How to Homeschool AP Courses

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From Google:

What is an AP course?: “An Advanced Placement (AP) course is a college-level course offered in high school by the College Board. Students take these courses and then complete a standardized exam at the end of the year to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject matter. Many colleges and universities award college credit or placement based on a qualifying AP exam score.”

There are many ways to accomplish accessing an AP course as a homeschooler. The most straightforward way is to either find a vendor, either on person or online, pay them a fee, and have them teach your student. If you take an AP course with UC Scout, for example, they also offer the AP test at their HQ in Santa Clara. There are many online providers, including BYU, PA Homeschoolers, and many more. You can find my favorites here. (Note: providers other than UC Scout do NOT usually offer the exam, so you will have to find a test seat somewhere else, which can usually be a very challenging thing.) A much less common option, depending on where you live, is to have your student take an AP course at a local high school, public or private.

Why take an AP course as a homeschooler?: “Taking AP courses as a homeschooler can offer several benefits, including the opportunity to gain college credit, enhance high school transcripts, and develop essential study skills. AP courses also help students prepare for college-level work and may increase their chances of earning scholarships.” Competitive colleges also often allow for AP tests to demonstrate competency as a sort of objective measure against homeschool grades. When it comes down to AP versus dual enrollment, for example, colleges may prefer AP courses because they are uniform– no matter where you take them the content is the same and the test is identical versus the thousands of different places that offer dual enrollment courses.

Additionally, AP courses are typically weighted on a 5.0 scale. This means that earning an A in an AP course will give your 4.0 GPA a higher average. GPAs above 4.0 are typically a foregone conclusion in competitive college admissions processes.

How does AP work? There are really two separate components to an AP course. The first component is a college board approved AP course. Taking a course with an approved provider shows a more demanding level of course material and actually explicitly requires the use of a college level textbook. There are semester length courses such as AP U.S. Government and year long courses such as AP Biology. They are a lot of work and require diligence and proper pacing.

The second part of an AP course is the AP test. These are offered once a year in May over a course of several weeks. Absent a direct scheduling conflict (i.e. the student has two tests that would happen at the same time), everyone takes the AP test for a given subject on the same day at the same time. For example, this year AP Biology was offered on day 1 of testing at 8:00 am everywhere nationwide. There are makeup tests available for emergent circumstances, but generally speaking there is not a lot of flexibility here. Tests must be taken with approved providers and require the use of proprietary software (Bluebook) to ensure the security of the exam.

So the AP course shows that the student is capable of completing work at a college level. The grade in the AP course will appear on the transcript and is an attractive measure of academic rigor. However, in order to actually get college credit, a student will need to “pass” an AP test with a certain score. AP tests are graded on a 1-5 scale, and competitive colleges usually require a 4 or 5 in order to earn credit for college level courses. Community colleges typically offer credit for 3s in most subjects. Here is an example of how one college treats AP tests for credit.

Preparing for the AP exam itself is a completely separate process that should be done alongside the AP course itself. AP students will have access to College Board AP classroom for the courses they are taking, which have all sorts of practice tools available.

Can I homeschool AP courses? Yes, you can. Almost for free. Why would you want to? Because AP courses are expensive. They are about $800-$900 per course, exclusive of the test fee which is another $150-$300 per test. Additionally, if your student wants a rigorous education and/or is trying to be competitive in the college admissions process, their GPA will be considered amongst their competitors and everyone else taking AP courses will be able to have a GPA above 4.0. Note: while it is true that college admissions take into the opportunities available to students, e.g. a public high school has a full suite of AP courses versus a private homeschooler with a limited budget, being able to audit AP courses is an incredibly low cost option that you can and should consider if it makes sense for your student’s goals.

I came to the realization that this was a good option for us because of the exorbitant cost associated with taking AP courses after my student showed me that she had largely been preparing for her AP Bio exam with the completely free practice questions available from Khan Academy

How do I homeschool AP courses?

Homeschoolers can apply to audit AP courses. The first step is to create an account on the College Board AP Audit page here. The first step is to create an account. You can see how to do that here. Note: make sure you are doing this on an actual computer. Doing it on a smartphone will not allow you to select the homeschool option as outlined in the video lined (Your State Home School). In California, you’ll need to have your PSA handy to attach and submit to your account.

Once your account is approved, you can select the courses you want to audit one at a time. You’ll have to select an approved textbook (for the easiest approval (college level, less than 10 years old)), and a syllabus. You can create your own syllabus so long as it meets all of the criteria for the particular AP course. Otherwise, the easiest way to get approval is to adopt a sample syllabus. (Note: adopting the syllabus means you intend to follow it. You are not just selecting it to get approval, you are affirming to the College Board that your course will follow the plan of action set forth therein.)

College Board AP Audit, “Teachers who adopt AP unit guides or sample syllabi or submit a colleague’s approved syllabus receive immediate authorization.” If the course is authorized, it is added to the AP Course Ledger. Also, the AP teacher is granted access to AP Classroom and online student score reports and secure documents including practice exams.

AP Audit Example: AP Biology

For AP Biology, here are the requirements from the College Board AP Audit page (this is all directly quoted):

Hands-On Labs

Laboratory work, data collection, and analysis are integral to the process of science and the training of students in the acquisition and limitations of scientific knowledge. If circumstances prevent your school from providing onsite access to a laboratory environment, instruments, and materials, the 25% instructional time spent on the hands-on lab requirement can be met in the following ways:

• Virtual labs
• Simulations accompanied by student work (data collection, data analysis, etc.)
• Labs that can be safely conducted at home

Regardless of the way the hands-on laboratory requirement is met, all student laboratory experiences must continue to be supervised by a science educator. As outlined in the curricular requirements, these experiences must be recorded and maintained by the student.

Approved Textbooks:

• Campbell, A. Malcolm, Laurie J. Heyer, and Christopher J. Paradise. Integrating Concepts in Biology. 2020. Trunity, Inc. 
• Clark, Mary Ann, Matthew Douglas, and Jung Choi. Biology 2e. 2nd edition. 2018. OpenStax. MY NOTE: OPENSTAX IS AVAILABLE ONLINE COMPLETELY FOR FREE. You can also purchase a print copy. This is the textbook used by BYU, which my daughter took. Amazon affiliate link: Biology 2e
• Clark, Mary Ann, Matthew Douglas, and Jung Choi.  Biology for AP® Courses. 1st edition. OpenStax College.
• Hillis, David M. et al. Life: The Science of Biology. 12th edition. 2023. Sinauer Associates Inc.
• Hillis, David M.,‎ David Sadava,‎ Richard W. Hill,‎ and Mary V. Price. Principles of Life, for the AP Course. 3rd edition. 2019. Bedford, Freeman and Worth Publishing Group. 
• Mader, Sylvia. Biology, AP Edition. 14th edition. 2022. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Mader, Sylvia, and Michael Windelspecht. Biology. 14th edition. 2022. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Morris, Castignetti, Lepri, Relyea. Biology for the AP Course. 1st edition. 2022. BFW. 
• Raven, Peter H., Johnson, Mason, Losos, and Singer, Biology AP® Edition. 12th edition. 2017. McGraw-Hill Education. 
• Solomon, Eldra P., Charles E. Martin, Linda R. Berg, and Diana W. Martin. Biology. 11th edition. 2019. Cengage. 
• Starr, Cecie, Ralph Taggart, Christine Evers, and Lisa Starr. Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life. 15th edition. 2019. National Geographic/Cengage Learning. 
• Urry, Lisa A., Michael Cain, Steven Wasserman, Peter Minorsky, and Jane Reece. Campbell Biology, AP Edition. 12th edition. 2021. Pearson. 
• Urry, Lisa A., Micheal Cain, Steven Wasserman, and Peter Minorsky. Campbell Biology in Focus. 3rd edition. 2020. Pearson.  
• Urry, Lisa A., Michael Cain, Steven Wasserman, Peter Minorsky, and Jane Reece. Campbell Biology in Focus, AP Edition. Pearson. 
• Wolkenfield, Glen. Learn-Biology.com, AP Biology. 2nd edition.  
• Zedalis, Julianne, and John Eggebrecht. Biology for AP Courses. OpenStax College.

Sample Syllabus

You can find this at the AP Audit page, or directly here.

Once your course is approved, your student will gain access to the College Board classroom tools. Khan Academy also offers full practice for AP Biology and several other AP course. As a teacher, you can also request to be added to the teacher discussion board.

As for grading, I suggest making use of as many multiple choice options as possible. You can also find many resources online to help you. I plan to make full use of ChatGPT to help with grading by using AP course grading rubrics and then having it grade and give feedback, which I will then review and determine whether it needs additional prompting or is an accurate and objective assessment.

But remember, there are two parts to AP: the course material, and the exam. Your student should be using the different practice materials available to them, such as taking practice exams– this is in fact a part of the syllabus requirements, but it merits pointing out for those who may be completely unfamiliar with this process and AP world.

Additional Options

If the lower cost of homeschooling AP classes is appealing to you, but you would like some additional support, for $49/semester per course, you can create a teacher account with UC Scout under their “Plus” plan, which will give you access to their entire Canvas interface for whichever AP course. You can read more about that here.

Here is what is included with Plus:

“UC Scout courses come equipped with robust lessons, assignments, assessments, and answer keys.

• Pre-recorded and professionally produced video lessons
• Tests, quizzes, and assignments
• Answer keys, grading rubrics, and other teacher-facing resources
• Learning Management System functionality, including the gradebook
• Lab experiment instructions, for science courses.”

UC Scout was created to create access to AP courses for students in less competitive districts, and as a result the above is free for credentialed CA public school teachers. It’s really a great organization. The plus option does not grant you access to a seat for the AP test, but can be an excellent option if you don’t want to plan out and teach a class from scratch.

I think I would be much more inclined to use the Plus option for STEM courses, versus being completely independent, since I feel confident with Humanities on my own but welcome assistance with Sciences and Maths in particular. I may just pay for the course if it came down to it as well– these are the choices and sacrifices we have to assess on a case by case basis for our own individual homeschools.

Additionally, UC Scout offers teacher training–I think on a monthly basis.

I signed up for Plus for the AP African American Studies course, and I am interested in seeing how the course works. I would prefer to use actual books and have written assignments but I am inclined to believe that the UC Scout classroom may be helpful for test prep and I think the videos would be good as well– my daughter took AP Government with them, via On Demand, and it was a positive experience. I signed up for plus before I knew about the sample syllabus and textbook. Once I learned of that I saw how everything could be done independently for a very low cost. For example, one of the AP US History textbooks is also Openstax, therefore free, so you could do AP US History completely for free. (Note: APUSH is a notoriously difficult class since it covers so much subject matter. Don’t let the fact that you could do it for free make you think that it wouldn’t be a challenging undertaking for you or your student.)

I think that’s all I have to share on this topic. If I remember anything else I will come back and edit. I know you guys want a video on this, but filming is much harder to do these days, so I thought I would get this out in the universe to help you!

The next blog post I intend to write will be detailing the process of building out a course with chatGPT based on YOUR particular student. I’ll share a teaser of the course and then come back and write about the process when I can.

Thanks for reading!