Advanced Placement (AP) courses give students an opportunity to impress colleges with high exam scores as well as to extend learning beyond the high school level.  But is our school striking a balance between exam prep and advanced learning?

One of the challenges with teaching an AP course is that these college-level classes are crunched into 45-minute class periods. The material must be so condensed that teachers and students often think primarily about covering all of the topics before the end of the year, so AP classes often become prep classes geared only towards the AP exam.  We don’t want students lost on the exam, but we don’t think that it should be the driving force of the course.

The goal of an AP course should be to enrich the standard curriculum and allow students to learn like they would in a college environment.  Students who feel prepared enough to enroll in these classes should be ready to do outside work in order to succeed on the exam.

After she completes an AP course, any Marlborough girl should feel confident that she can skip an introductory level college course in that field and be ready to move on to the next level. You might not necessarily be ready for the next level in college if you are only focused on the exam in high school.

So come on Mustangs, it’s your turn to start asking more questions in class about things that really interest you. This is your chance to learn information that will help you outshine your classmates when you enter a real college classroom.