While Advanced Placement credits may save students money and time, professors think they may be hurting their college education.
In an editorial published Wednesday in Education Week, Paul Von Blum, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said AP credits have only served to diminish the quality of a liberal arts education for a number of reasons, one of them being that students aren't retaining the information.
In a telephone interview, Von Blum said high school students are memorizing material and learning it with the goal of passing the AP exam and not for the purpose of gaining knowledge.
Joe Spillane, chairman of UF's history department, said he has seen the same patterns in his department.
"It is certainly true at UF that we have seen over the last 10 years really dramatic changes with respect to the number of students coming in with AP credits," Spillane said.
The biggest problem the department faces is having underclassmen flood upper-level history courses without having taken any 2000-level classes, he said.
The "U.S. history survey," which encompasses two classes designed to teach the basics of American history, isn't attracting nearly as many students as it used to, Spillane said.
In both United States to 1877 and United States Since 1877, the decline in enrollment has been steady over the past five years, he said. Spillane said the department is reorganizing upper-level course offerings because enrollment in the survey courses has leveled-off.
While faculty members are tailoring courses to accommodate students with AP credits, the consensus among Spillane and his colleagues is that students in these courses are less prepared for the material despite coming in with credits.
Pramod Khargonekar, dean of UF's College of Engineering, said that point could also be applied to his college.
Khargonekar agreed that students who take their introductory science courses at UF are provided with a better foundation for the future.
He said many incoming students heed the advice of the engineering advisors because their major requires five years of extensive math and science.
While both Khargonekar and Spillane acknowledged that some AP students come well prepared, they said most UF courses are more in-depth than their AP counterparts.
The same goes for UCLA's Von Blum.
Von Blum said he always does a remedial review in his upper-level courses.
Students' lack of preparation could also be attributed to a lack of maturity when being taught the information in high school, he said.
The crux of Von Blum's argument centers on the idea that entering college with AP credits deprives students of their overall undergraduate experience.
The notion of "let's just get through as fast as possible" exists, Von Blum said, adding that this mode of thinking cheapens the college experience.
When asked what type of guidance he offers his students, Von Blum was blunt.
"I tell them to take their academic work seriously, and don't bother to take AP," he said.
Deanne McIntosh, a UF sophomore, came to college with three credits in American history.
Because she only came in with three, she said she didn't feel like she had missed out on her undergraduate experience.
"If anything, it just helped me but didn't hurt me in any way," McIntosh said.
Stephanie Foss, also a sophomore, came to UF with AP credits in biology, chemistry, statistics and English.
Foss said taking AP classes was somewhat of a waste. She is reviewing the same material in her English class.
"The stuff I learned in them helped, but I retook everything I learned in AP," Foss said.
