Advancing Beyond APs

A: Free from the constraints set by the College Board, DA’s Advanced courses will leverage the creativity and expertise of our faculty to develop courses that are more dynamic, relevant, and empowering for students. Taking charge of our own course offerings will allow us to always innovate our curriculum to stay on the forefront of pedagogies, student interests, and global changes. Departments  are currently developing new Advanced courses and making Advanced versions of older AP courses. While students will be able to sign up for some pilot Advanced courses for 2023–2024, the full slate of Advanced offerings will be available in early 2024 after the courses have gone through the usual approval process for new courses. 

A: DA is committed to always innovating its curriculum to ensure that it is offering its students meaningful learning experiences and best-in-class preparation for college and beyond. An Upper School academic task force spent two years examining how well the curriculum provided by the College Board serves our students and supports our mission. Two years’ worth of curricular review, and thoughtful, strategic work was devoted to answering the question that many independent schools are also asking: is a cookie-cutter, third-party curriculum the best possible learning experience that our students can have? And the answer is no.

Shifting to an internally designed, Advanced curriculum will  give students more opportunities to pursue their genuine interests while engaging in top-level, rigorous work. The shift will provide more space in the classroom for student inquiry and voice; allow for deep rather than broad explorations of relevant topics; and position our curriculum to continually evolve in more experiential, interdisciplinary, and project-based directions. 

A: No, this is not about making school easier. In fact, our Advanced courses will be more challenging than AP courses in important ways. In most AP courses, the top-level skills involve retaining and synthesizing vast amounts of complex information at a fast pace. In our Advanced courses, students will still be asked to synthesize complex information, but they will go beyond that to also cultivate more relevant skills. These skills include: deep understanding, independent problem-solving, genuine inquiry, application of knowledge to globally relevant situations, collaboration, sustained research, and authentic demonstrations of learning. In Advanced courses, students might spend as much or more  time and energy than they currently do on AP coursework, but because they will be more often pursuing their own questions and creating new knowledge and new artifacts, that time should feel less burdensome and be more productive. In this rethinking of academic excellence, learning becomes more of a process of inquiry and discovery and less one of endurance and stamina. 

A: This is the culmination of strategic work and curricular alignment that started five years ago, and was interrupted by two years of responding to COVID-19. Once we moved out of an emergency mode of operation, we returned to that work. In fact, putting that work on pause put us behind other elite, peer schools who have moved forward with this shift, and to positive results. 

For almost a decade, DA faculty have devoted countless professional development days and departmental retreats to aligning the curriculum both horizontally and vertically (following the Understanding by Design framework). They have firm, concrete goals (Transfer Goals) that set standards for student progression through each subject’s most advanced levels. Those goals and standards reach well beyond those set by the College Board. Through its work on curricular alignment our faculty has come to feel the weight and limitations of teaching to a test. They are energized about the possibilities that moving beyond APs present for deeper, more meaningful courses.

A: AP courses prepare students for extensive standardized exams that only vaguely reflect the kind of relevant skills that will be expected of students in college and in their careers. Learning for a test is antithetical to everything the DA experience is about and our promise of an exceptional, well-rounded education. It’s also a plainly outdated model for teaching and learning. We know that when students learn for an exam, that learning is often ephemeral. In contrast, when students understand why they’re learning what they’re learning, that learning becomes much more enduring.  

In most AP courses, the top-level skills involve retaining and synthesizing vast amounts of complex information at a fast pace. Do we want them to synthesize and retain complex information? Absolutely. But that shouldn’t be the top skill that our students learn in our most challenging courses. In emphasizing more relevant, real-world skills like deep (rather than broad) understanding, independent problem-solving, genuine inquiry, sustained research, application of knowledge to relevant situations, collaboration, and authentic demonstrations of learning, students will be cultivating the kinds of skills that will help them to thrive in college and beyond. At DA, academic rigor is about more than just mastery of information; it’s also about application of knowledge to novel situations and about original, creative thinking. 

A:
1. We provide students with the best, most rigorous education possible, given our talented community of teachers and learners. 

2. Students develop real-world, relevant skills that will create more opportunities and options in their lives. Interdisciplinary learning, opportunities for research and distinctive academic experiences where students can choose courses based on their interests at an advanced level and set their own pace. 

3. The DA Upper School will have a distinctive curriculum that students cannot get at another school. It will be mission-aligned and more robust and more relevant than what the College Board offers. 

4. In terms of teaching and learning, this move will position DA among some of the leading institutions in the independent school landscape.

5. DA will have an advanced, rigorous, robust curriculum that allows students to truly distinguish themselves in the eyes of college admissions officers.

A: Yes. Our college counseling deans have previewed this decision with more than 70 college and university admissions officers who visited campus in fall 2022. All but one indicated they had no concerns or hesitations about DA Advancing Beyond APs. In a survey sent to DA’s five-year college matriculation list, we saw consistent support for DA’s decision. Schools’ consistent request was to simply make sure that Advanced coursework was clearly reflected on a student’s academic transcript.

A: College admissions officers will receive a detailed explanation within our 2023–2024 school profile, forecasting this change and explaining how they will be able to easily identify Advanced coursework. Advanced coursework will have a specific designation. DA’s most Advanced courses, as well as scope and sequence, will be easily distinguished within a student’s academic record. Starting in the 2024–2025 school year, this change will be noted on both the school profile and the student’s academic transcript.

A: Fortunately, DA has been incredibly successful in college admissions and DA’s full curriculum (not just APs) is widely recognized as providing an exceptionally strong foundation for college. The most selective colleges and universities are looking for rigor as defined by the institution, not the College Board. Students are always considered within the context of their school. We asked college admissions officers what distinguishes individual students within tens of thousands of annual applications, and their examples were: 

• rigorous courses and GPA

• alignment with the college/university’s values

• recommendation letters and extracurriculars

• the college essay

• academic interests or a major aligned with the college/university

• a focus on one or two sustained, deeply developed interests vs. a multitude of activities

• a special talent (arts or athletics)

• an additional connection to the institution (legacy or donor)

• demonstrated interest or correspondence

AP courses were not mentioned because they are no longer a marker of distinction for students at independent schools. College admissions officers are trying to craft a first-year class out of tens of thousands of applicants. With that kind of volume, it’s not APs that will make an individual applicant stand out. Our independently designed Advanced courses will give students the opportunity to distinguish themselves in ways that showcase both their academic rigor and their genuine interests.  

A: For the foreseeable future, DA will continue to offer AP exams. We recognize that at the moment, there are no other ways for our students to take AP exams except through DA. Our move away from APs will create more pathways for students to distinguish themselves in ways that reflect their genuine interests. For some students, certain AP exam scores might help them to demonstrate their intellectual passions and strengths. DA will have a testing option available for students who would like to submit AP scores to U.S. colleges and universities who still provide credit for them, or for students who are required to submit AP scores as part of their application to international colleges and universities. 

However, test preparation will be entirely the responsibility of the student. Students who sign up for an AP exam will need to learn on their own about the exam’s format, rubrics, and any content not covered by the DA course — and that is on top of keeping up with their coursework and class time missed for taking the exams. No DA course will include any explicit exam preparation. In this way, students will want to make signing up for an AP exam an informed and intentional decision that aligns with their individual goals. 

A: As always, new courses are developed by individual or teams of teachers who bring their proposal first to their department and then to the Academic Committee. Final course approval comes from the students themselves based on their registration. 

Current AP teachers who want to transition their course into an Advanced course will audit their current course and retain whatever skills, rubrics, assessments and content they think are important for accomplishing their larger course goals. There will also be brand-new Advanced courses. 

DA has not been fully reliant on the College Board for its most advanced courses. Most advanced courses at DA already venture well beyond the College Board’s dictates. Fortunately, the Upper School curriculum has never been more aligned than it is right now, with an intentional, overarching and distinct curricular framework for each department featuring relevant skills that both colleges and employers value. We will use this curriculum to guide what and how we teach – and to develop tools for coaching, supporting, and evaluating faculty.