Haha! You lose at statistics!

Warning!

The researchers found that "the number of AP and honors courses taken in high school bears little or no relationship to a student's later performance in college."

However, students with AP classes on their transcripts have a higher rate of admittance, said Richard Black, assistant vice chancellor of admissions and enrollment.

Oops. See if you can spot the problem. Anyway, unlike a newspaper, I can actually point you to the study. Well, a newspaper can, too, but that would be waaaaay too much effort for people whose job it is to bring news to the public. (I Googled the research associate's name, and it was the third link)

As I've warned before, trying to do statistics on current admissions practices in this way is challenging, because you're dealing with a selected sample. Despite the researchers' attempts to control for most relevant variables, it's simply not possible to control for admission. Would the people who have been rejected by the current policy but would have been accepted under some new policy (and vice versa) show these same results? You can't really tell, simply because only those who were admitted have data for "how they did in college."

I'm not saying the criticism doesn't have merit. I'm only saying that this study (and, in my opinion, most studies) should not be treated as some kind of great truth-delivery system upon which to overrule the "well, that makes sense" method of policy-making.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 8/11/2005 02:42:00 AM #
Comments (3)

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Comments:

There is also merit in prioritizing kids with AP credits because they get the hell out of college faster. I came to Cal with 23 "units" already, meaning I both (a) graduated in four years and (b) graduated in four years while taking fewer than 15 units per semester, and often fewer than 13. This puts less strain on campus resources, and allows students who need to work to afford college to go under units once or twice.

Of course AP classes, no matter how rigorous, can replace the value of taking real life college classes in a real life college atmosphere. The level of comprehension and critical thinking expected from you in high school is minimal, and the quality profesorial lectures are absent.

I ended up taking only about 110 units at Cal, meaning I took three fewer college courses than I would have had I not had AP units. But I could have waived my AP units and taken 20 more Cal courses if I had wanted to and had the time. AP units afford students more schedule flexibility and let them pursue (sometimes more valuable) non-course work like student groups or volunteer positions.

# posted by  Rebecca C. Brown : 9:01 AM, August 11, 2005

 

I agree, though I should point out that AP credits is not the issue in this particular case. The study finds that giving weight to high AP scores does have a correlation. They're talking about giving weight simply to the fact that someone took an AP course in high school. (i.e. weighting GPA)

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 1:17 PM, August 11, 2005

 

I wouldn't think the number of AP classes would correlate to anything unless everyone had the opportunity to take the same number of courses.

I think Black's statement is reasonable since those who take any AP classes are generally the ones who care more about their education and are smarter to begin with. I'm willing to bet they do better on their SATs in general than non-AP students.

# posted by  Hovannes Abramyan : 9:01 AM, August 12, 2005

 

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