« Six Degrees: Hamlinefacebook.com site introduces Pipers to the world of social networking | Main | Task force to meet on degree-completion program »
February 08, 2005
Advanced Placement: First of a series of articles on Hamline’s AP credit acceptance policies and procedures
When CLA senior Katie Prokosch turned in her intent to graduate form at the end of last year, she didn’t expect any red flags to crop up when academic services got a look at it. As far as she knew, she was right on track toward graduation and knew which classes she had yet to take for her major and to complete the Hamline Plan. Prokosch was shocked when she was told that she never satisfied her first-year writing requirement.
Prokosch, who attended Park High School in Cottage Grove, said she had been told on numerous occasions by the admissions office and academic services that the four she scored on the Advanced
Placement Literature and Composition test in high school would cover her freshman English requirement as long as she took some other writing-intensive course during her first year. Prokosch ended up taking a 3000-level expository writing class to satisfy the requirement, and found the experience to be anything but rewarding.
“I feel like I wasted a whole semester in a class I didn’t truly like č just doing the work for an English writing class is not really my thing,” Prokosch said.
What disappointed her most was that she received inconsistent information from university officials who she feels should know better.
“You shouldn’t have to go through three years of school and then find out when you’re filling out your intent to graduate form that you were given bad information,” Prokosch said.
Such complaints of apparent inconsistencies and irregularities in how Hamline accepts AP test scores and translates them into course equivalencies have come up all too often when I have discussed this issue with my peers.
It’s time for a little self-disclosure: I myself am an AP scholar and took multiple tests in high school and received sufficient scores on all of them to be accepted for credit by Hamline, but for some reason, while I received 20 transfer credits, I received no course equivalencies for my scores besides credit for
“Introduction to Fiction” based on the four I scored (just like Katie Prokosch) on the AP Literature exam.
Unlike Prokosch, I have somehow been able to slide by without ever having taken freshman English, and I will hopefully graduate without ever having to.
How can it be that two students, Katie Prokosch and myself, can have identical scores on the same AP test in the same year and receive differing credit from the university?
That is what I have been attempting to discover, but I have so far failed to do so. The official explanation, as articulated by Director of Admissions Steve Bjork, Assistant CLA Dean Alzada Tipton, and Registrar Laurie Herbrand, is that such inconsistencies in AP credit transfers are most likely due to human error.
In a series of articles, the Oracle will examine the issue of AP transfer credits in terms of their importance to individual students but also their importance to Hamline as a recruitment tool for quality students. Pick up next week’s Oracle for further information on how a student can best resolve issues with her or his own AP credit transfer, including key insights provided by Bjork, Tipton, and Herbrand.
Posted by msveum at February 8, 2005 03:54 PM