What are the differences between Advanced Placement (AP) courses and honors courses?
Many schools have created honors courses for their students, however AP courses are the only high school courses actually designed by teams of college professors and experienced secondary school teachers—the AP Development Committees. To provide schools with a framework for setting up an AP course, these committees draw upon their own expertise and also make use of extensive data describing best practices at colleges and universities nationwide. As a result, schools participating in AP provide their teachers and students with courses that reflect national standards for college-level learning. An integral component of the AP course is the end-of-course AP Exam; college professors participate in the scoring of the AP Exams, and provide external verification of a student’s mastery of college-level material. As a result, unlike honors course tests, AP Exams can qualify a student to receive college credit or to skip ahead into more advanced college courses. Because AP Exams provide a consis
