Over the past few years, schools across the United States, including Winchester Thurston have been slowly phasing out their Advanced Placement (AP) courses. These courses, created by the College Board, offer high school students undergraduate level curricula ranging from Chemistry to Literature to US History. Eliminating AP courses was a big shift for both students and teachers alike, and with the AP exams just around the corner, I decided to investigate and see how WT has adapted to this change.
Before WT got rid of AP courses, there were many obstacles both students and teachers faced. As the final exam approached, both felt a large time crunch, as there was a vast amount of content that everyone had to cover within 180 days (which is less time than one may expect). In some cases, students who might have needed more time on a topic had to be left behind in order for teachers to cover all of the content in time. As a result, many students struggled to keep up with the fast pace of the course and found themselves cramming for the exam. Along with the difficult pacing, the APs lacked the flexibility to allow teachers and students to further analyze topics that they found interesting or important. Mr. Marx, who had taught AP Chemistry for many years, found this to be one of the most difficult aspects of the course.
“Students would come up with these brilliant questions that I knew didn’t reflect what was going to be on the exam and I would always have to say ‘That’s such a great question. Let’s talk about it after class'” he said.
“It could have sparked a cool project or a lab or a day where I focused on something that they were interested in, but I had to stifle that creativity”.
The decision to phase out APs was a schoolwide choice in order to allow teachers and students to have more dynamic classes. AP courses are designed to teach toward the final exam. What WT is hoping to achieve by phasing out these courses was to create more collaborative projects and experiences that one would encounter in the “real world”. The school also hopes to provide a more engaging environment where people can further investigate topics that they find particularly fascinating or valuable. The 2025-2026 school year was the first one in which no APs were offered and WT is striving to find ways to navigate through this change.
Many teachers at WT have found this first year with no AP courses to be highly rewarding. They have been able to implement unique and fulfilling experiences for students. For example, while other schools are busy prepping for the exam, students in Biotech and Advanced Chemistry have been able to spend the past few weeks collaborating on a cool lab project. This is one of many new, authentic opportunities that will unlock as teachers get used to not always having to teach toward an exam. Another example of a teacher really using this change to their advantage is Dr. Andy, who had not only taught AP European History for many years, but graded the exams as well.
“I love European history and there’s so much to cover and so many fascinating things. But because of teaching to the test, and 700 years of history to get through, you really have to limit what time you spend on things” he stated.
However, with there no longer being an AP European History to teach, Dr. Andy decided to remodel the course, with the first semester focusing on the 19th century and the second one focusing on the 20th.
“Because it’s not an AP class, we can spend a lot of time on depth instead of breadth of history… so teaching students how to debate, how to use sources, how to ask better questions, and how to be a historian”.
Of course, with this new system being implemented, there are new obstacles that teachers must face. As WT navigates through this change, the line for how much support teachers can offer becomes a blurry one. If a student walks in asking a teacher to help them with something that is on the AP exam, but not part of the curriculum, there is a difficult choice that the teacher faces: they can go out of their way and take time out of their busy schedule to help the student prepare for the test, or they could decline the student’s request. Preparing students for the exam is no longer the main aspect of the teacher’s job.
“There’s this slippery slope of how much can I help? Should I help?… It’s weird right? To look at a kid and say ‘No, I can’t help you right now.’ You’ve never had anyone say that to you have you?” Mr. Marx explained.
This dilemma highlights the issue that although preparing students for the final exam is no longer the central focus of teaching, the exam still plays a significant role in a student’s academic future. As a result teachers must constantly balance fairness, time management, and students’ needs, often with no clear guidance on where to draw the line.
With WT’s well-renowned rigorous yet enriching curriculum, one may assume that students no longer need to showcase their expertise in a subject more than they already have. However, a number of students still choose to demonstrate their proficiency in certain subjects by taking AP exams to showcase that they are challenging themselves even further or to receive college credit. Some students also want to receive more experience studying for cumulative exams and see how they compare to the national average.
When it comes to how supported WT students feel during this transition, it really depends on the exams that they have signed up for. Some courses mostly align with the AP curriculum, whereas other ones are quite different, causing students to feel more pressure to be sure that they know all the material for the exam.
“Low key, if you take the AP, the result is on you. Maybe there should be better resources available to those who wish to take the exams, but at the end of the day, it’s in the schools policy that they don’t do APs. So if you feel like you might be struggling, don’t take the exam because it is completely optional” one student remarked.
Yet, whether they are taking the final exam or not, students seem to enjoy the new opportunities that come with discontinuing AP courses. They enjoy how teachers can now design their own classes in their own way, because the teacher’s passion and fascination for the subject reflects onto the students, even when the subject is advanced and doesn’t have much to do with the AP curriculum. Although there are a few obstacles that WT still needs to overcome, both students and teachers seem satisfied with phasing out APs and it seems as though this change will ultimately benefit everyone in the long run.
