Truth behind the Newsweek Best High Schools rankings- which schools have AP students who are actually PASSING AP exams?! (Arlington: home, private school)
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Precisely my point very early on in this thread..But now it seems like the point of the thread now is to provide an opportunity for everyone to trumpet the fact they took an AP class and to prove one province of DFW is somehow better than the other. If this statistic is your yard stick to somehow prove Flower Mound for example is inferior to schools in DISD try again.
I mean I know the popular motto is everything is bigger in Texas, but I never thought it related to stuff like this. Sheesh..I will stick with private school for as long as I can.
The inferiority complex about the part of town you don't even live in yet is a little silly.
TC80 and I both went to the same HS in the HPISD and simply said that we both thought our AP classes were similar to college classes that we took later on in college. Then another parent who sent their kid to an elite private school said the same thing. You've somehow contorted this to mean that the DISD schools are better than the Flower Mound schools (which aren't even mentioned)? Thou dost protest too loudly.
Only a guy from Michigan, who teaches in McKinney, heard from kids in his class (who presumptively go to McKinney public schools) that they're AP curriculum wasn't so hot. Everyone else has said that their AP classes were challenging and similar to a college class. How do you think you know more about my personal experience in college and high school than I do? This is similar to your apparent thinking that you know more about DFW than the people who actually live here.
I think there are so many factors that influence success in college -- and later on in life -- that it is foolish to use any one statistic. That is where sites like city-data can lead you astray. The stats can't tell you what it is really like to live in a community. DISD has some schools I'd never let my daughter even visit. But it has some schools that I would feel comfortable sending her to.
There is little I'm certain of in life, but there is one thing I can tell you for sure -- if you continue to act like Rosie O'Donnell/Roseanne you will not have any success finding friends once you finally move to Texas. People who presume they already know it all -- and have nothing left to learn -- aren't exactly popular 'round these parts. I'll even show you the stats to prove it.
The inferiority complex about the part of town you don't even live in yet is a little silly.
TC80 and I both went to the same HS in the HPISD and simply said that we both thought our AP classes were similar to college classes that we took later on in college. Then another parent who sent their kid to an elite private school said the same thing. You've somehow contorted this to mean that the DISD schools are better than the Flower Mound schools (which aren't even mentioned)? Thou dost protest too loudly.
Only a guy from Michigan, who teaches in McKinney, heard from kids in his class (who presumptively go to McKinney public schools) that they're AP curriculum wasn't so hot. Everyone else has said that their AP classes were challenging and similar to a college class. How do you think you know more about my personal experience in college and high school than I do? This is similar to your apparent thinking that you know more about DFW than the people who actually live here.
I think there are so many factors that influence success in college -- and later on in life -- that it is foolish to use any one statistic. That is where sites like city-data can lead you astray. The stats can't tell you what it is really like to live in a community. DISD has some schools I'd never let my daughter even visit. But it has some schools that I would feel comfortable sending her to.
There is little I'm certain of in life, but there is one thing I can tell you for sure -- if you continue to act like Rosie O'Donnell/Roseanne you will not have any success finding friends once you finally move to Texas. People who presume they already know it all -- and have nothing left to learn -- aren't exactly popular 'round these parts. I'll even show you the stats to prove it.
At the risk of derailing what is a perfectly good thread from a poster I respect tremendously I will refrain...Let's take it offline Hoss. We can read some Shakespeare to one another..
I think it's tricky to say that those AP tests predict college success. Students who take AP courses are likely to be going onto college as it is. AP courses are also not anything like college courses. As one who graduated high school in 2004 and now teaches at a college, I see students who have taken AP courses in high school and become very frustrated that often times they cannot just memorize and take a "standardized" test.
That being said, I teach English composition. I have mentioned in a previous thread that I also teach dual-credit students in McKinney. Often, according to what many of them have told me, they enroll into dual-credit English rather than AP because they don't see how AP English will relate to college writing. They are quite correct, in my opinion (biased as it is ). AP English focuses on reading books and testing based on "classics" and such. For students not planning on majoring in English, this doesn't prove to be very helpful as it does not teach them to write the many, many essays that (most) of them will compose in college. It does however, allow most of them (depending on score) to skip college English 1 & 2.
I think the discussion about AP courses is somewhat problematic. They are quite important, please don't get me wrong, but I think it's risky to say that
they indicate college success so broadly.
That tells me that those kids are staying in Texas for college and some may very likely be going to jr college instead of a 4 year university. Dual credit courses are practicaly worthless if a student is looking at a more prestigious university and at of state. Most will not give college credit for a course that also went towards high school graduation credits.
Loneranger -- a little bit off topic for this thread, but where did you get the stat that 88% of the WT White grad go to college? In talking to parents who are planning on public schools for high school and contemplating fleeing to the suburbs instead of enrolling their children in WT White, the thing that seems to be their biggest fear is that the DISD Scorecard shows 50% college enrollment in the year following graduation from WT White and 15% college readiness scores on the SAT/ACT. Tutlecreek's AP data in one good rebuttal to this kind of thinking, but I would love to be able to point them to a resource that gives better overall college enrollment and readiness stats for WT White -- because many people want a school where a large portion of the student body is preparing for and ready for college -- not just the small pool sitting in the AP classes.
That's the number that White told my parents:
from their website
"82% of graduates attend 4 year college or university ; 11% attend 2 year college"
I think the 50% number is perhaps of the kids who start? I'm not sure why there is such a huge discrepancy.
Also, according to White's site, it is not a small proportion in AP classes: "67% of all students enrolled in College Advanced Placement and pre-AP program." I would think that means that 67% take at least 1 AP exam, and that the number who could be said to be taking a large number of AP classes is quite smaller, but that's still an impressive number.
They are just like college when they're taught correctly. My AP US history teacher at Highland Park was hands-down, to this day, the very best professor/teacher I ever encountered.....and I was in the Honors History program at a state school with some very well published history professors. My AP Biology class at Highland Park used the same textboook that my freshman bio class used in college. My AP Calculus class at Highland Park was more diffult than the two math courses I had to take in college. If the school has the right teachers in place and a rigorous curriculum, AP courses SHOULD be as challenging as college work and be structured in a similar format (lecture + discussion or lab) as college courses.
Spot on!!!! AP courses are not equal from school to school. If there were a set standard of instruction that had to be adhered to in each AP course then we would see a better reflection of the true value of great AP courses that were college level. Since there is not AP courses at one school can be very watered down. I wish the AP program would work like the IB program in having set standards. Even AP courses in the same district are different between campuses. I've also noticed that the schools that have IB also have the tougher AP courses.
That's the number that White told my parents:
from their website
"82% of graduates attend 4 year college or university ; 11% attend 2 year college"
I think the 50% number is perhaps of the kids who start? I'm not sure why there is such a huge discrepancy.
Also, according to White's site, it is not a small proportion in AP classes: "67% of all students enrolled in College Advanced Placement and pre-AP program." I would think that means that 67% take at least 1 AP exam, and that the number who could be said to be taking a large number of AP classes is quite smaller, but that's still an impressive number.
Interesting --I wonder whether the 82% college enrollment figure reported on the website represents the number who eventually enroll in college -- just not during the first year out of high school. The Scorecard definitely reports "graduates enrolled in college at any point during the first year after high school graduation" as 50%. White links the Scorecard on the same page that they report the 82% college enrollment figure -- so there has to be some explanation of the discrepancy.
The scorecard reports that 39% of all students take at least one AP test and that a third of those students pass at least one AP test. That isn't necessarily a discrepancy between the scorecard and website, however, because the website reports 67% enroll in AP OR pre-AP -- so the 67% includes kids who take a Pre-AP class (basically the honors level of a subject in 9th or 10th grade) and decide not to move on to the AP level and also the kids who take the AP class but decide not to take the test (which is fairly common even at private schools for seniors who are going to colleges that don't give AP/IB credit). It does show that many students are at least giving the pre-AP and AP classes a shot.
In any event the website is a resource that parents can use to ask the administration the questions that this thread raises. All parents should definitely look into these kinds of questions regardless of the school they are considering. Thanks for the info.
My son will be a senior at Science and Engineering this coming school year. The classes are tough/challenging. These kids LOVE it! They want more. The feedback from college students who graduated from SEM is that they were beyond prepared for college and are so thankful for the detailed instruction they received from SEM and it's rigorous AP curriculum (AP is all they offer).
My son is spending his summer taking dual credit Physics through a local community college so he can take AP Physics C in his senior year. He is the only highschool student in his class - barley any of these college-aged students know how to properly work the formulas. My son is showing them procedures.
If anyone wants to compare Dual Credit to AP - don't. AP curriculum is much more thorough and rigorous and truly prepares students.
My son will be a senior at Science and Engineering this coming school year. The classes are tough/challenging. These kids LOVE it! They want more. The feedback from college students who graduated from SEM is that they were beyond prepared for college and are so thankful for the detailed instruction they received from SEM and it's rigorous AP curriculum (AP is all they offer).
My son is spending his summer taking dual credit Physics through a local community college so he can take AP Physics C in his senior year. He is the only highschool student in his class - barley any of these college-aged students know how to properly work the formulas. My son is showing them procedures.
If anyone wants to compare Dual Credit to AP - don't. AP curriculum is much more thorough and rigorous and truly prepares students.
Oh wow, you should be proud...SEM is awesome.
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). AP English focuses on reading books and testing based on "classics" and such. For students not planning on majoring in English, this doesn't prove to be very helpful as it does not teach them to write the many, many essays that (most) of them will compose in college. It does however, allow most of them (depending on score) to skip college English 1 & 2. 
