AP Recruitment

[Paula Courtemanche]

OK, it's getting to that time of year when kids make decisions about their course selections for next year. Last year we tried to recruit students by having an open house. The kids were selected from the AP Potential list and invited, with their parents, to a night introducing them to AP classes. It wasn't that successful - only about a dozen kids and their parents (out of a school of 3000). Another method was to go into the feeder classes with previous students to talk to the kids. That seemed to work the best.

What kind of strategies to you use to recruit students? What has been the most successful? We are in the middle of a 5 year grant that puts pressure on us to increase our number of AP students enrolled in classes and to increase success rate.

[Jen]

Paula,
I'm curious (and please don't take this the wrong way) about your statement that kids were "selected from the AP Potential list" - what do you use for criteria to be on this "potential" list? I only ask because (and again, forgive me, I don't know the situation at your school or the requirements your school may have for AP courses) it seems to me that once you begin excluding students from this list, you *might* be losing quite a few kids who are really interested in biology, but since they weren't "invited" to this special night, assume that they are not allowed to be in the course and don't even attempt to register for it.
What I have been doing - last year and this year - is active recruiting by me personally. Yes, I did target the honors biology classes, but I also had the "regular" biology teachers and chemistry teachers post fliers and mention the course to kids and simply to see me IF they had questions. There was no application or any suggestion that a kid could not be in the course. Here are the "requirements" at my school:
1) have taken the first year biology course (any level)
2) have taken OR be concurrently taking Chemistry (I prefer honors chem, but I'll take them regardless)
3) motivation / like biology - which I talk to the kids about.

In all fairness, we did NOT offer AP the year before I took over from the last teacher - she did not have enough numbers that year to make a class. Also, the school had maybe 15-20 kids each year prior to my teaching it this year. I had 62 kids register for 3 sections this year - first time ever for this school. I'm down to 57 - 3 are legitimate drops - they could not handle the material for various reasons. Two just moved out of state due to family issues.
Now, also keep in mind - 35 of those kids are sophomores - we allowed them to take it provided they enrolled in chemistry as well (so doubling up on sciences) and they are all doing fine. My philosophy on this is that they retain more info when they have the course back-to-back. I did it in Florida and it worked great - I had sophs making 5s on the exam and although that is NOT my goal in the course, I believe the retention is better and they are LESS stressed soph year than in junior/senior years.
I'm beginning my recruitment this year already - I've visited 2 of the other honors classes and have spoken with my honors kids directly, and kids are beginning to trickle in to ask me questions and pick up an info flyer that I make up and photocopy. It's basic in nature - but it gives them an idea of what they are getting into. Also, (and I didn't know they were already doing this) I've asked my current students to talk to their friends about AP bio and encourage them - IF they like biology - to sign up.
This is what works for me and our school - might not work for every school depending on your policies, but I've seen success with it. If you contact me in August, I can give you statistics for how my sophs did on the test, but honestly, there are only 2 of them that I am concerned about not doing well on the exam - and it's due to some testing issues, not ability. My other ones that I'm concerned about are ALL seniors (about 3 or 4 of them).
One more point - I know it comes down to test scores in the eyes of the administration. And BELIEVE me I'm feeling the pressure this year due to our little "experiment" in allowing sophs in (again, had never been allowed before I came in). As much as we, as teachers, know what our kids can gain by taking AP, admin still wants to "boast" at the end of the year - and I get that too. It's a fine line to walk. I can only speak to my personal experience of how this has worked for me - hope some of it might work for you :) Jen