Committee Axes A.P. Credits As Science Core Bypass

Beginning with the class of 2003, first-years will no longer be able to bypass their Science Core requirements with Advanced Placement (A.P.) test scores.

This decision, made by the Core Science subcommittee earlier this semester, was announced to the Faculty Council at its bi-weekly meeting yesterday.

The subcommittee approved the measure more than a month ago, then waited for final approval from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Standing Committee on the Core.

Since the Core's inception in 1974, scores of four or five on the physics, chemistry and biology A.P. tests have been accepted as bypasses for the Science B Core requirement. The College estimates that 15 percent of entering classes traditionally bypass the requirement in this way.

Director of the Core Program Susan W. Lewis said that as the Core was being developed, the original Science Subcommittee noticed a quirk: departments were allowing students to test out of introductory courses using A.P. scores. But while actually taking these courses sufficed for Core credit, the A.P. scores did not.

For example, the Science B requirement could be bypassed by taking Biology 1 and 2, courses which could be passed out of in departmental requirements with a Physics A.P. test score.

"It seemed only fair, then, to count [A.P. test] scores to meet the Science requirement," Lewis said.

Since that time, Lewis said some of the departments have removed the equivalency between introductory courses and A.P. scores.

"There's been some discussion for a number of years about whether the A.P. experience should be viewed as an equivalent to meeting the requirement through departmental courses," Lewis says.

This decision was spurred by a similarly-worded motion made at a Faculty meeting last spring by Baird Professor of Science Gary J. Feldman. Feldman's motion was briefly considered, and then withdrawn at his request for separate consideration by the subcommittee.

Feldman is currently on leave in Switzerland, and was thus unavailable for comment yesterday.

Auden C. Velasquez '01, a student member of the Science subcommittee, said that the subcommittee's Faculty members were impelled to this decision by a feeling that it was "ridiculous" for some students to receive a Harvard diploma after taking only one science class.

"They just didn't feel that an A.P. course in high school was the equivalent of a Harvard science class," Velasquez said.

He said that the subcommittee was planning to rescind the bypass for Biology A.P. scores anyway, having determined after a review that a person scoring a five on that test still might not be sufficiently proficient in the field.

Council member and Lecturer on the History of Science Peter Buck said that the subcommittee's decision seemed a "sensible" one.

"It was one thing to opt out of courses which were departmental, but another thing to opt out of Core courses," Buck said.

The science subcommittee's discussion focused on several arguments for and against eliminating the A.P. score bypasses, including the varied policies across the Core on which A.P. scores to accept for bypasses.

Originally, some committee members expressed concern that students who came to Harvard having taken A.P. science courses would find similar Core courses redundant, according to committee member Brian J. Chan '99, who is a Crimson editor.

Those students can still take departmental science courses for Core credit, however--a logic the committee eventually found convincing, Chan said.

In addition, Chan said the committee believed society was placing increased importance on science and technology, a sentiment voiced in a letter from Feldman to Ehrenreich and the committee

He said that the subcommittee was planning to rescind the bypass for Biology A.P. scores anyway, having determined after a review that a person scoring a five on that test still might not be sufficiently proficient in the field.

Council member and Lecturer on the History of Science Peter Buck said that the subcommittee's decision seemed a "sensible" one.

"It was one thing to opt out of courses which were departmental, but another thing to opt out of Core courses," Buck said.

The science subcommittee's discussion focused on several arguments for and against eliminating the A.P. score bypasses, including the varied policies across the Core on which A.P. scores to accept for bypasses.

Originally, some committee members expressed concern that students who came to Harvard having taken A.P. science courses would find similar Core courses redundant, according to committee member Brian J. Chan '99, who is a Crimson editor.

Those students can still take departmental science courses for Core credit, however--a logic the committee eventually found convincing, Chan said.

In addition, Chan said the committee believed society was placing increased importance on science and technology, a sentiment voiced in a letter from Feldman to Ehrenreich and the committee