rators said they probably won’t change AP policies as a result.
Last year, Weinberg administrators decided to allow incoming students to apply two AP credits to distribution requirements, down from six.
Stephen Fisher, associate provost for undergraduate education, said he doesn’t think improvements to the AP curriculum will affect credit acceptance policies.
“The decision will be made by heads within academic departments who decide what score is worthy of credit at Northwestern,” he said, adding that that’s how decisions have been made in the past.
Psychology Prof. David Uttal said he agreed with Fisher’s prediction.
“After lowering the number, I seriously doubt that they’ll go back,” he said.
Uttal protested the September decision to decrease the number of AP classes eligible for course credit. AP courses provide higher-level students with the opportunity to opt out of large introductory courses that fail to address their academic needs, he said.
Uttal also said he wants to see empirical evidence that AP courses fail to prepare students for NU classes.
“We can’t make assumptions that because we’re a top school that we have the top classes for all subjects,” he said.
The action to revise the courses comes on the heels of a report by the National Research Council recommending that course curricula be derived from the syllabi of select universities. The College Board currently outlines curricula based on a nationwide survey of colleges and universities.
According to Trevor Packer, executive director of the AP program, the College Board has formed an advisory board to research different ways to improve the overall quality of the program. A complete report is expected to be published by the end of this year.
“AP exams currently do a fantastic job identifying students who will succeed in college,” Packer said. “But we can do even more to leverage positive teaching.”
The College Board hopes to identify leading schools in specific subject areas and model the high school AP curricula after these elite programs.
Packer also mentioned that although more than 70 percent of colleges grant credit for an exam score of 3 or higher, there is a growing national trend among colleges to require higher AP scores for credit or set limits on the number of credits that can be applied toward degrees.
High school senior Patrick Steck said he thinks AP courses and tests are useful.
“I can see how they’d view AP courses with skepticism,” said Steck, who lives in College Station, Texas. “But I think they should continue to take AP for credit because it is a lot of work, and I think the test is an accurate assessment.”
Reach Christina Alexander at [email protected].
