Advanced Placement classes give students the ability to get a head start to earning their degrees, saving both time and money — however, students in rural environments don’t always have access to the same opportunities.
Research from the College Board concludes AP students are consistently more likely to “enroll in college, stay in college, do well in their classes and graduate in four years.”
While AP course participation remains highest in schools that serve more privileged districts, participation is growing in underserved communities, according to the Student Research Foundation.
Approximately 72,000 AP exams were completed by 22,980 Wisconsin high school graduates in 2019, earning an estimated 159,117 college credits as reported by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Combined, those AP exams saved more than $48 million in college costs.
Still, for many in Wisconsin — especially students in rural high schools — the AP Program is harder to access and leads to fewer opportunities to get the same head start shared by other students from more affluent areas.
Some students now attending UW-Madison experienced the gap in resources for college preparation first-hand.
Hunter Weber graduated from Darlington High School with a class size of 48. She said with the smaller number of AP classes available there weren’t many options to build a college resumé.
“In small schools, there’s so few kids and there’s not very many upper-level classes,” Weber said. “If you want to do something that’s at a[n] upper level, there’s not very many opportunities.”
Annie Haas, graduate of a class of 42 from Hillsboro High School, shared similar sentiments.
“I think [the decision to pursue higher education] was encouraged but never really supported,” Haas said.
Kim Kaukl, former principal of River Valley High School and current executive director of the Wisconsin Rural School Alliance, stated the importance of AP classes in a student’s higher education trajectory.
Still, she acknowledges there are obstacles rural schools must overcome to provide students with one of the country’s most popular college preparatory programs.
Kaukl cites dwindling student numbers and AP teacher qualifications as main causes for concern when it comes to rural schools.
He explained one solution to overcome those issues was for classes to participate through online telepresence: where an in-house teacher acted as an overseer, advocate and technical support system, which has helped give some rural students a similar head start.
“We’re seeing a lot more of our rural students … going into technical college or the university level with anywhere between a semester and almost two semesters of course work under their belt already,” Kaukl said. “And we’re seeing a number of those students now graduate in three, three and a half, instead of four or five years.”
However, Riley Hazelberg and Alyssa Oechsner, graduates of Horicon High School, had a different experience with the telepresence class format.
They both signed up for an AP Calculus class taught remotely. A neighboring school had a camera set up facing the whiteboard, and then Skype with Hazelberg and Oechsner’s class — if the WiFi connectivity permitted.
It took them two weeks before they realized network connectivity issues made it practically impossible to actually connect with their professor.
“The person that was our teacher and was in charge of us while we had class was basically just an over-glorified babysitter because they just sat there and tried to set up the Skype that never worked,” said Hazelberg.
The neighboring school through which they were taking the class had a different hourly schedule resulting in an awkward 25 minutes of “nothing” before the start. Following that, the class would intrude 25 minutes into their next period.
Both ended up dropping the class — along with every other student besides two, according to Oechsner. Aside from accessibility concerns, Hazelberg added she worried the class would “tank her GPA.”
With many students already dealing with the stress of applying to college, rural students must also deal with the burden of unequal access to courses that will potentially better prepare them and improve their success in college.
“The AP program causes some students excessive academic pressure. They feel that AP participation gives them an edge when they apply to colleges,” the Student Research Foundation stated in a post. “But at the same time, some feel that they need tutoring and extra help to achieve high scores on AP Exams. The result? Another source of pressure for already-stressed students.”
David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, also recognized the shortcomings of the AP course system.
“Even as we celebrate the success of AP, we are alert to the inequities that can undermine student success," Coleman said. “We see thousands of students who count themselves out when it's time to take the exam. That's why we are making the largest investment in Advanced Placement to date by creating new, free resources that will reach students and teachers wherever they are.”
The new investment will grant teachers access to sample AP exam questions to customize practice tests and guides that describe the skills and topics in each unit needed to take the different exams as well as detailed informational guides on student performance for their parents and educators.
But even with the stress, some Wisconsin students have brought AP credits into UW-Madison, allowing them to save time and money, skip remedial classes and illustrate that rural districts are currently helping some students prepare for the university system.
“We continue to work very hard. I think we’ve got great teachers in our rural districts, great administrators,” Kaukl stated. “Sometimes we become our own worst enemy, but we find ways to make things work and better prepare our students to make sure they can compete when they leave our buildings.”
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