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Definition of coursework

Examples of coursework in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'coursework.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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1890, in the meaning defined above

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“Coursework.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coursework. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.

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Meaning of coursework in English

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• academic year
• access course
• Advanced Placement
• asynchronous
• immersion course
• on a course
• open admissions
• the national curriculum
• work placement

Examples of coursework

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Word of the Day

a type of singing in which four, usually male, voices in close combination perform popular romantic songs, especially from the 1920s and 1930s

Alike and analogous (Talking about similarities, Part 1)

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What Are Core Academic Classes?

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The term "core courses" refers to the list of courses that provide a broad foundation for your education. When it comes to their admissions policies, most colleges will calculate your grade point average using only the grades from your core academic classes.

Also, once a student is in college, core courses have their own numbering and identifying characteristics as well as requirements. Understanding what core courses are can be confusing to students, and this confusion can be costly.

High School Core Courses

Generally, the core courses in high school include the following:

• Math: Three to four years (algebra, geometry, calculus)
• English: Four years (composition, literature, speech)
• Social science : Three to four years (history, sociology, psychology, political science , geography, economics)
• Science :  Normally three years (earth science, biology, chemistry, physics)

In addition, colleges will require credits in visual or performing arts, foreign language , and computer skills. Unfortunately, students sometimes struggle in one or more core areas. Some students believe that they can increase their grade average by taking an elective, such as a physical education class.

While a good grade in a non-academic class might give you a confidence boost, scoring well in an elective class probably won’t help when it comes to college entry. Take fun classes to break up the schedule, but don't count on them to pave your way into college.

It's important to maintain a high GPA, even in the early years of high school, but particularly in core courses. If ever you find yourself slipping behind in the important courses, seek assistance right away.

Core Academic Courses in College

Most colleges also require a similar list of courses that provide a foundation for your college education. College core often includes English, math, social sciences, humanities, and science.

There are a few things you should know about college core courses. Core classes that you complete in one college may or may not transfer to another college. Policies change from one college to another and from one state to another. Additionally, in any given state, core requirements can be very different when switching from state colleges to private colleges.

Core Course Numbers and Requirements

College courses are generally numbered (like English 101). Core classes in college usually begin with a 1 or 2. Core classes that you complete for one degree program may not complete the core requirements for another program. If you change your major from history to chemistry, for example, you may find that your core requirements change. 

Core sciences may or may not contain a lab. STEM majors (science, technology, engineering, and math) will require more lab sciences that non-STEM majors. Core courses serve as prerequisites for upper-level college courses. This means that you must be successful in certain core courses (like English 101 ) before you can enroll in higher courses of the same discipline (like English 490).

Successful completion of a core course usually means earning a C or better. No matter how successful you are in a high school subject, the college course of the same name will be tougher.

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the work required of a student in a particular course of study; classroom work .

curricular studies or academic work .

Origin of coursework

Words nearby coursework.

• course protractor
• court-bouillon
• court Christian

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use coursework in a sentence

Derek Dodson is practicing with the Georgetown University soccer team for a rescheduled season while preparing for the resumption of senior coursework next week.

In San Diego, and throughout the state, an unconscionable number of students are failing or haven’t completed their coursework .

She took a full load of classes in the spring, summer and fall, and in November completed all the coursework for an undergraduate degree in psychology.

Pevzner, who took over the program in 2017, still heads into the field—though day to day he focuses more on developing coursework and swapping insights with similar programs around the world.

Although most schools have increased their offerings of online coursework , the number and sizes of in-person classes vary widely, as does the density of students in on-campus housing.

Digital art coursework at the Rhode Island School of Design simultaneous with an English Ph.D. at Yale?

Her pre-college education had been weak, and Leo was utterly unprepared for the academic part of the coursework .

An obsession with college preparation permeated all of our coursework .

The ad-hocs spent their time badmouthing the profs and tearing apart their coursework .

British Dictionary definitions for coursework

/ ( ˈkɔːsˌwɜːk ) /

written or oral work completed by a student within a given period, which is assessed as an integral part of an educational course

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

• Vol. 6, No. 1

The Traditional High School

Jeffrey Mirel

There have been, of course, winners and losers on both sides throughout this long discussion, as our high schools have grown into multibillion-dollar institutions serving, or ill serving, hundreds of millions of American adolescents.

Yet the question of winners and losers in this debate about our secondary schools is, to borrow a phrase, aca­demic. The reality is that, quite some time ago, our high schools were set on a course of diversification. And the questions today are whether and how much this “comprehensive high school” has contributed to the declining quality of secondary education in this country. On this issue, we can learn much from history.

Committee of Ten v. Cardinal Principles

There is little dispute about the historical importance of the report of the Committee of Ten. Appointed by the National Education Association (NEA), the committee, composed mainly of presidents of leading colleges, was charged with establishing curriculum standardization for public-high-school students who intended to go to college. During the previous half century, from roughly 1840 to 1890, the public high school had gradually emerged from the shadow of the private academy. While enrollments were still small by today’s standards (probably less than 5 percent of American teenagers attended  public high school in the post-Civil War era), by the 1870s and 1880s the number of public secondary schools was increasing fast enough to occasion some attention. And the Committee of Ten was convened to bring some order to the varied curricula that were growing with them.

Under the leadership of Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University, the committee undertook a broad and comprehensive exploration of the role of the high school in American life, concluding, significantly, that all public-high-school students should follow a college preparatory curriculum, regardless of their backgrounds, their intention to stay in school through graduation, or their plans to pursue higher education. As Eliot, author of the final report, put it, “every subject which is taught at all in a secondary school should be taught in the same way and to the same extent to every pupil so long as he pursues it, no matter what the probable destination of the pupil may be, or at what point his education is to cease.…”

From Eliot’s perspective, high schools fulfilled the promise of equal opportunity for education by insisting that all students take the same types of rigorous academic courses. While the Committee of Ten did suggest different programs of study for high schools (for example, programs specializing in classical languages, science and mathematics, or modern languages) and introduced the concept of electives to American high schools, its guiding principle was that all students should receive the same high-quality liberal arts education.

It is not hard to see where the battle lines would have been drawn, even then, especially as a wave of new immigrants was bringing tens of thousands of foreign adolescents to our shores. G. Stanley Hall, a noted psychologist and president of Clark University, denounced the Committee of Ten’s curriculum recommendations, because, he said, most high-school students were part of a “great army of incapables … who should be in schools for the dullards or subnormal children.” Numerous critics joined Hall in attacking the Committee’s report as an elitist view of reality. But the reality was that soon the number of students aged 14–17 attending high school soared, rising from 359,949, less than 6 percent of the age group, to 4,804,255, almost 51 percent of the age group, between 1890 and 1930 (see Figure 1).

In the middle of this demographic revolution, in 1918, another NEA group, this one called the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, issued a manifesto that turned the fundamental belief of the Committee of Ten on its head. It called for expanded and differentiated high-school programs, which it believed would more effectively serve the new and diverse high-school student population.

This commission’s final report, Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education , built its case on two interrelated assumptions that became central to discussions of the American high school formost of the 20th century. First, it assumed that most new high-school students were less intelligent than previous generations of students. Second, it claimed that since these new students lacked the intellectual ability, aspirations, and financial means to attend college, it was counterproductive to demand that they follow a college-preparatory program. Such a hard-core regimen would force many of the “inferior” students to quit school, exactly the opposite of what the country wanted. Put simply, the Cardinal Principles proponents believed that requiring all students to follow the same academic course of study increased edu cational inequality. The proposed solution to these problems was curricular differentiation, a policy that allowed students to follow programs and take courses suited to their interests, abilities, and needs.

The Faux Equality of Diversity

It’s possible, of course, to see the origins of the fault lines in these early reports as a product of the differences of the perspectives of the people who were on the two committees. While the Committee of Ten membership leaned toward college (in addition to the college presidents, it included two  headmasters and a college professor), the Commission for the Reorganization of Secondary Education was dominated by members of the newly emerging profession of education, specifically, professors from schools and colleges of education. Thus focused on high school as an increasingly independent entity, the Cardinal Principles team endorsed a new institution, the “comprehensive high school,” which would offer students a wide array of curriculum choices.

As we know now, the Cardinal Principles team won.

And they won because supporters of comprehensive high schools defined equal education as equal access to different and unequal programs. Guided by the new IQ tests (which did as much as any single thing to convince American educators that tracking was not only possible but preferable) and the rise of guidance and counseling programs (which could match young people with the curriculum track best suited to their“scientifically” determined individual profiles), America entered an era of democratic dumbing down: the equal opportunity to choose (or be chosen for) failing programs. Proponents of comprehensive high schools argued that these curriculum options would encourage increasing numbers of students to stay in school and graduate, already a standard by which to judge high-school effectiveness. Unlike the Committee of Ten model, in which all students followed similar college preparatory programs, in the Cardinal Principles model equal educational opportunity was achieved because all graduates received the same ultimate credential, a high-school diploma, despite having followed very different education programs and having met very different standards in the process.

Economic Imperatives

By 1920 most big-city high schools in the country were offering four high-school tracks: college preparatory, commercial (which prepared students, mostly young women, for office work), vocational (industrial arts and home economics), and general (which offered a high-school diploma without any specific preparation for future educational or vocational endeavors). But most American high-school students were still following a college preparatory course of study, though few went on to college: less than 17 percent of 14–17-year-olds even graduated from high school. In 1928, for example, more than two-thirds of the classes taken by American high-school students were in the traditional academic areas of English, foreign languages, math, science, and social studies. Industrial arts and home economics, the most widely touted vocational courses, accounted for less than 9 percent of student course taking.

In essence, high schools in this period balanced important aspects of both the Committee of Ten and Cardinal Principles . These schools maintained strong academic programs, but they also offered enough vocational and elective courses for students to have some curricular choice. In effect, the nation’s urban high schools, which served increasing numbers of young people from poor and immigrant families, were arguably providing the best academic and, for a smaller number of students, vocational education available in the United States at that time.

Unfortunately, this situation changed drastically in the 1930s. The collapse of the national economy, particularly the collapse of the youth labor market, forced a huge number of adolescents back to school. By 1940, 7,123,009 students between the ages of 14 and 17 were in high school, more than 73 percent of the age group. Amid this unprecedented enrollment surge (an increase of some 2.3 million students over 1930), education leaders once again argued that the intellectual abilities of the new high-school entrants were weaker than those of previous groups of students; and these new students needed access to less-demanding courses. L. A. Williams, an education professor from the University of California–Berkeley, wrote in a 1944 book that most American high-school students of the era were simply “incapable of learning so-called liberal subjects.” These education leaders reiterated their belief that a rigorous regimen of courses would force many of the new students to drop out, a dreadful prospect during the Great Depression.

The economic crisis and the resulting enrollment boom combined to produce a profoundly important shift in the nature and function of high schools. Increasingly, their task was custodial, to keep students out of the adult world (that is, out of the labor market) instead of preparing them for it. As a result, educators channeled increasing numbers of students into undemanding, nonacademic courses, while lowering standards in the academic courses that were required for graduation. Though justified by claims that these curriculum changes increased equal opportunity of education, in reality they had a grossly un equal impact on white working-class young people and the growing number of black students who entered high schools in the 1930s and 1940s. These students were disproportionately assigned to nonacademic tracks (particularly the general track) and watered-down academic courses.

The Hell of Democratic Intentions

As David Angus and I discovered in researching our book on the history of the American high school ( The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890–1995 ), these curriculum policy changes led to changes in student course taking. Between 1928 and 1934, academic course taking dropped from 67 percent to slightly more than 62 percent. The most telling aspect of that shift: Health and Physical Education (PE) courses increased from 4.9 to 11.5 percent of total course taking nationwide. These courses were entertaining, relevant to young people’s lives outside of school, required little or no homework, and, for PE, were amenable to high student/teacher ratios.

Over the next half century health and PE was the fastest-growing segment of course taking. By 1973 it was second only to English in the percent of student course taking nationwide.

As these less-demanding, nonintellectual courses proliferated, a new “movement” was born, the Life Adjustment Movement, a federally sponsored curriculum reform effort that began soon after World War II. According to Charles Prosser, the father of Life Adjustment, only 20 percent of American young people could master academic content; another 20 percent were capable of doing vocational subjects; and the remaining 60 percent needed courses in subjects like health and PE, effective use of leisure time, driver training, and knowledge of such “problems of American democracy” as dating, buying on credit, and renting an apartment.

Stimulated by the Life Adjustment Movement, the dilution of the high-school curriculum continued apace. In 1928 nonacademic courses accounted for about 33 percent of the classes taken by U.S. high-school students; by 1961 that number had increased to 43 percent. One stunning fact puts into perspective this dramatic growth of the nonacademic segment of the curriculum: in 1910 the share of high-school work devoted to each of the five basic academic subjects (English, foreign language, mathematics, science, and history) enrolled more students than all of the nonacademic courses combined; by 1982, more than 39 percent of all high-school coursework was in nonacademic subjects.

Despite the sharp decline in the share of academic course taking, indeed, because of this decline, education leaders in the 1940s and 1950s declared that significant progress was being made toward equal opportunity for education. Pointing to growing high-school enrollments and graduation rates as evidence of the success of their policies, education leaders reiterated that getting diplomas in the hands of more students was far more egalitarian than having all students educated in discipline-based subject matter.

Still, as early as the late 1940s, researchers were discovering high correlations between track placements and social class. And by 1961, a study of the Detroit public schools found that students from the poorest families in the district were eight times more likely to be in the general track than children from upper-income families.

As the cold war bore down on the nation, this transformation of the high school from a ladder to success into a vast warehouse for youth should have alarmed many Americans. Indeed, in the 1950s some critics, most notably University of Illinois historian Arthur Bestor, denounced these trends, claiming that they had turned high schools into “educational wastelands.” But educators gave little heed to such criticism.

Part of the reason for this complacency lay in the apparent success of the curriculum reforms, a success defined more by quantity than by quality. Between 1950 and 1970, the number of students in grades 9 through 12 more than doubled, from 6,397,000 to 14,337,000, from 76.1 to 92.2 percent  of 1 4 –17 – year-olds. Citing these enrollment increases, defenders of the comprehensive high school, primarily school superintendents and professors in schools and colleges of education, declared that the institution was functioning well. Clearly, they argued, the relevant, less-demanding curriculum was attracting larger numbers of students and keeping them in school longer. As one education leader in Detroit put it, “We are trying to keep the dropout rate down and keep youngsters in school as long as possible by offering interesting, attractive, and constructive courses.” They did not consider that the decline of the youth labor market, which had begun in the 1930s, may have been a far more powerful “push” on increasing high-school enrollments than the “pull” of easier courses and watered-down graduation requirements.

The percentages of student course taking in academic subjects continued to fall. Between 1928 and 1973, foreign language course taking across the country plunged from 9.5 percent to 3.9 percent. Mathematics dropped from 12.8 to 9.2 percent Moreover, during these years, the number and percentage of students taking low-level math courses such as “refresher mathematics” increased.

Indeed, there were dramatic increases in the percentages of students taking less-demanding courses in all areas. Put simply, by the early 1960s, most students in American high schools were getting, at best, a second-rate education compared with that of the generation before them.

Slouching toward Anti-Intellectualism

Compounding the impact of these trends was the emergence of a new phenomenon related to the dominant presence of high schools in the lives of young Americans, the development of what sociologist James Coleman called “the adolescent society.” In his now-classic 1961 study The Adolescent Society: The Social Life of the Teenager and Its Impact on Education ( excerpts ), Coleman identified a series of problems that resulted from the separate society that high school had created for teenagers. Most troublesome, he said, was that within the new adolescent society peer groups often superseded adult authority in shaping behavior.

Not surprisingly, the young people who set the standards for their peers were those with athletic prowess, good looks, and winsome personalities, not those who devoted the most time and energy to doing well in school. In a sense, the rise of this important peer group dovetailed nicely with the changes that educators had introduced in high schools over the previous 30 years: namely, downplaying the role of academic subjects and promoting the subjects and activities that appealed to teenage interests and lifestyles. The confluence of institutional and cultural anti-intellectualism, which was incessantly reinforced by similar messages in films, television, and music, would bedevil American high schools for the rest of the century.

This drift toward increasing anti-intellectualism did not go entirely unchallenged. In October 1957, following the launch of Sputnik, criticism of high schools became front-page news, spurring a high-profile debate about problems of secondary education. Even though this debate coincided with the passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), designed to stimulate interest in math, science, and foreign languages, the percentage of students taking foreign language and math courses actually fell slightly between 1961 and 1973.

Throughout these years, education leaders effectively defended the comprehensive high school, declaring time and again that demanding greater academic courses for all students would lead to a wave of dropouts and, thus, to greater education inequality. In 1959, another Harvard president, this one retired, James Conant, published a widely cited study that seemed to validate these views. Conant concluded that American high schools were sound and that the differentiated high-school curriculum was the key to secondary schools’ fulfilling their democratic mission. The Conant report, The American High School Today , effectively ended the debate about the quality of American high schools for the next two decades.

Today it seems surprising that Sputnik and the NDEA had so little impact on education. But equally remarkable is the modest influence of the major social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Despite loud demands for greater education equality, access to first-rate college preparatory programs for large numbers of minority students remains an unrealized goal. Before the 1950s, most young black people, particularly those in the South, had few opportunities for any high-school education. But despite a series of unanimous Supreme Court decisions meant to reverse this trend, in the ensuing years large numbers of black students failed to gain access to the best programs the newly integrated schools offered. Indeed, in many large cities during the 1960s and 1970s, the problems facing minority high-school students actually worsened, as their schools became battlegrounds for such issues as busing and identity politics, issues that overwhelmed more routine efforts to improve the quality of education.

Given these developments, it was not surprising that academic course-taking patterns of high-school students nationwide barely changed between 1961 and 1973, increasing about 2 percentage points. A number of new education policies contributed to this stability in course taking and to the declining quality of high-school education. First, many one-semester courses, designed to be highly relevant, differed widely in rigor and content, ranging from potentially substantive courses in areas such as African American literature to trendy offerings like “Rock Poetry.”

Second, school leaders began giving academic credit for various aspects of the extracurriculum, such as providing English credit for students working on the school newspaper or yearbook. Such actions further diminished the role that academic courses played in high-school education.

Third, educators began giving credit toward graduation for such courses as Consumer Math, Refresher Math, and Shop Math, watered-down material that had not previously satisfied a graduation requirement. In other words, even when the share of math course taking rose, the increases were coming largely from students taking less-demanding math courses, not algebra, geometry, trigonometry, or calculus.

Finally, but most important, during the 1960s and 1970s educators gradually shifted the onus of course and program selection away from guidance counselors and other education professionals and onto students and their parents. This policy greatly expanded student choice and clearly fit into the counterculture zeitgeist. It also enabled educators to duck accusations that they were responsible for reproducing inequality, since course and program selection now rested with students and their parents rather than with educators.

Back to the Future

By making choice the driving force behind high-school programs, as Arthur Powell, Eleanor Farrar, and David Cohen noted in The Shopping Mall High School (1985), the schools came to resemble education shopping malls, with students searching for bargains (that is, courses that were easy, relevant, and satisfied graduation requirements).

In some ways, the 1970s mark the low point of high-school development in the United States. A small percentage of students got a reasonably good education, but most adolescents drifted through their high-school years unchallenged and uninspired.

The Reagan administration’s 1983 manifesto, A Nation at Risk , gave voice to those who questioned this education pall. It also reintroduced several key ideas from the report of the Committee of Ten, which assumed that academic courses had greater education value than other courses. A Nation at Risk decried the “cafeteria style curriculum” of American high schools, rejecting curricular differentiation, the animating idea of Cardinal Principles .

By 1986, 45 states and the District of Columbia had raised high-school graduation requirements, 42 had increased math requirements, and 34 had boosted science requirements. These changes reduced the choices that students could make in their course selections and thus marked a dramatic shift away from the policies of the previous half-century.

They also produced the most substantial changes in student course taking since the 1930s. In 1982, for example, only 31.5 percent of all high-school graduates took four years of English, three years of social studies, and two years each of math and science. By 1994, however, the number of graduates who followed that regimen of courses had shot up to 74.6 percent. Even more impressive was the fact that the percentages for African American (76.7) and Latino (77.5) graduates were greater than for whites (75.5). These changes were positive steps away from curricular differentiation and toward greater curricular equality.

Unfortunately, despite these changes in high-school course taking over the past two decades, student achievement in core liberal-arts courses has not shown dramatic improvement, and American students have repeatedly fallen short on international comparisons of achievement, particularly in math and science. The most recent findings from the Long-Term Trend Reading and Mathematics Assessment of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) illuminate this situation clearly. Despite substantially more high-school students taking more difficult mathematics courses between 1978 and 2004, the overall mathematics scores for 17-year-olds in that period remained unchanged. Similarly, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) recently released data comparing mathematical literacy and problem-solving skills for 15-year-olds in 39 developed countries: American students ranked 27th. As one commentator on the NAEP findings put it, we are facing “a deepening crisis in the nation’s high schools.”

The broad outlines of this crisis have been apparent for many years. High schools have been “selling students short” for decades, offering too many options and too many watered-down courses. They have sustained a culture of low expectations on both sides of the teacher’s desk.

Reforming our high schools should begin by going back to the future. The vision for American high schools articulated by the Committee of Ten in 1893 must inspire the reforms for our high schools in the 21st century. Clearly, returning to a curriculum model akin to that of the Committee of Ten is necessary but not sufficient to improve the quality of high-school education. What else is needed?

What We Can Do

First, we must effectively address the education problems of schools from preschool through 8th grade. High schools rest on the foundation set in the early grades. If 9th graders enter high school reading at a 6th-grade level, their prospects for success in a challenging high school would be precarious at best. With its emphasis on improving reading and mathematics skills, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) can have a powerful positive influence on preparing young people for high-quality secondary education.

We must also ensure that students entering secondary schools know more than just reading and math. In a troubling example of unintended consequences, because of NCLB elementary teachers may be tempted to set aside units on history, science, or literature in order to create more time for reading and math instruction. The result of such actions will be disastrous for high schools, as students enter with little or none of the crucial background they need to master the subjects they will be required to take on the secondary level. Again, the elementary grades must provide the disciplinary foundations for future learning in core subject areas.

Teachers at all levels need additional preparation in the subjects that they teach and how to teach them. Beyond the fact that large numbers of high-school teachers are teaching subjects in which they have neither a major nor a minor, even teachers who do have strong academic credentials are often clueless about how to teach their subjects to students from diverse backgrounds and abilities. Historically, as we have seen, school leaders “solved” this problem by assigning supposedly less able students to the general or vocational tracks and watering down the  courses they took. This process eliminated the need for teachers to do the hard work of developing methods that would make challenging content accessible to all students. Schools of education are equally culpable in this process, having shirked their obligation to do the kind of research that would aid administrators and teachers in implementing intellectually rich programs for all students. Programs to prepare new teachers and professional development programs for practicing teachers must address these problems if American education is to improve and thrive.

Finally, we must avoid reform efforts that hide curricular differentiation under an assumed name. This may be the legacy of the most popular high-school reform of the day: subdividing large high schools into small units serving about 500 students. There is certainly much to commend this idea, especially its effort to reduce the anonymity and alienation many students experience in high schools with enrollments of 2,000 or more. But recent research by sociologists Douglas Ready and Valerie Lee (of the University of Oregon and University of Michigan, respectively) found that the new arrangements simply re-created the differentiated curricula of the old system. Students now attended small schools within schools, each with a new name and mission, but the courses and education expectations were essentially the same as those of the tracking regime in the old, larger high school.

Curricular differentiation has proved to be a protean beast. The first step toward its defeat must be, as the Committee of Ten recognized more than 110 years ago, having all high-school students follow an intellectually rich liberal arts course of study. Given the social, political, and economic complexities of the modern world, high-school students need a broad, deep, liberal arts education that will enable them to meet the challenges of the future as informed, thoughtful adults. This means that American young people must graduate with first-rate knowledge, understanding, and skills in foreign languages, mathematics, the sciences, American history and civics, world history and cultures, and great literature from every part of the globe. People who advocate more vocational education in our high schools miss the most fundamental fact of the new world we are living in: today, the best vocational education is academic education.

Jeffrey Mirel is professor of educational studies and history, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the author of The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System: Detroit, 1907–81 , and, with David Angus, The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890–1995 .

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Navigating Academic Rigor: What It Means and Why It Matters

In the journey through high school and into the world of college admissions, there's a term that you'll likely encounter frequently: academic rigor. But what exactly does it mean, and why does it matter?

As a high school student and aspiring college student, you’re faced with making sense of how college applicants are profiled for admissions. Well, your GPA, or grade point average, is a key indicator of your college readiness, but did you know that most colleges are going to look at your GPA in the context of academic rigor?

And, although academic rigor will be an important consideration for admissions, it’s also something you need to pursue with a balanced approach. In fact, many motivated high school students will find it difficult to strike a balance between academic achievement and other important life activities — sometimes activities as essential as resting, socializing, exercising, and relaxing…

In this blog post, we'll delve into the concept of academic rigor, its significance in both high school and college admissions, and how to navigate it successfully.

Defining Academic Rigor

Academic rigor isn't just about a class being hard or a teacher assigning lots of homework. Academic rigor is a multifaceted concept that encompasses critical thinking, combining knowledge and concepts in new ways , and complex applications of learning.

In short, academic rigor is not the same thing as academic difficulty per se .

Academic difficulty typically refers to how accessible or inaccessible the learning content is for the students being taught, or it may refer to the quantity of learning (amount of reading, homework, etc.) students are expected to do.

Academic rigor requires teaching that fosters deeper forms of questioning, understanding, and analysis — a comprehensive approach to learning that involves:

• depth of content
• conceptual complexity
• higher-level mastery of content — such as performing critical analysis, applied problem solving, or synthesizing concepts to generate new insights
• effective use of advanced study skills in tasks related to note taking, critical thinking, research, and writing…

Academic Rigor — Common Misconceptions

A common misconception about rigor is that it’s just about presenting more challenging content, more advanced concepts, and demanding greater quantities of homework!

Certainly fast-paced instruction and having to keep up with a big reading load or above average amounts of homework can all make a course “difficult.”

Most education experts agree, however, that academic rigor is really about mastering content at a deeper level and about the kinds of thinking students engage and develop.

Academic rigor is not quantified by how much gets crammed into a school day — it is measured in depth of understanding.

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In her book How to Plan Rigorous Instruction , instructional expert Robyn Jackson says that teachers can incorporate greater academic rigor by  “selecting content that is ambiguous, is complex, is layered, and has implicit meaning.”

This kind of complex and ambiguous content makes fertile grounds for a key component of academic rigor: higher-order thinking.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

In 1956 educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom published the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (aka Bloom’s Taxonomy ). Bloom put common learning processes into a hierarchical order, contrasting lower-order thinking with higher-order thinking.

Bloom’s taxonomy offers insights that can help us grasp what academic rigor really means.

Lower-Order Thinking

• memorizing and summarizing information
• understanding information on a surface level
• comparing and contrasting terms or concepts

Higher-Order Thinking

• probing and questioning ideas and concepts
• understanding and articulating nuances of meaning
• applying concepts and ideas creatively: for authentic problem solving or generating new perspectives…

By the way, this doesn’t mean lower order thinking is “inferior” in some essential way. In fact, a skilled teacher would typically understand that lower-order tasks are important foundational steps that prepare students to be successful in achieving higher levels of content mastery and understanding.

The Ingredients for Rewarding Academic Rigor

A sad reality is that too many students — and too many of their teachers perhaps —  associate rigor with the quantity of work assigned — as in being asked to spend more and more time doing homework, being expected to grasp complex concepts without proper support and preparation, or having excessive amounts of reading and memorization to do every week…

Courses with extra work are indeed more difficult, but that kind of difficulty doesn’t always measure up to what academic rigor is really all about.

Academic rigor means making learning challenging in a way that should foster excitement, build confidence, and help students cultivate disciplined forms of critical thinking, argumentation, and problem solving.

Rigorous learning experiences help students understand knowledge and concepts that are complex, ambiguous, or contentious, and… encourage students to think critically, creatively, and more flexibly, and to question their assumptions and think deeply, rather than simply utilize memorization and information recall.

- baylor university — “academic rigor”.

Defined this way, academic rigor shouldn’t stir up dread or angst in students. Instead, academic rigor is something that should make you feel excited and inspired, especially when your teachers add relevance and authenticity to the mix by connecting the learning to topics and real-life problems that resonate with your deeper interests and passions.

Academic Rigor in High School

Your high school years are a prime time for you to embrace academic rigor. Most high school settings offer students a variety of courses that have different levels of academic rigor.  

Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and Honors courses, for example — when taught by skilled teachers — should offer you not just accelerated pacing but also higher levels of academic rigor.

Engaging in these rigorous courses not only prepares you for the academic demands of college but also demonstrates your commitment to learning. Colleges value students who actively seek out challenges and display a willingness to explore new horizons.

Finding the Academic Rigor That’s Right for You

If you’re not finding the right opportunities for academic rigor at your school, talk to your school counselor or seek help at your school’s college and career center. 

In addition to offerings at your high school, you may also find that local community colleges or other institutions of higher learning in your larger community offer college bridge programs or similar programs that allow you to enroll directly into college courses while still in high school.

Finally, another great option for finding the right opportunities to get the academic rigor you want in subjects you’re interested in is to explore online education offerings . During the pandemic online learning was sometimes seen as an unfortunate necessity, but educators, families, and students also discovered that high quality online learning options can offer both wider horizons and some surprising educational advantages.

Academic Rigor and College Admissions

Colleges are interested in applicants who have engaged with academic rigor in their high school journey. And, most likely, if you’re aspiring to attend a competitive school, you’re already well aware that taking more rigorous courses in high school can make a big difference when you apply to college.

You realize that admissions officers understand that courses with more academic rigor will help you hone your study skills and critical thinking skills — giving you an edge when it comes to applying for college and to showcasing your potential for ongoing academic success.

You’re not wrong about that... 

When admissions officers evaluate your academic achievements, they’ll be considering not only your GPA (grade-point average) but also the academic rigor of the courses you completed in high school.

Except for GPA, academic rigor is perhaps more important than any other factor for college admissions at many schools: more important than class rank , than your college admissions essay , or than the letters of recommendation submitted by your teachers and counselors.

According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), “strength of high school curriculum” is the third most important factor for admissions out of sixteen important factors . 

Moreover, the highest ranking factor — “the GPA earned in college prep courses” — also involves academic rigor. This means enrolling in at least a few Advanced Placement, Honors, IB, or similar courses can have a significant impact on college admissions.

When it comes to advanced or accelerated courses, Harvard’s admissions officers recommend that “students pursue the most demanding college-preparatory program available, consistent with each student's readiness for particular fields of study.”

Unfortunately, this pursuit of the most demanding courses can create lots of stress for high school students striving to compete to get into top colleges! 

But remember that admissions officers at top schools consider the larger context of your high school environment when evaluating your academic rigor. They typically assess academic rigor not by the measure of any single course, but in the context of your cumulative high school transcript.

Does your school offer AP courses? An International Baccalaureate program? Both? Neither? We know you did not design your school’s curriculum, and we only expect you to take advantage of such courses if your high school provides them… Again, we only expect that you will excel in the opportunities to which you have access.

- yale college — “advice on selecting high school courses”.

Course selection is important, but equally important is how you perform in those courses. Admissions officers are looking for evidence of academic rigor, a superior GPA, and evidence of improving academic ability over the course of several years.

When it comes time to apply to college, submitting a transcript with a strong GPA and rigorous courses covering a range of foundational subjects should help you stand out and showcase the following qualities:

• impressive breadth and depth of background knowledge
• a motivation for lifelong learning
• superior study skills
• an ability to persevere and excel under pressure
• organizational and time management skills

What if taking classes with more rigor means it’s harder to maintain a 4.0 GPA?

In other words, you’re asking, what’s more important, the GPA or academic rigor?...

That’s a great question.

Remember that colleges and universities will in most cases be looking at your overall high school accomplishments — not looking for perfection.

In general, a wise goal would be to know your limits, but within those limits, pursue the most challenging and relevant courses possible.

That said, here are some tips to help you avoid self-sabotaging your GPA!

• Start early in terms of enrolling in rigorous courses and
• Avoid cramming too many college prep courses into your schedule in a single school year
• When the time approaches to select your courses for the next term or school year, get advice from counselors and teachers about how high to aim
• Research the content and course requirements before deciding if an advanced or accelerated course is a good fit
• Think about your overall time commitments for the school year
• Be strategic and practical when it comes to maintaining good grades
• Seek out an experienced tutor as soon as possible if there’s any doubt about your ability to succeed on your own
• Test the waters early in harder classes — there’s often a brief window of time when you can drop one course and add an alternative course if you discover you’re really not prepared to succeed in the more advanced course

All of this brings us to our next topic — the temptation to take on too much academic rigor…

The Risks of Overloading on Rigor

Remember, your wellbeing is just as important as your academic pursuits!

While academic rigor is undeniably valuable, overloading on rigor without careful planning can lead to burnout, stress, and negative impacts on your mental health.

Most students will find that taking on more academic rigor is challenging. But, excelling academically should be just that — challenging — and not debilitating!

Unfortunately one common mistake is taking on too many AP courses or other college prep courses in the same year, or taking accelerated classes in subjects that don’t match your aptitudes or that you’re not properly prepared for academically.

When your efforts to pursue academic rigor start triggering excessive stress, frustration, or self doubt, you may be taking on too much, or you may not be getting the learning support you need to persevere and to succeed.

It’s commendable to aim high, and it’s understandable that students aspiring to college feel pressure to take on more… But honoring your passions and meaningful personal interests, balancing your commitments to extracurriculars , part-time jobs, or family responsibilities, and recognizing and accepting your limits — as well as pushing your limits — are all important to success.

Some stress is normal and healthy. Too much stress can be overwhelming and lead to more serious health issues — anxiety, depression, eating disorders, sleep disorders, and so on…

Warning Signs of Taking on Too Much

• tense muscles, headaches, a tight jaw, teeth-grinding, a racing heart and sweaty palms
• trouble sleeping
• low energy, tiredness or exhaustion
• the feeling of being on edge and irritable
• difficulty concentrating
• loss of motivation
• the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Source: “Stress and Stress Management” Raising Children.net

The odds are tremendous that you’ll succeed and thrive over the long run by aiming high if you also take ownership of your own prior commitments, limitations, and self-care needs:

• Striking a balance between challenge and achievement
• Seeking support or resources for more effective — and less stressful — academic planning
• Practicing self-care strategies to prevent burnout while still embracing academic challenges

Your aspirations for college and your college journey should fit into, not trample, your larger life journey !

Being Intentional & Making Informed Decisions

As you navigate the path of academic rigor, it's crucial to make informed decisions that align with your personal interests and future goals.

• Consider factors such as your passions, career aspirations, current workload, and available support.
• Engage in conversations with your teachers, guidance counselors, and parents or guardians to gather insights and advice.

Academic rigor should be pursued with intention. It's not about ticking off boxes but about enriching your learning experience.

The College Board has some great recommendations for guiding decisions when choosing your high school classes:

• Pursue your passions and interests
• Pursue a well-rounded education
• Build a strong holistic college profile by maintaining a balance when it comes to academic rigor, breadth of learning, GPA, and extracurriculars
• Be willing to try new things
• Take courses that colleges recommend, including a reasonable number of accelerated and advanced courses available to you

In essence, your pursuit of academic rigor is valuable as a means to an end, not an end in itself!

Being intentional is about seeing your educational journey as one with lots of opportunities for new challenges and growth, not as one with an endless number conquests and prescribed requirements to live up to.

The journey of education is about personal development, evolving self-awareness, aligning your decision making with your values, and cultivating intellectual curiosity.

Final Thoughts

As you navigate the labyrinth of high school scheduling and college admissions, academic rigor should be more than a buzzword and more than another requirement on an endless checklist…

First, keep in mind what academic rigor really means when looking at the educational opportunities available at your school.

Try to identify and enroll in courses that will foster deeper learning and higher order thinking.

The teachers and courses that truly offer you academic rigor will provide learning experiences that are supportive, intentional, and appreciative of different learning styles and interests.

This means you’ll be academically challenged and intellectually stimulated with engaging inquiry, analysis, and critical thinking. And, your teachers will typically be helping you discover the real-world relevance of your learning —  providing opportunities for authentic research or problem solving.

This kind of academic rigor will help you develop the kinds of higher order thinking you’ll need not only to boost your college applications but to nurture your curiosity and confidence and prepare you for greater success in college and professionally…

Second, remember that academic rigor is only one piece of the puzzle... Your pursuit of academic rigor should not overshadow your self-care needs, negatively impact your GPA, isolate you from peers, or keep you from growing and thriving through participation in meaningful extracurricular experiences .

Finally, don’t pretend there is not a lot at stake when it comes to the impact your college journey has on your future opportunities, friendships, and careers. But also don’t think you need to do it all without the rights resources and community…

The trick is to turn this high stakes journey into one that excites you and propels you forward, and not one that leaves you feeling exhausted, anxious, isolated, or burned out.

The good news is you really don’t have to go it alone…

In fact, the students at Crimson enjoy the journey and succeed beyond their expectations by benefiting from  personalized advising, tutoring, and counseling and the support of a whole community of like-minded peers from around the world …

Did you know that students who sign on to Crimson Education’s College App, access the Crimson student community, and take advantage of Crimson advising and counseling support are 7x more likely to get into their top-choice schools?

In your pursuit of academic rigor, remember that it's not just about the destination but the transformative journey that molds you into a well-rounded and intellectually curious individual. Embrace the challenges, find your balance, and thrive in your academic endeavors.

And, get help when you need it… You don’t need to go it alone and you don’t need to learn how to get into college the hard way, or after it’s too late.   With the right guidance from knowledgeable Crimson Advisors, with help from supportive tutors and counselors, and like-minded students, as well as tools and resources to manage all your next steps, your college journey becomes an exhilarating, friend-filled and more fun-filled adventure.

We encourage you to explore Crimson Education's wealth of resources and counseling services. We’ll help you discover your own amazing potential as you chart a college journey that nurtures your passions and lives up to your dreams.

Learn more about our College Admissions Counseling Services , or go ahead and  book a free consultation with a Crimson counselor today. Together, we’ll make sure you’re on the best path to the college of your dreams… 

Find out about our Crimson App and how to access your own personalized application roadmap.

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Honors Course

The term honors course is a common label applied to courses, predominantly at the high school level, that are considered to be more academically challenging and prestigious. Students enrolled in honors courses generally receive greater academic recognition and possibly, if the course awards weighted grades , a numerical advantage when it comes to grading. Historically, honors courses have entailed more demanding college-preparatory coursework, and they were intended for the highest-achieving or most academically accelerated students in a school. In many cases, students need to meet certain prerequisites, such as a teacher recommendation or an average grade of B or higher in a previous course, to gain admission to an honors course. Honors courses may be the highest-level courses or “track” offered by the school, or they may be above “college prep” but below specialized courses such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate. In some schools, however, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses will be considered the school’s “honors courses.”

It is important to note that there are no specific standards or universal definition for “honors courses.” Consequently, honors courses may vary greatly in design, content, quality, or academic challenge from school to school, and even from course to course within a school.

One common alternative to traditional honors courses is the honors challenge , or the practice of offering higher-level or more academically challenging assignments, coursework, and learning opportunities in a “heterogeneously grouped” or “mixed-ability” course—i.e., a course in which students of different abilities or levels of preparation are grouped together. In academic programs that do not have tiered course levels, honors challenges may be used in place of distinct honors courses.

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Editorial: Financial literacy is important for teens to learn along with math and science

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Adulting is hard, and it’s gotten much harder even for mature adults. That’s especially true when it comes to personal finances.

We are subjected to more sophisticated and sometimes downright insidious online marketing that often uses influencers instead of ads. The investing world has grown more complicated, with investment apps, digital brokers and cryptocurrency. Hard-to-spot scams come to us every day via social media, emails and text.

We buy more of our goods online, sight unseen, and take the risk that our personal data might be compromised. Fewer employers provide traditional pensions; instead, it’s up to employees to figure out how much to put away for retirement, where the money should be stowed and how it should be managed.

Editorial: Early decision admissions for college unfairly favor wealthy students

Legacy admission is on the wane but colleges are doubling down on early decision, another admissions practice that favor the wealthy.

Jan. 4, 2024

Many colleges are downright unaffordable , but the financial aid process makes doing taxes seem easy by comparison, and lenders beckon with federally guaranteed loans that have put far too many young Americans into serious debt. As the gig economy becomes a bigger slice of the employment picture, it shifts the burden of healthcare and calculating tax deductions on to workers, and makes getting a mortgage, buying a home and creating stability more difficult.

Clearly, young adults need to be better equipped to tangle with the modern world of money.

That’s why there’s been growing interest in teaching financial literacy in high school, the point at which students are old enough to understand the topic and find it relevant as they apply to college and prepare to enter the working world.

Opinion: How to skip the college admissions rat race and still get a degree

You might think getting into, say, Oxford University would be about as difficult and expensive as getting into Harvard or Stanford. You’d be wrong.

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According to Next Gen Personal Finance, a nonprofit that promotes financial literacy instruction and provides free curriculum and teacher training, half of all states have passed a requirement for a one-semester course. And more states require financial education to be taught as part of other courses, such as math or economics.

California isn’t among the states that require teens to take a designated financial literacy course, at least not yet. A bill before the Legislature this year would mandate a course for public schools. Silicon Valley businessman Tim Ranzetta, co-founder of Next Gen Personal Finance, has gathered signatures for a ballot measure to do the same; he says he would withdraw the measure if the bill becomes law.

The concept is great. But turning it into reality isn’t as simple as proponents would have us think.

Opinion: I was homeless in college. California can do more for students who sleep in their cars

An estimated 1 in 5 of the state’s 2 million community college students are unhoused.

April 9, 2024

David Tokofsky, a former member of the Los Angeles school board, told The Times that if the state is going to add new high school requirements, it also has to take some things out. Otherwise, there will be practically no time for high school students to pursue electives that most interest them. It’s a good point. The state recently added a one-semester ethnic studies course to its requirements. How many more courses can be fit into the school day?

Adding new coursework should be undertaken only with a more comprehensive look at California’s curriculum standards, with the involvement of teachers and administrators. Educators should look for possible areas of overlap and repetition. That might make room for a couple of high school courses to be moved to eighth grade, though it would require the involvement of the University of California to ensure those courses would be accepted as part of the A-G curriculum.

The worst scenario would be a ballot initiative, no matter how well-intentioned. There is too little flexibility in such initiatives to meet changing needs of students and schools.

Mandates from Sacramento have generally not proved to be the best way to improve education, unless they are undertaken with the involvement of the people who have to carry them out. Let’s teach our high school students the complications of personal finance, but let’s do it thoughtfully, with the bigger picture in mind.

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Stanford’s Code in Place introductory programming course offers a new model for large-scale interactive learning

What began as an online class on coding during the pandemic has morphed into an effective model for creating learning opportunities worldwide, outside of a formal classroom.

First launched in 2020 , the six-week Code in Place course teaches fundamentals from Stanford’s flagship introduction to Python programming course, CS106A. The unique course design facilitates instruction entirely online with six weeks of Stanford-led lectures, assignments, and smaller-group sections led by volunteer teachers. After repeat versions in 2021 and 2023 , Code in Place is back this spring for its fourth iteration. 

Chris Piech , assistant professor of computer science at Stanford Engineering, co-created the project with colleague Mehran Sahami , professor and the Tencent Chair of the Computer Science Department. While Stanford professors teach the main lectures, volunteer teachers from across industries and geographies lead smaller sections, which have about 10 students each. 

Piech believes this community-powered teaching and learning model can be open-sourced. His research on this type of course design has found that people who are teaching the material are better able to learn it and have more fun doing it than other approaches to learning. Foothill College, also in the San Francisco Bay Area, is now using the Code in Place platform to teach one of its courses.

This year, Code in Place lectures will be available in Spanish; there will be better error messages in the instruction to help guide students; and learners will get feedback on the style of their code – not just the accuracy. In addition to the usual guided instruction option, the course will also be offered in a self-guided format that can be done on one’s own schedule.

For section leader Sara Thomas, last year’s experience allowed her to teach a subject she previously learned herself as a college student in Canada. Thomas, a third-year double major in computer science and environmental science at the University of Toronto Scarborough, believes Code in Place is building a global community for people with similar interests where there is a safe space to ask questions and learn from others.

“A lot of times, especially in computer science, you can learn on your own,” Thomas said. “But it’s kind of hard to know what the solution is or if yours is good, and there’s probably a better way of doing it.”

So far, more than 30,000 learners have gone through Code in Place, which has had the support of about 3,000 section leaders. Discussion forums allow learners to ask questions 24/7 and peers all around the world can help answer.

Even as advances in artificial intelligence increasingly automate processes, Piech believes coding is still as relevant as ever because learners will gain a thinking framework that is also applicable to AI. That programming foundation could help one better use generative AI tools like ChatGPT, understand its ethics, or even program the next big AI technology, Piech explained.

“Curiosity has brought a lot of people to their first step into coding,” Piech said. “Once you take a couple steps, you realize there’s a sheer exhilaration turning something that’s just in your mind into something that you can visualize and share with your loved ones.”

Code in Place’s next guided session is April 22 through May 31. The course is free. Applications for volunteer section leaders are closed. Learner applications are due by Friday, April 12. The Code in Place course is made possible, in part, by the generous support of Carina Initiatives.

Related : Chris Piech , assistant professor of computer science

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, what are ap classes why should you take them.

Advanced Placement (AP)

If you have started high school recently or are due to start soon, you might be wondering, "What are AP classes?" You might have heard that they are extra-advanced or that you can earn college credit by passing AP exams. But how do these classes work exactly?

Read on for our guide to AP courses and learn how these special classes can get you ahead.

What Is Advanced Placement?

Advanced Placement is a program run by the College Board (the makers of the SAT) that allows you to take special high school courses that can earn you college credit and/or qualify you for more advanced classes when you begin college.

So what are AP courses? They are designed to give you the experience of an intro-level college class while you're still in high school. Plus, you can get college credit for the class if you pass the AP exam.

AP classes were created in the mid-1950s as a response to the widening gap between secondary school (high school) and college. A pilot program in 1952 had 11 subjects, but AP didn't officially launch until the 1956 school year , when the College Board took over and named it the College Board Advanced Placement Program.

This program expanded rapidly over the years. These days, about 2.8 million students take AP exams every year in 38 subjects . It's also much more common for students to take multiple AP classes over the course of their high school careers.

Why Take AP Classes? 3 Key Benefits

Now that you know what AP classes are, why should you consider taking them? Below, we give you three potential benefits of taking AP classes.

#1: They Can Boost Your College Applications

Taking an AP class (or several!) is a great way to challenge yourself academically and show colleges that you're serious about your education. An AP class on your transcript signals stronger academic training, especially with high passing scores of 4 and 5 on the test.

In particular, getting a 5 on an AP test shows that you are more advanced in a subject than 80%-90% of advanced students —which looks very impressive to colleges!

Since AP courses are challenging and require you to study for a comprehensive exam, they teach you skills that will help you in college classes. According to the College Board, students who take AP exams get higher grades in college than those with similar grades who don't take AP exams.

You basically get a head start in college.

Many colleges say that they check to see whether you took the hardest courses available to you at your school . Taking AP classes is often the best way to show that you are challenging yourself academically at your high school.

For example, Yale states on its admissions website, "We only expect you to take advantage of [AP] courses if your high school provides them." In other words, if your school has AP courses and you don't take them, it might look as though you aren't challenging yourself .

To take a West Coast example, USC is more straightforward : "Students should pursue Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes whenever possible and if offered by high school."

Getting a high passing score of 4 or 5 further demonstrates your academic potential to colleges. (By the way, if you're curious about a college's suggested high school course load, look up its admissions website by searching "[School Name] admissions requirements.")

#2: They Can Show Your Passion

Taking AP exams is also a way to demonstrate real academic interest in a certain subject . For example, if you're an aspiring engineer, taking the AP Calculus and AP Physics courses and passing their respective exams will prove to college admissions committees that you're serious about engineering and have the skills necessary to pursue it.

On the other hand, if you're interested in political science or pre-law tracks , taking AP US History, AP US Government, AP Statistics, and/or AP Economics would show strong preparation for those subjects.

Or if you're hoping to be pre-med , taking AP Chemistry, AP Biology, and/or AP Calculus would indicate that you have the skills and background needed to handle tough pre-med classes as a college student .

#3: They Can Get You College Credit

Some colleges give credit for AP classes. This makes it possible to graduate from college in a far shorter amount of time, ultimately saving you money!

For example, Harvard lets you apply for Advanced Standing if you've completed the equivalent of a year of college courses with AP exams. The University of Michigan, too, grants new students course credit and higher class placements for AP exams .

However, some colleges use scores to help place students in higher-level classes but don't allow these credits to fulfill graduation requirements, so you can't graduate any earlier . Similarly, other schools might let you earn college credit but have limits on which AP exams they'll accept.

As an example, Stanford University accepts AP credit from many science, language, and math AP courses but not any from history or English courses .

Washington University in St. Louis will grant some credit for AP tests but doesn't allow you to use these credits to meet general education requirements:

"A maximum of 15 units of prematriculation credit may be counted toward any undergraduate degree. These units will count toward graduation but will not meet general education requirements."

Despite all this, getting the boost into more advanced classes can help you work through a major more quickly and let you take more advanced and more interesting courses as a freshman. Even if you don't earn credit for your AP scores, AP classes can still get you ahead.

If you're curious about a college's AP policy, the College Board has a database you can use to look up any school's policy.

Halle Edwards graduated from Stanford University with honors. In high school, she earned 99th percentile ACT scores as well as 99th percentile scores on SAT subject tests. She also took nine AP classes, earning a perfect score of 5 on seven AP tests. As a graduate of a large public high school who tackled the college admission process largely on her own, she is passionate about helping high school students from different backgrounds get the knowledge they need to be successful in the college admissions process.

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Coursera Course Teaches Tools for Making a Difference

Prof. Teresa Chahine’s free online course, Creating Change through Social Entrepreneurship, teaches participants how to define a problem and build a solution.

Since 2018, Teresa Chahine, the Sheila and Ron ’92 B.A. Marcelo Senior Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, has taught Yale students how to make a difference using the tools of social entrepreneurship, whether founding a new venture or working within an existing organization. Many of the insights she shares in the classroom are now available to anyone through her new Coursera course, Creating Change through Social Entrepreneurship .

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to create real change?” Chahine writes. “You don’t have to start your own organization to make a difference in the world. Everyone can learn the social entrepreneurship mindset and skillset to build social impact. In this course, you will immerse yourself in a social or environmental challenge you want to tackle. You’ll start by researching your topic of choice, talking to people, and ideating a potential solution that you can contribute. Then, you’ll build a business model around that solution, understanding concepts like measuring social change, ensuring financial viability, funding and pitching.”

The course includes 11 modules, teaching participants through videos, text, and quizzes how to understand a challenge by talking with the people most affected by it, designing a solution, and creating an organization to carry it out.

Other Coursera courses offered by Yale SOM faculty include The Global Financial Crisis, taught by Professor Andrew Metrick and former treasury secretary Timothy Geithner; Introduction to Negotiation, taught by Professor Barry Nalebuff; and Financial Markets and Narrative Economics, taught by Professor Robert Shiller.

Learn more about Creating Change through Social Entrepreneurship. 

Listen to Teresa Chahine’s podcast, Impact & Innovation.  

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Former Lake Travis football parent sues school district over peanut allergy incident

The family of former Lake Travis High School football player Carter Mannon has filed a lawsuit against the school district alleging officials failed to address an incident last fall in accordance with bullying and discrimination laws after two of Mannon's teammates stuffed his gear and shoes with peanuts before a game last fall .

In the lawsuit, the family alleges the district failed to take any action to prevent bullying against their son and that the teammates knew Mannon was severely allergic to peanut products. The lawsuit was filed Saturday by Shawna Mannon, Carter's mother.

"There's no rhyme or reason to the timing (of the complaint)," she told the American-Statesman on Tuesday. "We had exhausted our resources. We had done our due diligence. We're going the legal route because we didn't get what we wanted."

The October incident that started it all

The Oct. 5 incident garnered significant attention and outrage in the community.

Shawna Mannon testified at a school board meeting in November that her son had been bullied by two players from the Cavaliers' football team. At the time of the incident, head coach and athletic director Hank Carter suspended the players for two games, a penalty some parents felt was too lenient.

The district later ruled that the incident didn't meet "the legal definition" of bullying, according to the lawsuit.

Carter, along with Lake Travis superintendent Paul Norton, Lake Travis High School principal Debbie Garinger and assistant principal Sandy Surdy are named as defendants. The Statesman reached out to the defendants on Tuesday for comment.

The Lake Travis district takes allegations of bullying and harassment seriously, the district said in a statement.

"We responded immediately when we learned of this situation, conducting a thorough investigation," the district said in the statement. "We disagree with the allegations contained in the lawsuit, and we look forward to responding through the appropriate legal channels. The safety of our students and staff is our highest priority."

Family wants changes to be made at LTISD

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas, seeks $1.5 million in damages. The lawsuit also asks that a judge compel the school district to implement training for staff and students about harassment based on disability, adopt policies to deal with student complaints about disability-based discrimination, and modify programs to stop "engaging in unconstitutional and unlawful acts."

The lawsuit alleges the district failed to follow state law about stopping ongoing bullying, addressing cyberbullying or adequately disciplining the students involved.

The lawsuit also alleges the district only investigated the incident after Shawna Mannon's November testimony to the board and that the investigation drew an "erroneous conclusion" that "simply contradicts the legal definition of bullying."

Carter Mannon, who recently transferred to Vandegrift , "endured persistent disability-based harassment, bullying, and assaults from teammates due to his life-threatening peanut allergies, with one perpetrator referring to the actions as 'attempted murder,'" according to the lawsuit.

"Despite (Carter Mannon's) efforts to seek help from school authorities, LTISD was deliberately indifferent to the ongoing bullying, failing to intervene or provide accommodations, properly supervise students, and staff, or enforce disciplinary measures mandated by state law for students committing assault," according to the lawsuit.

According to Shawna Mannon, her son told his teammates he could die from exposure to peanut products. He developed hives on one arm but was able to play in a game that night.

How food allergies are classified by the U.S. Department of Education

On Tuesday, Shawna Mannon said this was not the first time her son had been exposed to peanuts at the school. When Carter Mannon was a freshman, he bit into a cookie that had peanuts in it. It was labeled "Big Cookie" but did not list ingredients and did not have a bar code.

According to Shawna Mannon, her son went into anaphylactic shock. He felt his airway closing. He ran to the nurse's station and an EpiPen was used before he left in an ambulance for a nearby hospital.

In March, several students on the football team spoke at a school board meeting that they didn't think any bullying had happened and that Carter Mannon hadn't needed medical attention after finding peanuts in his locker.

The U.S. Department of Education classifies food allergies as a disability covered by Section 504 if the allergy limits one or more of a student's major life activities, such as walking, breathing or learning. Section 504 is a federal designation that protects people from discrimination based on their disability and requires schools to provide free and appropriate public education.

Carter Mannon will have two years of eligibility at Vandegrift.

Travel | Travel: How to go on a high-class golf vacation…

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Travel | ohtani’s interpreter charged with bank fraud, stealing $16 million from ballplayer, things to do, travel | travel: how to go on a high-class golf vacation without landing in the financial rough.

One of the beauties about golf, besides the azalea-flanked 13th hole at Augusta National Golf Club, home of this week’s Masters, is that unlike most professional sports, you and I can actually  play where the pros play.

Is surf-hugging Pebble Beach Golf Links too beautiful to only watch on TV every February? Then go online and get a tee time for a gorgeous California course that has made U.S. Open champions of such greats as Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods, and has hosted an iconic pro-am annually since 1947. Feel like playing 18 in the Hill Country home of the Texas State Open? The Ram Rock course, considered the most difficult among the four at renowned Horseshoe Bay Golf Resort outside of Austin, welcomes all from hacker to scratcher. Same with Hawaii’s paradisal Plantation Course at Kapalua, which hosts the wintertime Sentry Tournament of Champions, and The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Florida, home of one of the most esteemed stops on the PGA tour.

Unfortunately, for us golf lovers not among the top 1%, water hazards and sand traps aren’t our only obstacles. It takes a lot of green to play the greens. A round at Sawgrass, for example, can set one back a grand at peak tee times, making Pebble Beach sound like a bargain at $675. Another reality is not every prestigious or pro-played golf course puts out the welcome mat for us commoners. Teeing off at Augusta National, for one, pretty much requires being besties with a club member or past Masters champion.

The good news is we club-swinging stalwarts have alternatives when hankering to play legendary links. The U.S. is dotted with them, but if we take our virtual golf cart to the warm-weather golfing meccas of California, Hawaii, Texas and Florida, our GPS system can locate less forbidding championship courses that are also vacation-worthy because they’re linked to topnotch resorts with accommodations, dining and activities to match.

Where are these swinging Shangri-las? This question is well-timed. Aware that golf fever is peaking with this week’s Masters and next month’s U.S. Women’s Open — we’re in the heart of the PGA, LPGA, PGA Champions and LIV tours, as if you didn’t know — we’ve scouted the four aforementioned states for resorts that are well above par even if your score isn’t under par. Quality doesn’t come cheap, but unlike some of the more hoity-toity clubs, this quartet of courses will welcome you with open arms, which, if you listen to Tiger, should be wide on the backswing to allow your muscles to stretch to their full potential.

Traveling west to east ….

Ko Olina Golf Club

Golf in Hawaii is nearly as kingly as Kamehameha, so playing a tropics-kissed course that’s drop-dead gorgeous isn’t hard to do in the Aloha State. What isn’t as easy as Sunday morning is finding a premier property with a cool, unpretentious vibe. That’s Ko Olina Golf Club on Oahu. Perennially ranked among the nation’s top resort courses, Ko Olina ( koolinagolf.com ) is a judgment-free zone with great taste in its partnerships with the Four Seasons Resort at Ko Olina, the choice property within the master-planned oceanfront community, and an on-site Roy’s Hawaiian fusion restaurant that might be the best in the chain.

The Ted Robinson-designed course is decked with stunning water features, multi-tiered greens and generous landing areas. Here is where retired LPGA phenom Michelle Wie developed her game, and there’s a statue of her out front to prove it. The pro shop is consistently ranked among the best in the U.S., and with the rental clubs being TaylorMade graphite, it’s tempting not to schlep your set. Inclusive of cart rental, a logoed tumbler and a basket of range balls, adult fees are no higher than $255, and go down to $190 after 1 p.m.

A short shuttle ride or stroll away is the 371-unit Four Seasons ( fourseasons.com ), which offers digs and dining befitting the five-star brand, and serves as a model for luxury Hawaiian resorts striving to appeal to everyone from young families to honeymooners to seniors. An impressive schedule of daily activities is augmented by R&R offerings that include the five-star Naupaka Spa, inviting lagoons and pools, and first-rate horseback riding in the scenic Waianae Mountains.

The Links at Spanish Bay

Having recently walked the storied course and hallowed halls of the 146-year-old Royal Troon Golf Club, which in July will host its 10th Open Championship, this unworthy duffer can now distinguish between a “Scottish-style links” course and the real deal. While the landscape between Pebble Beach and the south Ayrshire coast has little in common besides a shoreline, getting in a round at The Links at Spanish Bay does hint of playing Royal Troon’s Old Course.

Helping get in the Scottish spirit is a bagpiper who plays for about 45 minutes before sunset from the first tee to the second. Fee-wise, guests staying at The Inn at Spanish Bay pay $350, which includes a cart. It’s a stately and elegant hotel with 269 rooms, and has reciprocity with other Pebble Beach Resorts facilities ( pebblebeach.com ). Overlooking spectacular sand dunes with an endless view of the Pacific costs just north of $1,000 a night, but that’s less than the rates at the sister properties, The Lodge and Casa Palermo.

Snob factor aside, “better” and “best” don’t get much more than “good” — not when Spanish Bay’s lowest-price room still comes with a romantic fireplace, reading nook, choice of nine different types of pillows and other niceties.

Lost Pines Golf Club

The phrase “everything is bigger in Texas” certainly applies to the list of activities at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort & Spa ( lostpinesresortandspa.com ), a Hill Country jewel along the banks of the Lower Colorado River. On more than 400 glorious acres just outside Austin, you can fish, ride horses and ponies, pet goats, alpacas, pigs and donkeys, say “howdy” to morbidly named Texas Longhorns (Chuck, Sirloin, Brisket, T-Bone and Ribeye — really?), go on a wagon ride and hay ride, trap shoot, fire off BB guns, slingshots and arrows, throw tomahawks, swim, float on a 1,000-foot, palm tree-lined lazy river, play tennis and pickleball, and, oh yeah, golf.

Deep in the heart of Texas is a 7,200-yard course well-described by the club’s lead golf instructor as “undulating and isolated.” Green fees top at around $200. A recent multimillion-dollar makeover included a redesign of holes 10 through 13, rebuilt bunkers and a name change from Wolfdancer. Designed by golf architect Arthur Hills, Lost Pines is a par-72 beauty graced by rolling prairies, wooded ridgelines and groves of native pecan trees.

Apparently, those homegrown pecans aren’t good enough for the nuttiest dessert served at Maude’s, a bastion of Southern hospitality ironically named for the Texas-sized pecan tree that towers over the outside tables. But like nearly everything guests taste, touch and see at the 490-unit resort, the headline ingredient of the yummy bourbon pecan pie is still locally sourced. Deliciousness continues with the lamb sliders, artisanal charcuterie and flawless libations that include a killer carajillo. Take one sip of their version of this classic Spanish coffee-based cocktail and you may never order an espresso martini again.

Before we leave Lost Pines, hoping to return again, a shout-out to Sushi By Scratch for a new-wave spin on the Japanese dining experience of omakase, where it’s basically chef’s choice through 17 individually paced pieces of nigiri, A5 wagyu beef and other delicacies. Seatings are limited to 10 patrons, each paying a minimum of $165 for this event meal. Sushi By Scratch’s Lost Pines location is one of 10 in the U.S., four of which are in California.

The Boca Raton

It’s hard to imagine a classier, cleaner and more comfortable resort than The Boca Raton ( thebocaraton.com ) in South Florida. This place is so exquisite after a history-respecting, $200-million reimagination, if it weren’t for the bill at the end it could qualify as heaven on Earth.

Dating back to 1926, The Boca Raton’s rich golf heritage includes Tommy Armour and Sam Sneed serving as its first two golf directors — 10 majors won between them. The resort’s Harborside Golf Course, exclusive to members and guests, is dedicated to these two legends. The par-71, 18-hole championship-level course features 12 acres of water, some put to use for a signature island-green finishing hole. From June to October, green fees are $210. That includes a golf cart and — get this — the food and beverage cart. We’re talking Asian shrimp salad, roasted turkey shawarma, rotisserie chicken salad and more delivered on the course by a pleasant attendant, and just for the asking. As we said, classy.

So is the adjacent high-tech driving range. Included in the resort fee are hitting stations powered by state-of-the-art Toptracer technology designed to perfect your swing. A monitor displays helpful data related to your golf ball’s speed, distance and spin rate. The digital gaming options are a blast.

Taking off the cleats, also on the resort’s 365 acres are five hotels within a hotel that make up 835 total rooms. The adults-only Yacht Club claims 112 of those units, all chic suites with private balconies and views of Lake Boca Raton, the Atlantic and a yacht-lined marina. Amenities include a butler, exclusive dining and an invitation to explore the South Florida coast while behind the wheel of a $200,000 Aston Martin DBX. Which begs the question: Do we dream about buying that or membership into the Augusta National Golf Club?

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• Moscow, the city for life – Russia

Moscow Urban Forum in Moscow © C.Horn 2013

Recently the Moscow Government published under the headline “Moscow, the city for life” its seven development priorities. A document distributed at the Moscow Urban Forum in December 2013.

Moscow is with a population of over 12 million people one of the biggest metropolis in the world. The real number of citizens is difficult to establish as Moscow is the destination of many migrants, legal and otherwise, drawn by higher salaries and better services and living conditions. In 2010 alone, 126,000 newcomers were officially registered in the city, but the actual number is certainly much higher. The Moscow International Internet Portal indicates that “By some estimates together with commuters working and studying in Moscow, migrants, transit visitors and tourists the daily actual population of Moscow amounts in general to 15 – 20 million people”. It is forecast that by 2035 the population of the Moscow region will increase by 4,000,000 people and amount to 22,800,000 people.  It is expected that by 2020 passenger traffic generated by the ‘New Moscow’ will double whereas the capacity of the existing infrastructure is already exhausted.

Inner city road in Moscow © C.Horn 2012

After adopting in 2011 different government programs for the key directions of the capital’s development, the Moscow Government worked out in 2013 its main objectives for the creation of comfortable living conditions with the definition of seven development priorities: 1) Mobile City; 2) Comfortable urban environment; 3) Healthy city; 4) Well-educated city; 5) Socially protected city; 6) New economics of Moscow; 7) Open Moscow.

It is a large and ambitious programme highlighting the goals reached and progress made in the last years, and illustrating the objectives for the next years in numbers and graphics.

Moscow development priorities, Mobile City © Moscow

An important part takes the improvement and development of the transport infrastructure. Moscow is literally suffocated by the significant growth of the personal car fleet, doubling from 2.6 millions cars in 2000 to 4.5 million in 2012 and the increase of commuting du amongst others to the ongoing separation of business centres and residential areas. Over two-thirds of the municipal investments have been assigned in future for the improvement and modernisation of the transport infrastructure, roads and public transport, an estimated 329 billion roubles for 2013.

Moscow Subway Plan 2013-2020 © Moscow Subway

Today over 60% of the total volume of Moscow passenger transportation is carried by the subway and this traffic capacity should increase by 1.2 billions persons annually. Just to illustrate the ambitions, the program foresees to rise the average annual construction of subway stations from 2.75 stations, from 2009 – 2012, up to 9.1 stations per year for the period 2013-2020, with the final objective to construct 73 new stations by 2020. They say themselves, that it is the most rapid construction program in the entire history of the Moscow subway. In comparison the metro line of the Paris metropolis, Le Grand Paris Express, foresees to build 205 km of metro lines and 72 new stations between 2013 and 2030. It seems that Moscow want to do in less than half the time.

The development priorities draw the picture of a metropolis with a population using in the last years more intensely the public spaces, the cultural institutions, the shopping area and demanding for a higher urban living standard. A population that has better access to medical facilities and a growing life expectancy, 75.8 years in 2012, and a growing natality rate. A population with opportunities for a better education starting from more kindergartens over preschools to high schools. Interesting is the development of the average salary of a school teacher in Moscow, from 39200 roubles in 2010 up to 64100 roubles in 2013: an average annual growth of 12% in a context of an inflation of approximately 6 %, leaving a real salary growth of 6 % per year. Not bad, seen from a Western European perspective.

Pedestrian Street in Moscow © C.Horn 2013

But Moscow also wants to be a city that cares about its less fortunate citizens. The program is about social protection of older generations, assistance to needy families and persons with limited capabilities. It is about free access to public services, like transport, medical treatment, recreation, financial support and accessibility of public buildings. It also concerns providing housing for certain categories of citizens, probably one of the most difficult task, as Moscow has been ranked regularly among the five most expensive cities in the world in terms of the cost of housing.

To finance this new and improved public facilities and services, the Moscow Government counts on the dynamic of investments, supposed to grow from 732 billion roubles in 2010 up to 1719 in 2016. A mixture of better services for the investors, improved infrastructures and tax incentives should keep the dynamic going.

Gorky Park in Moscow in summer © www.2away.de

The Open Moscow development priority aims to create and strengthen the links between to residents and the public services. Improvements in the information and communication with the citizens, in the collecting and carrying out of suggestions of the citizens, and monitoring the activities of the public officers of municipal services, probably to fight corruption and try to establish a kind of confidence. Different internet sites like the Our City Website , regrouped in one Open Data Portal , should play in mayor part in this new Open Moscow development.

This program looks like a step in the right direction. It is developing Moscow towards a multi-layer, multi-functional city, trying to diversify the transport system, the municipal offer in public spaces, recreation and medial facilities, and supporting the poorer populations. The success of the renewal and transformation of the Gorky Park is a sign of these multi-functional and high-quality public spaces and the demand of the citizens for such spaces.

What is still missing for me is a clearer image of what Moscow wants to be in its whole, and in its parts. For the moment the document is set up as a catalogue of good intended programs, but not yet as an integral city development program. An example is the important investments in the public transport and in the road system, with the hope to encourage the citizens to abandon their excessive use of personal transport. But as long as the Moscow develops its road and parking system, citizens might prefer their car to public transport. Further detailed choices have to be taken on the different aspects of these programs and their feasibility in the near future.

Annotation: For this article I analysed the English version of the publication “Moscow, the city for life – Moscow development priorities” from the Moscow Government. During the lecture I got the impression that some mistakes had been made in the English translation. Download for the Russian version of the document (pdf) : Moscow City for life ru

Author: Christian Horn is the head of the architecture and urban planning office rethink

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Hi, I have not been able to obtain this document in english. Do you by any chance have it and can share it with me? Please contact me at [email protected]

Nice. Can I have the English documents?

Hello, thank you for your interest. I have the Russian version in PDF and I can send it to you, if you like. But the English documents only on paper. Best regards, Christian

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