先进的课程

List of 13 frequently asked questions.

• 什么高级课程. 卢克的提供?

  计算机科学 & 工程
  高级计算机体系结构
  高级编程语言
  高级计算机科学I
  高级计算机科学II
  先进的工程 & 设计

  
  英语
  先进女性主义文学
  高级战争文学
  先进的莎士比亚
  Advanced African American Literature
  先进的美国电影
  高级美国研究

  
  美术
  Advanced Art Practices: Senior Thesis

  
  历史 & 社会科学
  Advanced Government: Constitutional Law
  高级政治理论
  先进民权运动
  Advanced Government: Legal Studies
  欧洲高级历史
  高级美国研究

  
  领导的研究
  Advanced Classical Scholars Research
  全球高级学者研讨会
  Advanced Literary Scholars Seminar
  高级STEM学者研讨会

  
  数学
  高级多元微积分
  先进的统计数据

  
  科学
  先进的生物
  先进的化学
  高级现代物理学:A
  高等现代物理学:C
  高级有机化学

  
  戏剧艺术
  高级表演:St. 卢克剧团

  
  世界通用语言
  高级拉丁文学

• 为什么?. 卢克创建了高级课程?

  We created Advanced courses because most APs were not providing our students with a truly college-level experience. 我们知道我们可以做得更好. 也就是说, we acknowledge that the Advanced Placement program has great value in many schools, especially where a standardized curriculum provides an important guide for teachers and where colleges may not be as familiar with a school’s academic program.

   
  对于像St. 卢克的, with an established reputation and a desire to 制定标准 学生学习 在更高的层次上 比大学理事会的还要多, Advanced Placement courses may actually limit the scope and rigor of the instruction. AP courses are built on an audited curriculum set by the College Board (the audit is to protect the Advanced Placement trademark), and the standard for student performance is a single morning’s or afternoon’s test score. 在圣. 卢克的, we offer courses that go “beyond the AP,” challenging and inspiring our students.
  
  

  Listen below to Head of 上学校 Liz Perry describe, in a clip from a podcast interview with the student-run Eye of the Storm, 超越ap的原因. 或者听听 整个面试.
  

• 我做了什么?. 卢克的 gain by moving beyond the AP?

  This change gives our school the chance to be itself—to focus on fulfilling a mission directed not just at mastery of course material but at supporting our students as they develop into intellectual and moral beings. We believe in our mission and in the power of our faculty to create learning experiences for students that elicit a high degree of intellectual engagement and that involve active, authentic work toward gaining the deepest possible understanding of challenging concepts, 困难的技巧, 和复杂的内容.

  
  

  在后勤层面上, courses without an AP focus regain four to six weeks of precious time to teach new content. 例如, in the past, AP Biology students spent time before the St. 卢克的 exam period in March preparing for a practice AP exam, then going over the completed practice exam, and then preparing for the real AP exam which was administered in early May. 在那之后, teachers observed that students understandably lost momentum and focus during the remaining weeks of the year. St. 卢克的 先进的生物 classes take all the time previously spent prepping for a standardized test and use it instead to dive deeply into biological science topics.

• How has the thinking around APs evolved at St. 卢克的?

  当圣. 卢克的 first introduced AP classes in the 1980s, they represented a chance for us to demonstrate our academic chops. Over 40 years later, we no longer need an outside seal of approval on our academic program. St. 卢克的 has a national reputation as an academic powerhouse, sending students to a range of selective colleges and universities and attracting many more qualified students each year than we can enroll. 同时, our faculty are ready and eager to challenge students in ways the College Board’s n箭头 focus on standardized tests simply can’t accommodate in many subjects.
  
  

  Listen below to Head of 上学校 Liz Perry describe, in a clip from a podcast interview with the student-run Eye of the Storm, where the idea for moving beyond APs came from, as well as some background on the multi-year evaluation process, 包括实现时间. 或者听听 整个面试.
  
  
  In this clip, Head of 上学校 Liz Perry describes the team which evaluated the move beyond APs.
  

• Have other schools moved beyond APs?

  Many excellent independent schools have examined the Advanced Placement program and made the decision either not to offer APs in the first place or to move away from APs in most or all areas. Here is a sampling of such schools. 

  
  

  阿彻学校(CA)

  鲍德温学校(PA)

  伯克利卡罗尔学校(纽约)

  波士顿大学学院(MA)

  布里尔利学校(纽约)

  Chapin学校(纽约)

  乔特迷迭香堂(CT)

  协和学院(硕士)

  道尔顿学校(纽约)

  Fieldston Ethical Culture School (NY)

  格罗顿学校(文学硕士)

  哈弗福德学校(PA)

  湖畔学校(西澳)

  劳伦斯维尔学校(新泽西州)

  卢米斯咖啡(CT)

  马林学院(CA)

  波特小姐学校(CT)

  帕克大学学校(纽约)

  菲利普斯安多弗学院(硕士)

  菲利普斯埃克塞特学院(NH)

  斯宾塞学校(纽约)

  St. 马克学院(MA)

  St. 保罗学校(NH)

  私立学校(CA)

  University of Chicago Laboratory School (IL)

   
  We spoke with and visited the academic leaders at many of these schools to learn about their journeys. 全面的, they reported flourishing admissions numbers, steady or improving college lists, and high student and teacher satisfaction. 改变从来都不容易, but it is worth noting that none of these schools has reversed its decision and returned to APs. 正相反, in our conversations we heard the refrain, “Why did we wait so long to make this change?”
  

• Are students penalized in the college admission process because they don’t have “AP” courses on their records?

  Our conversations with college deans of admission and the college representatives who visit our campus each year affirm that the absence of AP courses on a student's record has not hurt them in any way--if anything, St. 卢克的 Advanced courses have helped applicants stand out in a competitive pool. Colleges evaluate students on the strength of the programs they have taken relative to the rigor of programs offered at the school. 换句话说, a student’s transcript is evaluated in the context of the courses that were available to that student. St. 卢克的 provides colleges with a School Profile that accompanies each application; our School Profile clearly describes the nature of our programs and communicates which are our most demanding courses in each discipline.

   

  Schools that have already removed the AP designation and created their own advanced courses have had their decisions received enthusiastically by colleges—even the most selective.

• 大学怎么看待圣. 卢克的高级课程?

  We shared our work on Advanced curriculum with deans of admission at selective colleges and universities and asked them directly if the absence of “AP” on a student's record would hurt St. 卢克的 applicants in the college admissions process. Here is a sample of the many responses we received:  

  
  

  “St. 卢克的 School benefits from having a strong academic reputation among highly selective colleges and universities. Transitioning away from Advanced Placement is neither detrimental to the school nor to its students provided comparable courses are made available. 一如既往地, the 里士满大学 looks forward to receiving applications from bright and talented students from St. 卢克的.” 

  吉尔·J. Villanueva, Associate Vice President and Dean, Office of Admission 

  里士满大学

  
  

  "At MIT we respect the right of all secondary schools to offer the curriculum they deem to be best for their students. The changes that St 卢克的 is proposing will have no impact on the way we will evaluate their students--we will still be aware that St 卢克的提供s a challenging curriculum that prepares their students for post-secondary study at the highest levels." 

  Stuart Schmill, Dean of 招生 and Student Financial 服务s 

  Massachusetts Institute of 技术 (MIT)

  
  

  “Notre Dame does not have a preference for either the AP or IB courses--our primary consideration is for the high school to inform us what their top courses are and whether our applicant has taken most of them. 像St这样的高中. 卢克的 that drop the AP and have their own focus on what they consider to be an honors or advanced course will not have any reduction in chances for their top students to gain admission at Notre Dame.” 

  Don Bishop, Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Enrollment

  圣母大学

   

  “在明德, we look at applicants within the context of what their schools offer; we see many students whose high schools have chosen to veer away from AP classes, choosing instead to offer more specific course content geared at the passions of teachers and students and at the particular resources and opportunities available within that school’s culture.  只要……. 卢克的 clearly identifies what it considers to be its advanced classes, we will take those designations into account when evaluating the rigor of a student’s course selections as seen on a transcript. Not offering APs does NOT put students at a disadvantage in the admissions process. 我以前也当过老师, I applaud any move that allows for and encourages greater levels of innovation and specialization from teachers and schools.”

  塞缪尔·N. 我是招生办主任普罗蒂

  明德学院

   

• How have Advanced courses affected courses offered in 9th and 10th grades?

  The introduction of Advanced courses is part of a larger focus on innovative teaching across the 上学校. Students in the first two years of high school at St. 卢克的 already benefit from an environment where their teachers are encouraged to create the very best curriculum without being bound by the College Board.
  
  也就是说, 9th and 10th grade Honors level courses often served as a kind of “pre-AP,” with methods of assessment and areas of curricular focus that were designed to set students up for success on AP exams in the coming years. 例如, students in Honors British Literature, 一门10年级的课程, used to do a fair amount of timed writing on poems they had not studied yet; that was a practice based on the old 11th-grade AP Literature exam. Now that teachers no longer see 9th- and 10th-grade honors courses as “pre-AP,“他们, 太, have the freedom to design innovative curriculum that best inspires their students and prepares them for truly advanced work in the discipline.

• What impact do Advanced courses have on the school calendar?

  Teachers in Advanced Courses reclaim 4-6 weeks of teaching time when they no longer need to prepare students for the AP exams in May. It also allows greater consistency for the whole 上学校 calendar in the month of May since we administer fewer AP exams. Students taking an AP exam are still excused from their classes for the entire day, but the interruption to non-AP courses because of missing students taking AP exams has decreased significantly.

• Can’t students use AP scores to earn college credit or place out of college requirements?

  是的. 一些圣. 卢克的 alumni have benefitted from this opportunity, and if students choose to take AP exams they can continue to use high scores in this way. As has been reported in the news media starting about a decade ago, however, an increasing number of highly selective colleges are declining to offer students college credit for AP scores. 

  
  

  Calculus, French, and Spanish are the areas where St. 卢克的 alumni report most often using an AP score of 4 or 5 to place into a higher level college course or to fulfill a college requirement. This is part of the reason we have elected to keep these AP courses (AP Calculus AB, AP微积分BC, AP法语, and AP Spanish Language) in our curriculum going forward. 也, these particular exams are ones worth teaching toward-- they meet our own high standard of excellent assessments focused more on true learning and application than on memorizing content.

• 是圣. 卢克的 students still able to take AP Exams if they wish to?

  是的. Our school continues to offer 上学校 students the opportunity to sit for Advanced Placement tests in any subject area of interest to them.

   

   

• If a student wants to take an AP course no longer offered at St. 卢克的，还有别的选择吗?

  是的. While we believe strongly that Advanced Courses challenge and engage any motivated student ready for college-level work, we acknowledge that there may be particular reasons a student might want a traditional Advanced Placement course. 例如, students interested in attending college abroad may need AP scores to be eligible for admission. Students in the Class of 2023 and 2024 who are academically eligible and are recommended for Advanced Courses may choose to take up to a total of two AP courses online through One Schoolhouse or the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. The AP courses must be ones we offered as of 2019.  Eligible students may count one online AP course toward their total required SLS courseload per year, and we will not pass along the fee for this online course to families.

• What is the difference between Honors and Advanced at St. 卢克的?

  Honors is the designation we use for high school-level courses where an honors section covers a wider scope and moves at a faster pace than a standard section. Advanced is the designation we use for college-level courses that have a prerequisite (usually an honors course). 例如, students may take Biology at either the standard or honors level, 通常是在九年级. 先进的生物, however, is a college-level course, typically taken in 11th or 12th grade.