with older students energized her whereas my second daughter doesn't want to take an AP because she doesn't want to test with high schoolers.

 

I will say that it was difficult to find a testing site. We called every high school in our district and were turned down by every single one even though we offered to pay for a proctor or do anything else necessary. After calling about 10 more, we contacted our superintendent and a school that had previously said they were full called us the next day. So make sure you leave plenty of time to find a testing site that will accommodate your student.

[Dmmetler]

The AP music theory exam is kind of odd, IMO. When I took it and passed it (mostly self-study with a college mentor) years ago, it ended up covering some of Theory I, some of theory 2, and a little of theory 3. I ended up getting placed out of theory 1 and doing semester of private theory which covered those missing parts plus theory 3, then took theory 4 and the composition/arranging sequence. It was definitely odd and not something I'd recommend for a music major because it messed me up as far as course planning/sequence and on credit hours through the rest of my undergrad (basically, I needed more credits than I could take WITHOUT taking private lessons/independent studies because I had placement out of two theory classes, but only 3 credit hours when normally I'd have had 9). I had credit hours granted for music reading and music appreciation, but neither were at all useful to me.

 

As far as prep time, when I did it, I had an hour a day reserved for music theory (the same time for the theory class I was officially enrolled in, but I spent it studying on my own). I really didn't spend much time beyond that.

 

I plan to use it for DD because I'm pretty confident I can get the syllabus from college board and design a course to match it, and because I don't see it being likely that she'll need it for anything but general education distribution requirements, where if they give credit for music reading or music appreciation it will save her a 3 credit hour class later-and if they don't, it's no big deal. I probably wouldn't pursue it except that I know the departments locally here well, and there are a couple of classes that would be good DE starting points, with faculty who I know.

 

The big thing to make sure of with the AP music theory exam (or with the GRE Music subject test, or with the PRAXIS music subject test) is that the playback device is accurate. I had an experience with the GRE music subject test where the pitch was almost, but not quite, a half-step off, which meant that I had to mentally adjust the notes to what they SHOULD have been. In 20/20 hindsight, when the reference tone was played at the start fo the test (if it's NOT played, the student needs to request it-it shows you what a=440 sounds like on the instrument), I should have requested that they find a different CD player. I did so for the Praxis-and was the only student in a group of over 20 who even apparently noticed the pitch was off. Same if there's speaker buzz or sound artifacts in the room that throw off hearing. A big part of that exam is listening, so if you cannot hear what is on the recording accurately, it makes it much harder to take the test.

 

 

 

 

[maize]

 

The big thing to make sure of with the AP music theory exam (or with the GRE Music subject test, or with the PRAXIS music subject test) is that the playback device is accurate. I had an experience with the GRE music subject test where the pitch was almost, but not quite, a half-step off, which meant that I had to mentally adjust the notes to what they SHOULD have been. In 20/20 hindsight, when the reference tone was played at the start fo the test (if it's NOT played, the student needs to request it-it shows you what a=440 sounds like on the instrument), I should have requested that they find a different CD player. I did so for the Praxis-and was the only student in a group of over 20 who even apparently noticed the pitch was off. Same if there's speaker buzz or sound artifacts in the room that throw off hearing. A big part of that exam is listening, so if you cannot hear what is on the recording accurately, it makes it much harder to take the test.

Do you have perfect pitch? I have good relative pitch but if the notes were in tune with each other I would never have noticed if they were a a half step off.

[plansrme]

Anyone else have DC that will attempt AP exam(s) prior to the "official" start of high school? (It is my understanding that students cannot take an AP class prior to high school- the only thing that will make it to the high school transcript will be the AP exam.)

 

Anyone BTDT and want to express any lessons learned (or encouragement)??

 

I don't stop by this sub-forum very often but clicked on it by accident today and saw this thread.  If you're still reading the thread, I have a daughter who took 4 AP exams in middle school:  world history (7th grade), chemistry, macroeconomics, microeconomics and AP Calc AB.  She made 5s on all.  I outsourced chemistry to ChemAdvantage and did the rest at home.  I did not find prep to be any different for her in middle school than it would have been in high school.  I had no idea what I was doing (other than econ, my undergraduate major), so we relied heavily on past exam answers and exam prep books.  It was definitely a good thing for us.  When she went to high school, instead of my muttering, "Well, she's ummm, really smart," and being brushed off, 'cause every mom says her kid is smart, I could say, "She made a 5 on AP World History in seventh grade."  And that got people's attention when I needed it.  Although this was not our intent, she also has been given credit for world history and the econs for purposes of satisfying those graduation requirements for high school, which has been useful in freeing up space on her schedule.  

 

Someone above linked to a survey of the number of kids who took APs pre-high school, and while I have not reviewed it, I question whether the College Board really has the data to make that determination.  Both times my daughter sat for APs in middle school, she said she had to check "9th grade" as her grade, as there was no option for pre-9th grade.  That may have changed (she is a sophomore now), but I specifically asked her to look for it, and she is adamant that there was no option for pre-9th grade.  AP teachers may be reporting pre-high school students, but that is not going to pick up students who self-study, which is probably the majority of middle schoolers.  An interesting side effect of checking 9th grade for three straight years is that she gets mail from colleges who think she is, depending upon which list they pulled her from, a sophomore, junior and senior.