AP Courses at DCS

About The College Board

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world’s leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare  for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success—including the SAT® and the Advanced Placement Program®. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators, and schools.

What Is the AP® Program?

With AP®, students can take college-level course work in high school. When students take AP courses, they demonstrate to college admission officers that they’ve sought out an educational experience that will prepare them for success in college and beyond.

Resourceful and dedicated AP teachers work with their students to develop and apply the skills, abilities, and content knowledge they’ll need later in college. Each of AP’s 38 courses is modeled upon a comparable college course. College and university faculty play a vital role in ensuring that AP courses align with college-level standards.

Each AP course concludes with a college-level exam developed and scored by college and university faculty members as well as experienced AP teachers. AP Exams are an essential part of the AP experience, enabling students to apply the new critical thinking skills they have learned in a comprehensive exam. Most two- and four-year colleges and universities worldwide recognize AP in the admission process and accept successful exam scores for credit, advanced placement, or both.

Performing well on an AP Exam means more than just the successful completion of a course. Most colleges and universities accept successful exam scores for credit, advanced placement, or both. And, research consistently shows that students who score a 3 or higher typically earn higher GPAs in college and have higher graduation rates.

Advantages for High School Students

• Receive college credit for introductory courses in various subject areas
• Skip introductory college courses
• Reduce college cost
• Complete college in a shorter period of time
• Build a strong foundation for college success
• Improve study habits and learn how to meet college expectations before getting there
• Study in greater depth, breadth, and complexity
• Improve chances of attending college of choice with an impressive transcript
• Receive intellectual stimulation and challenge
• Interact with other motivated students
• Increase self-confidence and aptitude levels
• Broadened horizons
• Eligible for AP Scholar Award(s)

Characteristics of an AP Student

1. Motivated & dedicated to school work
2. Committed to homework and a lot of extra reading and research
3. Responsible: able to multitask, to prioritize activities, to make deadlines
4. Prepared and organized: beyond proficient in reading and writing
5. Commitment and hard work are absolutely necessary
6. See a school counselor for more information about each individual high school's AP program
7. The College Board has identified coursework (aligned with the AP Program) that provides the appropriate foundation for specific AP courses.

Requirements for the AP Student

• Take the AP exam.
• Have a clean disciplinary record
• Take no more than three AP classes
• Maintain an excellent record of attendance and punctuality.
• Be proficient in public speaking
• New students in the institution will be subject to a period of academic observation in regular classes
• Maintain an unweighed class average greater than or equal to 80% in class
• For Spanish and English, students must have an interest in reading widely and regularly
• Ability to use technological tools that promote efficiency in class
• Have mathematical problem solving skills
• Be an independent learner when the opportunity presents itself
• Be an enthusiastic investigator
• Attend every day to classes, only 2 absences are allowed per partial with excuse.
• Be willing to accept academic challenges.
• Take an admission exam.

Academic History

AP classes are usually reserved for students who have good academic records. DelCampo School established minimum grade-point averages for students interested in AP classes, and require minimum test scores in the subject for which the student wants to take an AP class. Students who have taken honors classes will often end up taking AP classes. AP classes are challenging, and the workload is significant. For this reason, classes will be limited to 15 students.

Behavior and Maturity

DCS will only allow students to take AP classes in their junior and senior years because the rigors of AP work require maturity. A student who has an excellent GPA, but a history of being disruptive, might not be allowed to take an AP class. Students who display dedication and hard work, however, might be encouraged to enroll in AP courses.

Below you will find a course catalog displaying all of the AP courses offered at DCS.

AP Physics

The AP Physics course is designed to enable you to develop the ability to reason about physical phenomena using important science process skills, such as explaining causal relationships, applying and justifying the use of mathematical routines, designing experiments, analyzing data and making connections across multiple topics within the course.

The only skills needed besides the ones discussed:

• Excellent math skills. HONORS LEVEL *(unless the student is approved by intermediate math section teachers)

AP Literature

The AP Literature and Composition course is designed as an introduction to college-level practices concerning the reading and writing of literature. The course will aim to provide you with the opportunities to study, discuss and produce poems, plays, novels and literary non-fiction, at a higher level than you’ve been able to in any of the literature classes you’ve taken in the past. We have high expectations for those taking this course and these begin with the amount of reading you will do outside of the classroom.

To be able to enter 12th grade AP Literature and Composition, you must satisfy the following criteria:

• A MAP score of above 230 in both reading and language
• Approval from your 11th grade English teacher
• Read a summer reading list of four books and pass an exam on them upon your return to school in August

AP Spanish

Its purpose is to develop reading, writing, listening, linguistic, critical thinking and literary knowledge based on our language.

Requirements:

1. Express yourself properly in any context based on the rules of Spanish.
2. High level of oral and written expression through the practice of new vocabulary.
3. Skills to develop in communicative situations through topics of cultural competence.
4. Ability to investigate and demonstrate through digital means, their reasoning and evidence.
5. Organized and committed to reading.
6. Create habits in the use and practice of the dictionary

AP Chemistry

The AP Chemistry course provides students with a college-level foundation to support future advanced course work in chemistry. Students cultivate  their understanding of chemistry through inquiry-based investigations, as they explore topics such as: atomic structure, intermolecular forces and bonding, chemical reactions, kinetics, thermodynamics, and equilibrium.

• Use representations and models to communicate scientific phenomena and solve scientific problems
• Use mathematics appropriately
• Engage in scientific questioning to extend thinking or to guide
• Plan and implement data collection strategies in relation to a particular scientific question
• Perform data analysis and evaluation of evidence
• Work with scientific explanations and theories
• Connect and relate knowledge across various scales, concepts and representations in and across domains

AP Literature and Culture (Spanish)

The AP course in Literature and Culture is taught entirely in Spanish and covers, chronologically, Latin American authors from medieval times to the present. We study the different literary periods and read the most prominent authors of the movement2.

Selection process:

• Present written recommendation from at least one Spanish teacher

The teacher who endorses the student must attest that the candidate has an excellent command of and taste for writing and reading, abilities for public speaking, attentive listening, critical and reflective thinking, and mastery of Spanish grammar, skills and taste for the arts in general. Availability to work with dedication.

• Present comparative critical essay

There are six essential elements of a story: characters, action, time, space, narrator and theme; however, each one is approached from different perspectives, unique styles. In a coherent and well-organized essay analyze the differences of at least three of these elements, justifying your arguments with evidence of both works.

The essay will be of a comparative critical nature on two literary works, with an extension no less than 1000 and a maximum of 1200 words. Arial letter number 12, justified paragraphs and double line spacing.

• Due date to turn in the application: first week of March
• Where: teacher who teaches the course
• Date of publication of results: last week of May

The AP Calculus AB

The AP Calculus AB class is equivalent to a first semester college calculus course devoted to topics in differential and integral calculus. The AP course covers topics including concepts and skills of limits, derivatives, definite integrals, and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. We approach calculus concepts from the numerical, graphical, and analytical point of view, analyzing the connections amongst them. We use technology as a tool help solve problems, experiment, interpret results, and support conclusions. This multi-approach will foster deeper level of conceptual learning and build enduring understanding.

• Students enrolling in the AP Calculus AB class should have successfully completed a rigorous PreCalculus course or advance math where Algebra, Trigonometry, and other topics such functions and their graphs was taught.
• Students must own and know how to use an advance graphing calculator such as the TI Nspire CAS CX or equivalent.
• Have a solid grasp of Math concepts and its applications
• Dedicated and self-help attitude.