LETTER: AP English credit not accurate gauge

---

by Susan Lee

---

After reading Chris Ciompi's column ( Thresher , Sept. 1) on awarding AP credit at Rice, I was tempted to agree that the English Department was out of line with the policies of the rest of the university. But after thinking about it some more, that department actually seems to be on the right track.

The English Department is right to want to administer a competency test of their own to incoming students, not because it wants to put them through yet another exam or because it distrusts the AP grading committee, but because it recognizes the wide variety of AP instruction that the students received in their high schools.

The reason that the English Department appears to be headed in the correct direction is more evident when considering how other departments could follow suit.

The ability to write coherently and persuasively is a fundamental skill. It can be learned with vastly different curricula. Therefore, the actual content of high school AP English classes is less important than the curriculum of, say, AP Chemistry.

But most other subjects, including all the sciences, the foreign languages and the histories, require a similar solid foundation in basic skills plus specific knowledge. In these subjects adherence to a common curriculum is important because knowledge of certain basic items is assumed at advanced levels.

Placement tests, which are already given during O-Week in Spanish and calculus, are especially useful because they allow students to enter the class that is the most appropriate for them right now. They do not measure students' knowledge four months before they will be studying the same material again (as do the AP tests), and they provide better advice on the proper class to go into at this particular university, instead of trying to be a general measure for colleges across the country (as do the AP tests).

Of course, in developing more competency tests, there would be great opposition from those who feel that O-Week is too busy and test-filled already.

When I entered Rice two years ago with 38 AP credits, I too thought that I deserved to be exempt from every introductory-level course for which I had had AP classes in high school.

I also thought that taking the freshman-level classes in calculus and physics, two subjects I was not able to get AP credit for, would be a waste of my time since I had taken those classes in high school.

What I soon realized was that my high school AP classes, which had seemed demanding at the time, were not up to the level and depth of the corresponding classes at Rice.

In other words, they were not equivalent.

Unfortunately, I found this out too late to go back and take the introductory courses in my major and give myself a very good foundation for later classes.

So, the students who didn't have the chance to take AP classes may actually be better off because they do not have the option of refusing the introductory classes.

Students may think, well, my AP classes were certainly as rigorous as any college-level class. And those students would not have any problems passing a Rice-administered competency or placement test.

But having those tests in more departments could mean a welcome wake-up call to new students who may be overly confident that they can skip the basics, Rice-style, and jump into upper-level courses.

It would save them a lot of grief later, after getting in over their heads, and would benefit everyone by ensuring that every student in the 300- and 400-level classes has a strong background at the 100-level.

What I've learned from talking to students with varying amounts of AP credit in various subjects is that not every high school curriculum is the same.

It's very possible to get an AP score that automatically grants you credit at Rice without knowing some key concepts in that subject.

It's also possible to score well on an AP test at the end of your junior year in high school but to have totally forgotten the material by freshman year of college.

Knowledge gaps like this would be caught and identified by competency tests. Even though the AP tests are standardized, high school curricula are not.

Every class will cover slightly different material, and some may even omit stuff or cover it superficially.

The people who design the AP tests are fully aware of this, which is why they provide choices on essays and free-response questions to cover a wide-range of topics and only expect proficiency in a few.

It's time that students, high school teachers and college professors became aware of these limitations as well.

Susan Lee

Jones '97

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 15, 1995 issue.

Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights Reserved.
This document may be distributed electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of:
The Rice Thresher, Rice University, 6100 Main, Houston, TX 77005-1892, USA.