"A stipulation in Virginia’s Board of Education code requires high schools to weight grades from their Advanced Placement courses, ending Albemarle school officials’ proposal to eliminate its weighted grade-point average system.

Don Vale, the director of curriculum and instruction for the county, told about 50 parents and students Monday night during a public forum at Albemarle High School that he learned of the statute earlier in the day through an e-mail, and Mark Trank, the county’s attorney, confirmed it.

“We will revisit it and modify it,” Vale said, adding that the statute does not specify how AP courses should be weighted.

Although he is not yet certain if the steering committee that debated the weighted GPA issue will meet again to discuss the modification, Vale said a recommendation would be passed to Superintendent Pamela Moran for consideration in about a month.

Vale has said in prior forums that by eliminating a weighted GPA system, more students from all academic skill levels would be recognized for good grades. This acknowledgment would encourage more students to try AP courses, Vale said, thus challenging those in lower-level classes and consequently narrowing the achievement gap.

The proposal has spurred debate among students, parents, guidance counselors and admissions officers about the value and role of AP courses in earning admission to selective colleges as well as preparing students for a college course load.

Mark Crockett, a teacher at Western Albemarle High, said that while there is no statistical evidence to show that high school students take AP courses to pad their transcripts, his students admit it is often their incentive when they enroll in them.

“I’ve had plenty tell me that’s why they took, or are taking, AP courses,” he said.

Growing in numbers

An increasing number of students at the state and local levels are taking AP courses, according to enrollment figures.

In the 2005-06 school year, 9,608 more students in Virginia enrolled in AP courses than in 2003-04, a 23.9 percent increase.

In 2005-06, 173 more Albemarle County high school students took AP courses than in 2003-04, an increase of 23.4 percent. In Charlottesville, 16 more students were taking AP courses in 2005-06 than in 2003-04, a 9.6 percent increase.

The rise in AP enrollment can be attributed to both the competitive nature of students who want their transcripts to look attractive to selective colleges as well as a growing commitment among high schools to encourage more students to challenge themselves at the highest level they offer, education officials said.

Michael Walsh, the director of undergraduate admissions at James Madison University, said that AP courses can add clout to the transcripts of students, especially those attempting to become the first generation in their family to attend college.

However, Walsh and Dan Monahan, a guidance counselor at Albemarle High, said that encouraging students to take a higher-level course can be difficult because they grow comfortable within their course level.

Starting in seventh and eighth grade, students form classroom buddies, Walsh said, and once they reach grades 9 and 10, the comfort zones they establish make it difficult to convince them to change course levels.

Walsh and Monahan both said schools are more focused on the AP program because high schools today are more geared toward preparing students for college.

“Albemarle County schools don’t offer shop anymore,” Monahan said. “It’s a reflection of how schools are now evaluated.”

AP teachers are “teaching to the test” because they are evaluated based on how well their students perform on the AP exams, Walsh said.

He would like to see the AP program include more written work as a way for students to synthesize the concepts they have learned.

“Some students who take AP courses come to college never having written a longer term paper,” Walsh said.

Taking a challenge

JMU admission officers look at how applicants challenge themselves based on the courses their high school offers, he said, not on the amount of AP courses listed on a student’s transcript. Some high schools offer more AP courses than others, Walsh noted.

He said it is wrong for students to assume there is a formula for admission to a certain school based on the number of AP courses they take.

Crockett, the WAHS teacher, agreed and cited research, in particular studies done by the University of California and the National Center on Educational Accountability, supporting the notion that participation in an AP course cannot predict how a student will perform in college.

The University of California study, based on more than 80,000 freshmen entering that college system between 1998 and 2001, found that many students who took AP courses did not take the accompanying AP exam.

In Albemarle, 119 out of the 913 students enrolled in AP courses in 2005-06 did not take the test, according to the state department of education. In Charlottesville, six out of 183 who took AP courses in 2005-06 did not.

Crockett said this shows that students are not taking AP courses to perform well on the exam and earn college credit, as was the original intent of the AP program.

The wrong reasons

When competitive colleges use the number of AP courses their students took in high school to show the quality of their student body, they encourage students to take AP courses for the wrong reasons, Crockett said.

These numbers are published in rankings, he said, and students and their parents conclude there is much value in taking AP courses.

Pam Hufnagel, whose son is a senior at WAHS enrolled in four AP courses, agreed that students feel pressure to take the courses because that is what selective colleges are saying they look for on transcripts.

“It may not be the best thing, but you’re almost stuck having to do it,” she said.

A junior at Albemarle High, John Du, is taking four AP courses this year after taking two last year. He said his motivation is to be competitive among students working to gain admission to Ivy League-caliber schools.

AP course material challenges students and instills a work ethic that prepares them for college, Du said.

He said different students can handle differing numbers of AP courses, depending on their time management skills and the rate at which they absorb the material.

Du has found that by challenging himself, he has had to sacrifice.

“I have almost no social life,” he said. “The course load is enormous.”" (Matt Deegan, The Daily Progress, November 29, 2006)