welcome to another episode of the my name is burke hazard and as a high school student i know very little about a p courses and how they could help in the future now that i've learned about them i wish i knew sooner in two thousand and sixteen paul weinstein director john hopkins universities graduate program evaluated the top one hundred fifty three colleges and universities on the restrictions for a p credits he found that eighty six percent of the colleges were restricting a p credits nevertheless students should be taking a p courses to benefit them a p courses help students buy a cutting down to it shouldn't be learning what they are passionate about and see training students to be prepared for college classes many colleges give a p credits but many students do not know all of the information the certain restrictions all depend on the a p exam score a scoring of one to five many of the top schools are only accepting a score for perfect five a score or three only shows a student as qualified and may not help according to college board if those credits do count they cut down the cost of college tuition th help if you're paying the tuition yourself a p courses are tough classes designed for certain topics they help many students learn their passions and develop what they want to major these courses also help to others develop interest before college so they can be confident in their may it will also let many colleges have a clear picture on what students want to study according to the u s department of defense education activity approximately eighty five percent of selective colleges and universities reported that they looked at whether or not a student had taken a p courses as part of their admissions decision many students are not prepared for college classes and a p courses help prepare students for them these courses are specifically designed as college level classes these classes helps tearing many students to be prepared for the tough classes in college many of these classes prepare you to make the transition between high school and college classes they also help prepare you to learn more in depth material according to harry edwards studies show that students who took a p classes in high school score higher grades in college than those who did their shows how a p classes should prepare you with with so many questions facing high school students many kids face difficult decisions to try navigate the process i have invited former peers township high school teacher who is currently a college admissions counselor for college admission solutions and in associate member of i e c a crit chris has to and is here to help the scouts the topic more thanks so much for joining us today thanks brooke i would like to start by asking you why are colleges only accepting sound that's one thing that jumped out of me that so many colleges are restricting these credits and these are the top level colleges so this is i believe schools tier one schools so they're restricting them for a number of reasons one is well times it comes down to money so students are taking so many a p classes or ministers are taking so many places now school that they can graduate a semester earlier even a year earlier so that's tuition money that's called we're going to get also some other saying they're a little bit worried about the quality of the classes the students have been taking in high school that they weren't totally prepared for college level classes and that maybe classes are intended to be called level they were saying maybe they want significant suffer only preparing them for the college classes would take let me reach the university ok then how do college is decide whether in a p class it is as you are saying like trying to think of the word like w usually the ivy league schools the tir ones schools or colleges are very selective they're the ones as you said most likely to restrict credits sometimes though require a four or five sometimes only accept a few college credits a student may take you know six seven eight nine ten or more a p classes in high school but they're only ill they will only accept so many credits the college will now want to state schools and public schools so if you want to go to  tt or penn state or slippery rock they will take all your a p clips all your a p credit that you're in high school that you if you pass the the a p test so they'll take your threes and fours in your fives so the schools that aren't as select that aren't as tough to get into or more likely not to restrict your your a p credits is that more of like a budget like why do they accept more and not ivy what you said it was exactly right p class better prepare you for college classes and students who take a p classes are much less likely to drop out of college so one third of all kids who go to college drop out completely so of kids drop out so you can imagine just spent one or two or more years of your life in college plus you paid all that money you don't have student loans and you could've been in the workforce and you just drop out last two years of your life it's horrible so the students who do take a p courses are more likely to stay in graduate so i did so that's beneficial to them upper tier colleges and i really schools they don't have a problem attracting students at all so we figure there's about forty thousand high schools or united states some means of like forty thousand valedictorians probably even more so let's say the forty thousand valedictorians a united state's upper tier i really schools there's only twenty thousand spots in those schools it's twenty thousand kids who are valedictorian to the high school are not getting into an upper level college so that being said so yes taking the a p class so those upper level schools everyone who goes to the upper level to your level but i really schools to one schools they're all taking all the a p classes so they pick courses to them aren't that important but if you're going to go to penn state or pitt and they see a couple they see different students or say well this student talk you know a number of a p courses in what they're going to major so then why should students be taking them and it's time signing factor if they want to go to the top college well if you don't take them and you want to get into a top college it's going to count against  so just because everyone who does get accepted into these upper levels colleges they are taking more time a p courses so if you don't take them it will affect you i'm just saying since everyone who's except this taking them they no rhyme or reason to their decision making policies so there's some colleges who really focus on certain types of majors some colleges are very oriented toward science and colleges and liberal arts colleges very oriented toward literature and history liberal arts things like that political science and so it may not be as important to them that if you're going to a liberal arts school that your science a p courses aren't that important that being said every call it just makes our own decisions and there are just so many things about the college application process and this is making process that we just don't know so there is no cut and dry policy so nobody explains why they're only taking fours and fives when so many other colleges are taking three days sometimes we just don't know so so it all depends on the major pretty much like which credits are accepted not necessarily really depends on what the college emphasizes what  important now so when you're planning a college that's one thing students should be investigating there's ways to find out what the college emphasizes and what kind of students are actually getting into the college that you can go on to the college website and  there are sometimes hidden spots on the website it will tell you what do we value do we value a rigorous curriculum did you take all the courses that you were prepared to take did you really push yourself is that important to you did you get high scores or us if you scores very high the general lot of extra curricular activities did you do a lot of outside community service where you're a leader so when you're in a national honor society did you try to you know that we're looking for a leadership position like being president like so those things you look those up and some colleges highly focused from colleges it's not that big of a deal but you look at a college like denison university it's about three hours west in ohio it's a great school and about twenty two hundred kids are awesome and they graduate almost everybody as a t scores and grade point average or not their greatest focus they're looking for a neat kids kids who are or could be leaders kids who are involved in things so they're looking for they do the job they do the whole package so you're a piece classes may not be that great an influence if you're trying to get into the school and denizen ok but every every college is different you just have to investigate and research what they want ok yeah i thought makes a lot of sense they get it all depends on the colleges and so then how do the high schools decide which credits they are going to implement in their schools every high school is different and every high school has certain emphasis has a certain clientele so peter township has represented to offer a great deal of a p courses they have students who are interested they have no these students are probably going to are going on to higher education they have students who have asked for these courses have lobbied the school to introduce these classes they believe they'll fill the courses they have the teachers who are not only qualified but are willing to go through the training which is not an easy and to do to teach these courses and sometimes there's cost involved so if you're going to teach a p chemistry there's a lot of cost involved in equipment chemicals and things like that so  really depends on what the community it's really what the community wants to hear that like if i wanted to go to more of like a science based school and they'd dinner offer and i school i was going to like any p courses would that count towards being accepted if it was an even offered so if you're looking to go to a major in science and it's like the school your high school didn't offer a p courses that i believe would be at that moment to your application true it now there may be other factors in you your personality your leadership abilities your outside interest just your love of learning that may count in your favor but not taking a p courses when your student who is passion about that subject would be determined to read your passion about that subject in the school offers the a p course and you don't take the course that might be a red flag ok yeah ok so i think that's all the questions we are for this segment will be back right after this short break we're back from this short break i would like to dive in this section more into the benefits of a p credits and maybe their downfalls but i want to i would like to ask you some more about high school credits and what what if they what about the exams that are make them make the exam score the deciding factor towards getting the i mean the one two three four five and kind of where that came from i mean sure where that came from but what the college board does one students feel like they're failures if they took the class but didn't get credit for the college credit so one doesn't really correspond to an a b c d e f like a one is not a failure one is like you are familiar with the concept to you have a reasonable understanding of the topic bring your proficien test taker and you know it's just something i've been with all my life so but if i did really good in the class but then i kind of freaked out on the exam and didn't do so well college experience and high school you can do excellent in that college class so just because you don't get college credit that does have to be the main focus of why you think the a p course so you should think if you take the a p course you should probably take the test but that doesn't mean if you don't get college credit that doesn't mean your course is a waste of time you have so much now insight you have the textbooks are much more expanded in the a p courses so you don't have this experience to carry on in the college so just just develop so many other skills so i want to feel like a failure if i didn't get college credit ok so in your saying i think it develops many other skills like no doubt why other skills doesn't develop well it certainly develops reading skills comprehension skills definitely study skills time management skill scheduling things like that plus you're surrounded by other people other students the teacher chemistry aspects him ology said oh you know that really interest me i'm going to kind of go off on this other candidate and other doors open up so the more you read the more you learn the board your your brain just expands and your interests gr incorporate it into the curriculum well not in them but you benefit from it i'm not sure i'm not sure which of me yeah like wit h question the sorry but with what you are saying how you gain all these benefits from it how do these classes like they don't do they teach it to you like how do they that you that are introduced that you're going to want to investigate on your own you may bring in something like you know science fair or research paper or things like that or maybe you may start looking at colleges that focus on this one aspect that you're very very passionate about so a lot of just  i think there's just a lot of could be a lot of self discovery things you learn about yourself you push yourself a little bit a little bit of stress one person can be very health helpful to be healthy a lot of stress over long terms can be very unhealthy so if you're taking too many a p courses or taking a p courses you're not really passionate about just because you want to be you're comparing yourself to other students things like that that can be a detriment so there so there are downfalls to taking a p credits as well and there's downfalls and benefits to everything so you can think of a p courses as like them medicine so some medicine is there to help you but if you misuse it or you take too much of it you're buz it can cause a lot of issues so this will colleges looking for colleges looking for the student to take as rigorous set of coursework as they're able to handle take thirteen a p courses from freshman the senior year but you don't do anything else you have no extra curricular you know no outside club no volunteering you have no outside learning experiences on your own nothing like that that's a giant red flag for colleges they will not they want to see i don't want to use the term well rounded but they want to see a student who can contribute in a lot of areas so if you're taking a p courses to push your grade point average up that's a whole another topic i think that can be a detriment if you're taking a p courses that are really stressing you out of keeping up the three in the morning i think that's a huge detriment they want to dance who are focused so if you're really interested in science for example but you're taking every a p courses high school offers colleges may be asking themselves why you're just looking for and a lot of times you may have a very high g p a because took a lot of a p courses but ranked well a lot of schools gone high schools don't offer a p courses so they just want to see they need a level playing field for all the high schools and so they need these four that you know four point five or five point zero you better make sure you get an a in that a p course ok how do the colleges on weight the g p a there's certain there's there's actually a calculation that goes along with that ok so going back to what you were saying earlier about like i'd say the downfall is like why is there anything is there a reason why i shouldn't take any a p credits but you say that i should take at least one depends on the student so i would never say as a whole when going to the auditorium with all students say yes you must take at least one a p course are you must take so many  themselves in the future using them using this information college yes so if you can handle the a p courses that's what colleges are looking for but you shouldn't drive yourself crazy taking all these extra courses that's ruining your life ok so is there anything i could do if i was taking them but i wasn't doing so was or a way to get back up onto this horse i tend to play definitely yeah so taking a p courses not going so well there's a lot of options first honestly the first option is to get an outside tutor that's what probably a lot of people do there's other things like khan academy i know the teachers in this that are very helpful there's a little i know the teachers in the school and their extreme helpful so if you went to any one of your teach and say you know i don't like doing so i need some extra help i'm sure they would they would make that happen for it so honestly it's probably just a little bit of personalise attention so that being said if you feel that you're going to get a c and a p course it's better not to take your pick or so ok no doubt so if i was taking one and i wasn't and i didn't feel like i was going to pass would you feel ok to drop out or should i sta but if i was taking wine and and i would what if i wasn't getting enough out of the course what should i do again that's could be a personal decision whether you know you want to drop the course i'm not sure that i'm not sure that's a detriment if that's a detriment or not that's just going to be a personal decision i'm you know there's no magic early in the early in the year ok so going off of how the teachers are good do you think teachers should keep a learning and why do you think no doubt yes teachers are continually learning so even the teaching a p course the teacher they look the school looks at the quality of the teacher look at the teachers background how they were trained the probably look at their college grades the teachers have to take their own outside courses usually during the summer just to be able to teach a p courses so the a p teachers are highly trained above and beyond other teachers just for this a p course so they know how to teach the class the material they know how to write test questions that are appropriate for this course that may not be appropriate for normal a normal class so then that training a training never and you can talk to teacher say you know they'll tell you over the summer and if you're six weeks here the summer of your three weeks here just to keep up with things and not only material but how to actually teach the material ok i think that's enough time we have for today so avery course is may have their downfalls but these courses still benefit you in the long run they may help you pay some college tuition but that may not be the case two to restrictions but that is not the only plus it may help you learn what you are  passionate about and what you want to do so i hope to prepare for you for the hardships of college classes and to add many colleges also expected to take a p classes like yale who stated we only accept expect you to take advantage of a p courses if your high school provides that many colleges use this as a guideline to see if you are challenging yourself for tuning in this is an episode of the ads