Studies Find Benefits to Advanced Placement Courses

Jay Matthews:

In the midst of a national debate over whether Advanced Placement courses place too much pressure on U.S. high school students, a team of Texas researchers has concluded that the difficult courses and three-hour exams are worth it.

In the largest study ever of the impact of AP on college success, which looked at 222,289 students from all backgrounds attending a wide range of Texas universities, the researchers said they found "strong evidence of benefits to students who participate in both AP courses and exams in terms of higher GPAs, credit hours earned and four-year graduation rates."

A separate University of Texas study of 24,941 students said those who used their AP credits to take more advanced courses in college had better grades in those courses than similar students who first took college introductory courses instead of AP in 10 subjects.

Madison United for Acadmic Excellence has a useful comparison of AP and other "advanced" course offerings across the four traditional Madison high schools. Much more on local AP classes here.

Wisconsin Advanced Placement Distance Learning Consortium.

Verona High School Course Prospectus, including AP.

Middleton High School Course List.

Monona Grove High School Course Catalog [320K PDF]

Sun Prairie High School Courses.

Waunakee High School Course Index.

McFarland High School Course Guide.

Edgewood High School.

Jay Matthews has more in a later article.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 29, 2007 6:27 AM
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