Are AP classes advanced enough?

The Advanced Placement courses that many high school students take on their path to college are facing new scrutiny amid concerns that some schools are offering classes that don't measure up.

Whether they are classes that aren't among the 37 approved AP courses or simply watered-down versions of legitimate AP courses, the College Board, the national body that sets standards for AP classes, wants to root them out.

AP botany, AP trigonometry and even AP military history may look great on a high school transcript. But they're not recognized by the College Board, which has launched an audit showing which courses pass muster.

A new online database showing the results of the audit lets Minnesota parents, students and college admissions counselors quickly check to see if a school's courses are authorized, but it also means extra paperwork for teachers and frustration when their courses are inexplicably rejected.

More than 60 percent of American high schools participate in the AP program, which sets guidelines for college-level courses in everything from calculus to music theory. Students take AP classes for high school credit and then, if they choose, sit for exams on which high marks can translate into college credit.

The audit requires every AP teacher to submit detailed course plans to the College Board; nearly 150,000 have been sent since January. On Nov. 1, the Board went live with the online, searchable registry of every approved AP class at high schools worldwide.

The review came about largely because of the growing popularity of AP courses, said Tom Matts, the College Board's AP audit director. In the decade that ended in 2006, the number of students who took AP exams more than doubled, from 537,000 to 1.3 million.

That had some College Board members wondering, "Are 150 percent more students academically capable of handling this sort of work?" he said.

Colleges spot bogus courses

College counselors also wanted to make sure teachers were maintaining the program's college-level standards. Then, too, there were the occasional reports of high schools offering bogus AP classes.

"I'm sure they're doing it for the benefit of their students, and these may be more rigorous courses than a standard gym class or a standard Alabama state history class or a standard botany class," Matts said. But that doesn't make them legitimate.

At Carleton College, admissions dean Paul Thiboutot said he's seen transcripts listing AP health, AP homeroom and even AP study hall. "It's a typo," he said, "but it always gives us pause. That's a very serious study hall."

But the audit doesn't mean every Minnesota high school offering AP classes this fall is in the database.

Blooming Prairie High School doesn't show up, for example, even though the southern Minnesota school checked the "Advanced Placement" box on its state-released report card in 2007, and counselor Mary Worke said the school is offering an AP English course this fall. Worke said the school will decide whether to go through the audit before it issues student transcripts with the designation.

The College Board is still accepting audit forms, but the class "should not be listed as an AP course if it is not an approved course," said Jennifer Topiel, the board's executive director of communications.

Some schools aren't audited

More than 16,000 high schools administered AP exams last year, a rough measure of how many offer the courses, Matts said. By contrast, just over 14,000 participated in the audit this year.

It's unclear why about 2,000 schools apparently chose not to be audited. Some, like Montgomery-Lonsdale High School, don't have enough students to offer AP courses every year, but Matts said, "I think we can safely assume that a number of those schools found themselves in a position not to meet the curriculum requirements."

In Minnesota, 278 schools offered AP classes last year, while 227 showed up in a search of the audit database this week.

Matts wouldn't say whether any course plans have been rejected outright. Two-thirds were approved immediately, but the rest were returned for revisions by the college professors hired to read them -- a process that frustrated some Minnesota teachers.

At Apple Valley High School, all 12 AP classes were certified, but not before four teachers got word this summer that their course plans had bounced back for further review -- even though all four teachers team-taught with another instructor who had submitted an identical plan that was approved on the first try, said principal Steve Degenaar.

Still, most teachers and admissions counselors called the audit a worthwhile project. "We can't still, even with this audit, assume that this is a very rigorous course and that the student in this course is necessarily prepared for advanced work at a college," said Steve Colee, director of admissions at Macalester College. "But at least it's a starting point."

Sarah Lemagie • 612-673-7557

Sarah Lemagie • slemagie@startribune.com