Incoming freshmen as early as next year may face stricter rules governing the use of Advanced Placement credits for fulfilling Tufts requirements.
Tufts' Educational Policy Committee (EPC) is reviewing the school's AP credit policy in preparing for what Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser described as a much-needed policy update.
"In these past years, the number of Tufts students coming in with AP backgrounds has grown astronomically," Glaser said. He explained that the current policy has been unchanged for "many years" and that there is a common interest among his colleagues in updating the policy to suit the changing profile of the student body.
Tufts' AP credit policy is currently one of the most generous among its peer institutions, Glaser said. Students who receive certain scores on particular AP tests are exempt from having to fulfill related foundation and distribution requirements. Proposed changes to the policy would cap the number of AP credits a student can use at five, and would allow using a maximum of one credit toward each distribution requirement, according to freshman Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator Manuel Guzman, who serves on the EPC, which is made up of faculty, administrators and student senators.
"The main rationale behind imposing new limits and measures towards awarding AP credit is that the faculty and admissions office has seen in the past few years a sharp increase in the number of students coming in with AP classes," Guzman said.
"The other concern is that they believe AP classes don't reflect college-level classes and should therefore not count as college-level credit," he said, adding that administrators were "afraid to be demeaning of a Tufts education."
A third consideration Guzman mentioned is the fundamental goal of AP credits, which is to indicate that students have learned the same content they would in college classes. "Many believe APs are a disservice to students because they place students in higher classes where they then struggle and are more likely to fail," Guzman said.
Many Tufts students appreciate the present credit policies. "I took AP English, so I passed out of English 1 and 2, and that was nice," senior Amanda Harris said.
Other students, however, think AP credits should be worth even more credit than they are. "I got 4 [out of 5] for AP English, and I had to take an English 2 class, and it was horrible," sophomore Kelly McClorey said. "We would have discussions about topic sentences and ‘what is an introductory paragraph,' and I was honestly offended, because if I didn't know what these things are, I wouldn't be [in college]."
The EPC concluded in its discussions that the accuracy of the AP credit policy in reflecting student ability appears to vary by discipline. By Guzman's account, instructors in the mathematics department find AP credit relevant, while instructors in humanities departments and the Department of Biology tend to consider AP credit not reflective.
Guzman himself advocates that students be "rewarded" for their additional high school coursework by being allowed to take higher-level classes, though he agrees that students given too many AP credits "will be missing out on real college-level teaching that [the student] would get from a Tufts teacher."
Guzman identified a deeper issue of equity. "Along the same lines of awarding too many credits, Tufts disenfranchises a certain number of students who were in high schools that did not offer AP classes," he said. "Having a more sensible and fair policy would create more equality."
Equity is the key principle motivating Guzman's efforts to have the update of the AP credit policy extend to International Diplomas as well. With current policies, international students can claim as many as nine Tufts credits with International Diplomas, effectively one academic year's worth of classes.
"The last time these were reviewed was 15 years ago," said Guzman, who hails from France. "Since then, international exams have changed and been updated. If you take the example of the French baccalaureate, that exam was completely reformatted in 2004."
Guzman described the outdated nature of Tufts' policies in this area as "outrageous" and said he found it to be a "big problem" that Tufts has a prominent international relations program but "hasn't paid more attention to this issue."
"This is an equity problem, because international students are put on the same playing field as American students," Guzman continued. "We need to work towards a sustainable policy."
Guzman has worked extensively with Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Jean Herbert to propose a yearly review process whereby each faculty department would be responsible for assessing International Diplomas and deciding upon how to best award credit on a departmental basis. Thus far, their appeal has met with little success.
When asked about updating International Diploma credit policies, Glaser indicated that this could potentially be looked at together with AP credits, since both concern appraisals of high school coursework. He emphasized that the AP credit policy issue is just "floating" at the EPC and its discussion is in its "premature" stages. The EPC is still surveying the policies of peer institutions and assessing the performance of Tufts students with AP backgrounds in their classes.
