|
February 24, 2006
ANDOVER, Mass. — Based on the compiled results of recent Advanced Placement (AP) exams, the College Board has recognized Phillips Academy for offering music theory and physics courses that are “the strongest in the world.”
According to the College Board, no other school in the world of a similar size to Andover had a greater percentage of its student body achieve a grade of 3 or more on three different AP exams: the AP Music Theory exam, the AP Physics Mechanics C exam, and the AP Physics Electricity and Magnetism C exam. Andover’s statistics were compared to those of other “large size” schools that enroll 800 or more students in grades ten through twelve.
Making the honor particularly noteworthy is the fact that Andover is the only school in New England, and just one of eight schools of any size in the world, to be recognized by the College Board for earning such a distinction on three or more AP exams. In total, the College Board administers AP exams in thirty-five different subject areas.
The recognition of Phillips Academy’s courses was included in the College Board’s recently released Advanced Placement Report to the Nation. According to the annual report, all fifty states saw an increase in the percentage of students who achieved a grade of 3 or more on an AP exam. New York was the top performing state, as 23% of the members of the class of 2005 from the public schools of that state earned at least one AP exam grade of 3 or more. AP exams are graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with a grade of 3 or more representing mastery of the subject. Many colleges offer college credits to students who perform well on the exams.
This marks the second year in a row that Andover has won top honors for these three particular AP exams. In addition, Andover students performed well on AP exams in other subject areas. In 2005, 429 Andover students took 1,101 AP exams, and 96% of those students achieved a grade of 3 or better on at least one AP exam. Fifty-five percent scored a top mark of 5 on at least one exam.
However, it was the performance of the Andover students who took the music theory and physics exams that was particularly impressive. For example, of the thirty-one students who took the music theory exam in 2005, thirty received a top score of 5. Similarly, more than 75% of the students who took the physics exams scored either a 4 or 5.
Elizabeth Aureden, chair of Andover’s music department, credited music instructor Peter Warsaw for the students’ performance on the AP Music Theory exam. Noting that he has taught Andover’s AP music theory course for twenty years, Aureden said, “Peter is an organized teacher who has thought very carefully about how to move kids through this material in a systematic way. What’s really remarkable is that the kids in his class have a wide variety of skill levels, yet he still manages to get them to perform at an exceptionally high level. That’s a very hard thing to do.”
For his part, Warsaw credits a number of factors for the success, not the least of which is the quality of the students themselves. “We have some very talented students with a passion for music and the ambition to explore it in-depth. And that’s not a given at many high schools. We do a lot of analytical work in this course, and it is the rare 15-year-old who is ready for that and is already thinking analytically about the world.”
As for the physics exams, success results from more of a team effort, as there are six physics teachers involved in teaching the seven sections of AP Physics offered by the school. “It’s hard to attribute it to a particular teaching style,” said Kathleen Pryde, chair of the physics department, “since we don’t all teach exactly the same way. But we all do expect our students to be independent learners, and we teach them with the assumption that they are. And the students are very mature and are ready to be challenged.”
The College Board is a not-for-profit membership association whose mission is to connect students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the association is composed of more than 5,000 schools, colleges, universities, and other educational organizations. Among its best-known programs are the SAT®, the PSAT/NMSQT®, and the Advanced Placement Program®. For more information on the College Board, go to www.collegeboard.com.
|
