College Credit for Homeschoolers With the AP Computer Science Exam By Chris Yust

Every spring, many public and private high schools offer Advanced Placement* (or AP) exams to their students. Those who score well on a specific exam usually qualify for college credit in that subject area. This can be a great way to trim time and costs from a students college career. These same schools typically offer dedicated AP courses to prepare their students for the individual AP exam subjects. However, these preparatory classes are not a requirement for taking the exam. Any student who believes that he or she has mastered the subject material may take an AP exam. This means that homeschool students have an equal opportunity to take advantage of the amazing benefits that AP exams provide! In this article Ill tell you how homeschoolers can prepa re and register for the AP exams. Well begin with an overview relevant to all AP exams and then focus on my special passion, which is computer science! Planning Ahead If your student is interested in earning college credits through the AP exams, youll want to start by becoming familiar with the College Boards website [http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/index.html]. There you can find a wealth of what, when, why, and how information about each AP exam. You can access details on registration [http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/reg.html], descriptions of individual courses, and exam calendar and fee information. All AP exams are administered in May, so your student has a full school year to study and practice the exam topics. The College Board has a list of special instructions [http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/ap/scores/prepare/homeschool] for homeschool students. Its important to clearly identify where your student will take the exam, preferably at the beginning of the school year. AP exams cannot be administered by parents. You must register with the AP coordinator at a local public or private school that can administer the exams to homeschool students. Dont spend a full year preparing for an exam only to find at the last minute that the exam is not available at your local school! So how do you find a school that will allow your student to take an exam? Your best bet is to contact the College Board [http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/contact.html] to get a list of participating schools in your area. Make sure to let them know you need a school that will work with homeschoolers. Then, contact the AP Coordinator at that school and obtain information about exam fees and registration. The AP Coordinator will use a special state code for homeschool students to keep your scores separated from those of students from their school. The deadline to register with your AP Coordinator is March 1, so circle that date on your calendar! For specific test dates, you can find a full calendar [http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/cal.html ] on the College Boards AP website. The testing procedure for these exams is similar to taking the SATs or ACTs. Your

student will arrive at the school on testing day and will complete the exam under supervision of a trained proctor. Once complete, the exams will be sent off to the College Board for scoring. Testing results are usually available to you by mid-July and optionally sent directly to the colleges [http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/exgrd_rep.html] you specify. So once you have your students AP scores, how do you interpret them? Each student will receive a score from 1 through 5 on an exam, with 1 being the worst and 5 meaning extremely well qualified. Depending on the college, a score of 3 or more is usually enough to get a student some credit. Scores of 4 or 5 often count toward additional credit. If your student successfully prepares for and takes enough AP exams, he or she can possibly enter college with enough credits to skip the freshman year and begin with sophomore courses! If you think about how much money you can save in tuition, boarding, and other expenses, AP exams suddenly become very attractive. Just remember that individual colleges make decisions about awarding credit based on AP scores; you should review the AP credit policies of the colleges your student may attend. Studying for an AP Exam Now that your students are enthused about taking one or more AP exams, how will they prepare for an exam? Public school students would typically enroll in an AP class that has undergone the College Boards Course Audit [http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/index.html] process. This means the class can be listed as AP on a high school transcript and may even be weighted differently for GPA calculations. For homeschoolers and distance-learners, some AP-sanctioned classes are available online for individual AP subjects. The Home School Legal Defense Association website has a listing of some of these programs [http://www.hslda.org/highschool/curriculum.asp#advanced_placement]. Since you are usually paying for a live teacher and online infrastructure to enable the course, be prepared to pay anywhere from $500 to $1,000 or more per class. Will your student need to take an expensive course in order to sit for an AP exa m? Its important to understand the difference between taking an AP-sanctioned class and taking the AP exam. Just taking an AP class and getting an A will not qualify the student for any college credit. An AP course is simply part of a students transcri pt. The student must still take the AP exam and score well in order for colleges to award college credit. However, if you do take an AP-sanctioned course, then you can list it on your transcript using the official AP course names [http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/pdf/Acceptable_Course_Title_Abbreviati ons.pdf] enumerated by the College Board. If you are looking for a more cost-effective option that will allow your student to take and pass an AP exam, there are several possibilities. It is entirely possible to take or construct a course that is not AP-sanctioned yet still allows your student to learn everything necessary to score well on the exam. Homeschoolers are often very good at piecing together materials needed for specific courses, and this is possible for AP studies as well. The College Board website contains comprehensive information about the topics your student will need to know for each exam. You can even apply to have your own homeschool course [http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/index.html ] designated as AP and list it with the official AP course name on your students transcript. Keep in mind, however, that

getting a course audited by the College Board is not required. Your main goal is for students to score well on the exam and win those precious college credits. Once your student has completed her AP course or self-study work, its a good idea for her to practice before taking the exam. The College Board AP Central website [http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/index.html] offers detailed information that will help students practice for an AP exam. This information includes partial listings of past exam questions and information about the format and scoring system for all current exams. You can also consider purchasing study guides for your exam subject. Barrons has a popular lineup of test-prep manuals that usually include multiple practice exams. The Computer Science A Exam My own special interest as a software engineer is the Computer Science A exam. According to the College Boards statistics [http://professionals.collegeboard.com/datareports-research/ap/data], only 22,176 students [http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/AP-Student-Score-Distributions.pdf] took the AP Computer Science A exam in 2011. By contrast, hundreds of thousands of students took the AP United States History, English, and Calculus AB exams. In this digital age when our lives and careers are increasingly shaped by computers and programmers, Id love to see students take a renewed interest in computer science! How do you find out what is on the Computer Science A exam? You can review the Computer Science A Course Description [http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap-computer-science-coursedescription.pdf] for a list of specific topics. The Computer Science exam tests the students knowledge of both general computer programming theory and hands-on practical programming skills using the Java language. General programming subjects include these: object-oriented design techniques, understanding class definitions, class relationships, and class hierarchies. Students will have to write their own classes to meet problem requirements. Students will also be responsible for familiarity with fundamental parts of the Java language, including variables, flow control, simple console output, arrays, and portions of the Java Class Library, such as List and ArrayList objects. Troubleshooting, error identification, and error correction are all important components of a software engineers life, and these topics are also covered. Students are expected to understand testing theory, use of debuggers, and the difference between compile-time errors, run-time errors, and exceptions. Over time many classic algorithms have been developed to perform specific tasks, such as sorting or searching through a sorted list. Some of the more common searching and sorting algorithms are tested, as are recursive programming concepts. Students are also expected to be well grounded in ethical computing, which means understanding social, legal, and privacy issues and responsibilities that come with being a software engineer. Finally, the AP Computer Science exam uses something called a case study, which is a reasonably complex and interesting program called GridWorld [http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/compsci_a/case.html?compscia]. GridWorld is a complete Java program and set of classes that provides a graphical environment for studying how objects behave in relation to each other. Students will be

expected to have already downloaded, run, and studied the different classes involved with GridWorld prior to the exam. On exam day, be prepared for a three-hour test that includes both multiple-choice and freeresponse sections. There are forty multiple-choice questions over the first 75 minutes. Then students have 105 minutes to finish a free-response section that contains four questions, in which students will demonstrate their ability to read extended problem descriptions, write code, and solve problems. Early Career Guidance Whether you sign up for an AP course or plan your own self-study with a quality textbook, participating in the AP process and scoring well on the exam can be a rewarding effort. Students will get early experience with college-level material that may help guide their career and college choices. Should your teen be interested in computer science as a career, rest assured that the United States and other countries are in need of qualified programmers to fill many job opportunities. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, computer scientists enjoy excellent job prospects in a growth industry [http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos304.htm]. Computers and software will continue to play a more influential role in all our lives, so why not help architect the digital revolution instead of merely hanging on for dear life? *AP and the Advanced Placement Program are registered trademarks of the College Entrance Examination Board, which was not involved in the production of this website. Chris Yust is a fourteen-year veteran of the software industry and a father of two homeschooled boys. Chris and his wife Andrea are co-authors of several computer programming textbooks for kids and teens, including TeenCoder: Java Programming. You can learn more about homeschool computer programming courses or contact Chris at www.homeschoolprogramming.com Copyright 2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, the family education magazine. Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.