Despite Push From Tech Giants, AP CS Exam Counts Don't Budge Much In Most States 144
theodp (442580) writes "Well, the College Board has posted the 2014 AP Computer Science Test scores. So, before the press rushes out another set of Not-One-Girl-In-Wyoming-Took-an-AP-CS-Exam stories, let's point out that no Wyoming students of either gender took an AP CS exam again in 2014 (.xlsx). At the overall level, the final numbers have changed somewhat (back-of-the-Excel-envelope calculations, no warranty expressed or implied!), but tell pretty much the same story as the preliminary figures — the number of overall AP CS test takers increased, while pass rates decreased despite efforts to cherry pick students with a high likelihood of success. What is kind of surprising is how little the test numbers budged for most states — only 8 states managed to add more than 100 girls to the AP CS test taker rolls — despite the PR push by the tech giants, including Microsoft, Google, and, Facebook. Also worth noting are some big percentage decreases at the top end of the score segments (5 and 4), and still-way-too-wide gaps that exist between the score distributions of the College Board's various ethnic segments (more back of the envelope calcs). If there's a Data Scientist in the house, AP CS exam figures grabbed from the College Board's Excel 2013 and 2014 worksheets can be found here (Google Sheets) together with the (unwalkedthrough) VBA code that was used to collect it. Post your insight (and code/data fixes) in the comments!"
Obvious for some, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Obvious for some, but what does AP stand for???
Associated Press?
Please avoid unnecessary acronyms - this is an international site.
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Probably the best answer I got was in this first branch - even though it wasn't the original acronym it was the best!
Thanks.
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AP meant 27 hours of college credit I didn't have to pay for.
It meant learning calculus 1 and 2 in a small classroom with under 30 people not a lecture hall with 300+.
Both things were entirely worthwhile.
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i thihk it stands for Advance Placement, which are (correct me if I'm wrong) voluntary classes a student can take in advance to build enough credits to be able to take other classes they don't qualify for, or to get fewer hours required in a future course.
It doesn't seem to me to be for those with a strong interest or skills.
I took this class and.... (Score:1)
I took this in high school and was far advanced from just about everyone in my college CS courses. We covered all data structures linked lists, stack, queue, trees, etc (using both arrays and pointers), searches/sorts big O, etc. all of this included when and why to pick the algorithm, etc We did recursion, crazy hybrid structures, you name it we did it. It was a great course. The best course I have ever had in my life. It was an entire school year in length and started with about 25+ kids and ended
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AP == advanced placement
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I thought it was Advance Placement without a d. Because they are used to advance the student to be able to be placed in courses he or she doesn't have the formal prerequisites for - mostly entry level, and nothing advanced at all.
Of course, abbreviations can change their meaning over time (like RAID where the I initially stood for inexpensive, but now stands for independent, which they obviously aren't).
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Nope, it's Advanced Placement. [wikipedia.org]
Although the College Board seems to just call it AP these days.
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No it's not. It's an american site that has some international visitors.
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"Advanced Placement". These are, I assume, equivalent to the older "honors" courses except that they prepare you for a test you can take to skip a first semester/quarter freshman class in college. In that sense of being an honors course, I don't see what the fuss is about. We didn't even have this stuff when I was in school, and we certainly don't ever hire anyone based upon whether or not they tested out of a course. I have however seen people from top high schools who had difficulty and shell shock at
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Yeah well, the far left 'multicultural' preach only goes one way. It's still ok and even encouraged to hold american and/or western culture (depending on context of the discussion) in contempt.
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That's a reaction to American exceptionalism, which is arrogant, ignorant, and hurts our standing in the world community.
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...and obviously the truth.
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I don't think that's obvious. The rest of the world looks at the USA the same way the USA looks at Texas. We are not better than anyone else, we have just as much reprehensible shit in our history as other countries do. A little humility would not kill us.
Don't bother with AP CS (Score:5, Insightful)
...if you're going into a CS program. This holds in general with AP tests, don't take the ones in your intended major, because you're unlikely to get useful credit for them. This varies from school to school of course, but it's generally true.
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As I said in a different post, my daughter got a 5 on AP Comp Sci, and ALSO got a 5 in Physics, and is taking BC Calc this year . 2280 on her SAT in her Jr year, and can run a lathe and mill. Robot Nerd in training...
Re:Don't bother with AP CS (Score:5, Informative)
Took the Comp Sci AB test (more advanced form of AP test, doesn't exist now) in 2001; skipped to sophomore level classes. My anecdotal experience counters your citation free claim :)
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If you're not sure you want to code for a living or if you think you do but all you've ever done is make it through a couple of basic python tutorials then you probably want to get some experience coding before you go and major it in.
+1,
Besides don't take a course to get credit... Just like you shouldn't choose the courses that are easiest to pass...
If you're not studying in order to learn something you're better off dropping out.
It's surprising in my experience how many students cares more about grades, credit and getting a degree rather than learning something useful, or at least just interesting.
Either way, a CS degree takes hard work, trying it out in high school is a good idea. And having extra skills/knowledge when you star
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It's surprising in my experience how many students cares more about grades, credit and getting a degree rather than learning something useful, or at least just interesting.
It's because that's all that's important nowadays. In order to advance, you need to demonstrate your proficiency at succeeding in a contrived environment.
Want to get into a good school? Take bird courses to pad your GPA since that's the only metric people use to judge your ability (unless you become good friends with an influential prof, in which case it doesn't matter).
Want to be a medical doctor? Take a low effort "pre-med" degree to guarantee you get a good GPA while buffing up your ECs, since that's all
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A quick look at the Barrons AP CS Book on Amazon led me to believe that there is little more to it than "Learn Java". I could see there being real use for an AP class in something like "data processing for non-CS majors" but Java would not be my first choice of language for that.
As it is, it seems to me that the intended beneficiaries of the exam are the politicians and the schools (to tout their getting girls into CS credentials) and whoever most benefits from having Java programmers (the big SAS provider
Re:Don't bother with AP CS (Score:4, Interesting)
I teach AP Computer Science. I definitely think it's worth the time if you can fit it into your schedule. That's the main issue at my school. I constantly hear from students that they are told by admissions people (and yes, admissions people from engineering schools) that the school would rather see a fourth year of Spanish than a year of computer science. The students just can't fit it all in (and I don't want them stressing themselves out to do it). One of the best things about AP Computer Science is that you get some good experience with recursion, inheritance, interfaces, class design --- more advanced topics that you might not encounter as a self-educated programmer (and many of the students in my classes are extensively self-educated). For students majoring in engineering / natural science fields other than computer science or computer engineering, it's definitely equivalent to the first-level undergraduate course. For a student majoring in CS / CompE / EE, I would suggest re-taking the introductory course. One of the things I got out of my introductory CS course at college (my background is EE / math) was familiarization with Unix. It's also easier transitioning into the advanced courses like data structures (especially if the language used is C++ instead of Java, which AP CS uses). I took five AP classes in high school (including the AP CS AB exam in Pascal and Calculus AB). I retook CS and Calc even though I passed the exams (and not because I didn't get useful credit for passing those exams, but because I thought it was unwise to skip them).
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One of the best things about AP Computer Science is that you get some good experience with recursion, inheritance, interfaces, class design --- more advanced topics that you might not encounter as a self-educated programmer (and many of the students in my classes are extensively self-educated).
All of these things are basic, fundamental, principles encountered early in the process of learning programming. If you're not extensively practicing these things by your second or third week (if not sooner) of learning object oriented programming (with recursion not needing OOP), then you should probably reconsider your career path and stop thinking of yourself as in any way, shape, or form, "extensively self-educated" in programming.
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I did not take AP Comp Sci for the following reasons:
Like you, I found value in taking CS101 in college instead of in high school. I had already amassed enough AP credit to permit me to blow off college, so it's not like skippi
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One of the best things about AP Computer Science is that you get some good experience with recursion, inheritance, interfaces, class design --- more advanced topics that you might not encounter as a self-educated programmer
As a self taught programmer, some of the most enlightening things I learned were algorithms and data structures. These are the ones generally missed by many of the self taught people that I have met. No, Big O notation has nothing to do with Office Space and Jennifer Aniston while Red and Black trees have nothing to do with Christmas.
I did not, and still do not really like recursion, but I do find tail recursion useful at times. Very elegant. Object Oriented stuff... is useful but I prefer to stay in C and
Totally disagree. (Score:2)
...if you're going into a CS program. This holds in general with AP tests, don't take the ones in your intended major, because you're unlikely to get useful credit for them. This varies from school to school of course, but it's generally true.
Totally disagree. I took 5 AP classes in High School in ~1980. I was the first person in my High School to achieve this number of AP classes, and I was able to skip my freshman year of college and immediately begin taking more advanced math, physics, chemistry, honors English, and when I discovered them, CS courses. I was well on my way to multiple degrees, while most of the people I went to High School with were still deciding what to major in.
Testing out of a class is a more iffy proposition. I found
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True, but even if it's not for credit, it can make your introduction-to-postsecondary life easier by covering the material you need ahead of time. (Didn't we have a whole discussion about school not letting you get ahead? Well AP is an opportunity for high school stude
For the love of god... (Score:4, Insightful)
If women want to be in IT/Engineering/Math/Whatever then they'll be in IT/Engineering/Math/Whatever. The idea that there needs to be an exactly equal amount of all groups in every field is patently absurd. People are different. All of us. Even the ones who are in the same ethnic/religious/chromosome group. Quit trying to put people in neat boxes, it doesn't work. Let this issue die. Please Slashdot. It's for your own good.
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People facing backlash and or lawsuits due to gender inequality have a vested interest in at least appearing to do what they can. Same reason Microsoft benefits from helping a nearly defunct Apple so they have a competitor in the face of monopoly trials.
The people pushing the issue, the gender equality folks, have a personal agenda, and you won't change their mind. So this group is either on board with equality people, or paying lip service. That won't go away until the equality people are satisfied, or die
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The idea that there needs to be an exactly equal amount of all groups in every field is patently absurd.
Yes, it is, so I don't know why you keep bringing it up. It isn't the stated goal of any of the major schemes to get women into engineering, and it isn't the stated position of any prominent feminists or feminist groups. It is a classic straw man.
The issue with the lack of women in engineering and certain other subjects is that we know women want to go into them, but are put off doing so. We know because they tell us and describe exactly what puts them off, and because there used to be a lot more of them. E
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Sample size of 1, but my wife absolutely refused to do any type of programming when she graduated college. And it's not like she couldn't have learned, considering her math and science background. She just hated programming, and that was that.
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STEM as a whole is already at parity at the undergraduate level.
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I tell young people, unless you really really really love engineering and programming, you'll have a much better future in medicine - and a longer one at that.
Why bust your ass 60+ hours a week for $80K per year -if that - and have your job sent overseas to India when you could be making as much working 36 hours a week as a nurse practioner - over $100K when you get about 4 years of experience.
The STE part of STEM sucks unless you absolutely cannot do anything else because of love or lack of talent. It's too much work and stress for too little rewards.
That really just depends on where you get a job. There are plenty of jobs out there that dont require you to do 60+ hours a week. In general I work 40-42.5, as do most of the people i work with (except the ones who think they are doing an awesome job working 50-60 when really you just have to clean up their crap later)
The 60+ only applies if you go to a place and feel pressured to do 60 because for some reason all the other employees have been duped in to thinking thats the norm, or they are fresh out of c
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The problem with this brand of feminism is that it promotes the creation and expansion of 'female spaces', while telling men it's not ok for them to have theirs, or that they have to 'tolerate' the inclusion of women until they become a large percentage, which effectively kills it. There's a reason military service (until recently thanks to the same shitty politics) was strictly regimented: Coed group dynamics trigger different behavior in both sexes. It's apparently ok for women to do this everywhere:all
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Oh please. School teaching for one. Because women (both mothers and teacher) automatically view every male as potential child molester, thanks to feminist propaganda that every male is a potential rapist.
Nursing is another. Men feel unwelcome in the profession, both from the nurses AND the customers (who want pretty female nurses).
Women's cloths modeling (if you apply your brains for a second, it's not as absurd as it sounds - plenty of models are thin, tall and built like men, except a man would have to we
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School teaching for one. Because women (both mothers and teacher) automatically view every male as potential child molester, thanks to feminist propaganda that every male is a potential rapist.
I once considered becoming a school teacher in the early 1990's until I discovered how much of a sauage making process it was to become a teacher. Male teachers were then and probably still are desperately needed to provide role models for little boys being raised in fatherless households.
Nursing is another. Men feel unwelcome in the profession, both from the nurses AND the customers (who want pretty female nurses).
When I went back to school in the mid-2000's to get a programming degree, health care was the money major that attracted a large number of guys. Several of my male friends became nurses even thought they're not fond of cle
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"routinely sexually harassed in those classes" - this is a stupid, misandrist, and spurious argument.
- You have no data backing up the "routinely" part aside from your own certain conviction that all men are evil
- You have made absolutely ZERO effort to establish causality even if we assume for a second that you can find such data. Counterproof: women are a LOT more routinely sexually harrassed in politics (Bill Clinton anyone? One count of rape, one count of open-and-shut sexual harrassment. Or hell, look
Interest vs capability (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes. What a surprise that a year of marketing hype hasn't had a major effect on people's choices for what to do for the rest of their lives.
My daughter is one of the women who got a 5 (Score:2)
Took the exam last year, and scored a 5 (New York City - in fact, Bronx HS of Science)
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Took the exam last year, and scored a 5 (New York City - in fact, Bronx HS of Science)
Why did you bother? I'm assuming from your low /. ID number that you're well out of high school.
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Read the subject - My Daughter...(yes, the subject of the message actually sets the topic) - She got a 5 in CS, a 5 in Physics, taking BC calc and AP Chem this year
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Curse my A.D.D. :/ Sorry about that.
Who cares about a test? (Score:3)
As an employer, I would care far less about how people do on a test then I do about actual projects they've worked on or finished programs they can demonstrate. IMHO, STEM jobs are far less about theory and more about practical applications.
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Colleges care about AP tests. As you say: employers don't. Passed AP tests are 'equivalent' to non-remedial college freshman coursework. I've never been asked what grade I got in calc I (5 on the AP test). I was asked about Senior projects and summer work etc decades ago.
That said, there are clearly courses which teach new fundamental approaches. There is a gap between those who did the classical physics/calculus course work and those who haven't. That gap is mostly invisible from the 'don't get it' side
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Ah! Welcome, web developer!
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What is it with foreigners coming to an american site and then bitching about americans? Go create slashdot.eu or something.
A little early to judge? (Score:2)
Maybe my recollection is bad, but, wasn't the big PR push just in the last year? I know at my high school (granted, almost 20 years ago now) you had to take 2 years of CS to get into the AP course and even attempt the test. So at a minimum I would expect the PR push to show up in next year's numbers. Its going to take more time and effort than 1 year of google handing out cash to make a significant change in numbers, and its going to take a long time to really improve pass rates. You can't just throw a
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And if girls don't naturally love programming, i won't help.
Here's my experience with minecraft.
Millions of sales.
Go to the redstone servers or the PVP servers or the Youtube videos about gameplay and redstone programming....
And it's a bunch of 9!!! year old boys to middleaged guys.
Seriously... some 9 year old boy making you tube videos of his redstone creations-- and I learned something from his video. I can't even make a youtube video yet.
Girls play minecraft but they are under represented and tend to fo
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that is supposed to say, "it won't help".
The brightest people don't go into CS anymore, duh (Score:3)
I'd like to think that the brightest US high school students would be smart enough to avoid going into a field that is being outsourced overseas and go into something like Medicine that pays better and is more secure.
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You don't usually "go into" CS with the goal of getting some kind of tech support job.
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Really? I've been on the wrong end of 4 patents. On the other hand, my sister is a pathologist. Her patients never sue.
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To expect the average medical practitioner to have 4 patents over their careers is ludicrous.
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I suggest trying to avoid holding a given belief just because you like it.
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Too soon (Score:2)
If the goal is getting people interested, implying a lack of interest, you can't measure it yet.
Going from not interested to being in an AP class is not a reasonable expectation in a school year. Being in the class does not imply being remotely capable of passing. And the tests cost money. Some states have conditional reimbursement, but I don't see it working out well for people otherwise disinterested a year prior.
People have some idea of the classes they will take entering high school. While that may chan
what if there was a better monetary incentive (Score:3, Insightful)
Would more people, maybe even girls, be interested in this test if employers stopped shipping in visa workers and started to increase pay?
Let's try it, for science.
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No you can't. My employer hires in what is supposed to be the hottest, and hardest to hire, part of technology, now called "data scientist".
Entry level is about $85-90K in California. And this entry level means, PhD in hard science from a good university, and often a couple of years of postdoc at a major lab. No relocation paid either, local hires only. And there's never been a problem finding a pipeline of very good to brilliant
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Entry level is about $85-90K in California. And this entry level means, PhD in hard science from a good university, and often a couple of years of postdoc at a major lab. No relocation paid either, local hires only. And there's never been a problem finding a pipeline of very good to brilliant hires.
We pay nearly that for fresh undergraduates in Atlanta, and our cost of living is half yours. Anyone with 5 years of experience can make $120k easily in Atlanta.
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Sure, but it's a bit disingenuous to not mention the $85k/year spent on air-conditioning :)
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I interned at IBM and I made more than the salaried folks because I got paid overtime and I was non-exampt.
IBM underpays.
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Which also supports my point. It means my ~$65k salary in 1999 was potentially lower than it should have been, which strengthens the case that the poster's claim of $80-90k being the norm for Ph.D.'d data scientists in the Bay area is a huge exaggeration.
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Is this really an important fact? (Score:2)
So, before the press rushes out another set of Not-One-Girl-In-Wyoming-Took-an-AP-CS-Exam stories, let's point out that no Wyoming students of either gender took an AP CS exam again in 2014
There are 31 CITIES in the US with a larger population than the entire state of Wyoming. It's the least populated state in the US. It's most populous city is the capital of Cheyenne with 60,000 people. Heck, the District of Columbia which doesn't get 2 senators and a voting representative in the House has more people than the state of Wyoming. The fact that AP technology classes aren't exactly hugely popular there should surprise no one. I imagine their school budgets are tight enough trying to keep th
Re: Is this really an important fact? (Score:1)
His point was to pre-squash the red herring that "No girls from Wyoming took the test."
Is this really an important fact? (Score:2)
The Slashdot hated coal mining industry and oil industries (and a few other mineral concerns) contribute a lot to the budget. We do better than most due to that. A lot of kids take the IB route at one of the high schools in Casper (which also offers several AP courses). It's tough to do both IB diploma and AP. There aren't enough hours in the day for IB and much of anything else.
The small population does factor in greatly though. Only the larger cities (large being relative) have enough students to be abl
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A little too soon to tell (Score:2)
There are a lot of factors in play here. As noted above, the effects of the Hour of Code and other pushes to get more into programming won't be felt in the first year. My anecdotal situation - AP CS classes at my school increased from about 40 students to over 60 this year. I don't know if this trend is seen throughout the US or not.
There is also the issue of preparation. Not every school has a teacher who is "qualified" to teach the rigorous material in AP CS. My guess is the vast majority of AP Calc
You're going the wrong way (Score:1)
When I was a kid, computers were these neat little things that looked like an electric typewriter that you could plug into the tv and program in basic. And its where a lot of kids became programmers. Success was easy to achieve. Now everything is bolted down. We dumbed it all down for the masses, and made it harder. Now its something you do like going to the dentist, or taking your dog to the vet, or take an AP test in because some plutocrat thinks you should. And the numbers have barely budged. Imag
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This. Pretty much this.
Anyone here who is older than 35 will remember that getting your first computer almost invariably entailed getting at least some sort of clue concerning programming it. Even if it was only "how to get DOS to free up enough space so I can run the game". Getting games to run usually required WAY more than it does today.
Usually it quickly evolved into more. We wanted to DO some kind of stuff with our machines. Games just weren't that good back then and they only got you so far (not to me
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This. Pretty much this.
Anyone here who is older than 35 will remember that getting your first computer almost invariably entailed getting at least some sort of clue concerning programming it. Even if it was only "how to get DOS to free up enough space so I can run the game".
Those of us actually over the age of 35 didn't start on DOS ;-)
poke 53280,0
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This. Pretty much this.
Anyone here who is older than 35 will remember that getting your first computer almost invariably entailed getting at least some sort of clue concerning programming it. Even if it was only "how to get DOS to free up enough space so I can run the game". Getting games to run usually required WAY more than it does today.
Really? I started on the Amiga, and had no messing around to get games to run - it was as simple as inserting a disk.
I feel bad for CS majors (Score:1)
I feel bad for CS majors. On one hand you have outsourcing suppressing wages and making job security unpredictable. Even if outsourcing is a mistake for most companies, some naive CxO's still think it's a good idea. On the other hand you have Mr. Suckerburg and the heads of most tech. companies trying to suppress wages by flooding the labor market through campaigns like this.
At least this article is a bit of good news. It's good to know that their marketing campaign is failing either because they're ineffec
Pay more (Score:2)
The answer is simple: Pay more.
The salary of a tech worker strait out of community college is $30k around here. You can make that much at Walmart, easilly. Why on earth would someone go into a profession that requires difficult classes and pays shit? You can get a nursing degree with a hell of a lot less effort and they start at $45k, the demand for workers is huge and there's no possible way you'd ever get outsourced.
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You seem to be confusing "tech worker" and "software developer". Be the latter. Even as a software developer, first-job pay will be crap, but who cares. Once you demonstrate you can actually code professionally, it's among the best-paying jobs in America.
But you have to be able to code.
I wonder (Score:2)
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Said it before, say it again (Score:2)
Maybe if the gov't would get serious about promoting small software businesses (small 50 employees, and be careful they're not just shill companies for Microsoft et al) and if we had some protectionism I'd say go for it. But right now is not a good time to be a C
Mod parent up. (Score:2)
The stable jobs will be IT and not CS. Why would somebody bound for IT take the CS AP certification?
The AP system is almost pure BS. What a joke. Their metric for measuring the number of majors is by how many high school children ignorant enough to take the AP for it? If it were offered to me when I was in school I would not have taken it and I knew far more than it covered... I still learned something in taking CS courses in things I already knew; not as much as I paid for, but it was still useful informa
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Someone who enjoys coding. Someone who likes being compensated pretty well without having work lawyer-hours. You can whine about H1-B visas all you want, but the situation for software devs is pretty comfortable.
Humans don't move that quickly (Score:2)
People interested in programming in high-school probably had some nerdy interests as adolescents. Interests that weren't squashed by teachers, peers, or parents as so often is the case.
By the time they are 16 or older it's probably too late. Granted there are certainly exceptions, but don't look for a shift in numbers so soon. It takes a concerted effort over at least a decade to begin moving the needle, then a slow ramp up over the following decade to shift the cultural pressures and expectations. Look at
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Because there are too many already globally.
And you slashdotters who attempt to advocate CS/programming on kids are NOT helping, but making things worse.