New AP Electives Bring New Opportunities for Students

      Masterman has always been a school full of overachievers. This was made clear during the latest round of AP course selection. In previous years, Masterman students were severely limited by the low number of AP courses offered, especially for underclassmen. 

      Mr. Gilken, the high school dean, describes next year’s solution to increase the availability of AP courses throughout the high school: “Even though Masterman is one of the top schools, we have limited AP offerings below senior year. So what we’re trying to do is slowly increase AP offerings in lower grades.”  Previously, freshmen and sophomores could not take AP classes, juniors could take a maximum of three with most taking only two, and seniors could take a maximum of four. Next year, more courses are being offered than ever before. The new offerings include the opportunity to take AP Chemistry, AP Spanish, and AP French as a junior (these courses were previously only offered to seniors), as well as AP Seminar as a prerequisite for AP Research. This greatly increases the number of AP classes and college credits that students can take and earn before graduation. “Someone could take an AP science junior and senior year, and come out with two AP sciences under their belt, which is a great opportunity,” says Mr. Roache, Chair of the Roster Office. 

       The response from the student body has been mixed. Some were pleased with the increase of options for junior year AP classes, while others hoped for more diverse options outside of the STEM category. When asked about her thoughts on the new courses being offered, Laura Dragomir (10-1) responded, “I am very grateful that we were able to choose our electives and have such a wide berth. I am also grateful that we have the opportunity to do four APs next year, as that was not previously offered.” On the other hand, Naiima Jabati (11-4) answered “I wish we had a bigger variety. Other schools give students more choices based on what career they want to go into, but at Masterman it’s really only science or math.” While the expansion of courses has been long awaited, the new AP classes follow suit with Masterman’s emphasis on STEM studies. 

      Even though not all students wish to pursue science careers, the demand for advanced science courses, specifically AP Chemistry, is very high. This year, more than others, AP Chemistry was overflowing with rising seniors choosing it as their first choice elective. With only 30 spots available, several students were turned away. Fortunately, those rising seniors had other options: they could take AP Biology, AP Physics, or they could take AP Chemistry in the junior lane class. If they chose to take the junior lane AP Chemistry, they would have the opportunity to take either Drama or Art but lose the opportunity to take an AP Language or AP Music Theory class. This would also remove Engineering and Film from their elective options. Rising seniors will have to balance which AP classes they are most interested in, as well as which electives they want to take, as they make their course selections.

      While these new changes currently only affect rising juniors and seniors, there may soon be an AP course offered to sophomores. College Board is currently piloting an AP African American Studies course whose units include “Origins of the African Diaspora; Freedom, Enslavement and Resistance; the Practice of Freedom; and Movements and Debates.” Currently, all sophomores take an honors version of essentially the same course. “[Administration] wanted to run an AP African American History class. It’s a pilot class across the country, and they had to apply for that and didn’t get it…hopefully they pilot it next year and the year after they open it up. It’s a thing [administration] really wanted to do. And that way when you go into your sophomore year, you don’t have to take just African American History, but you can choose it as an AP course,” says Mr. Roache. 

      Overall, it seems that the new AP classes have had a positive response from the students, but as with anything, comes constructive criticism. A next step for the administration would be to try and get other categories of AP classes available to students in every grade. The AP African American history course is a great start.