Yuma educator among test graders

Advance placement classes are looking for the few, proud, high school sophomores who can be all they can be, says a Yuma AP class instructor.

Claudia Sohnleitner, head of Gila Ridge High School social studies department and who teaches one of four sections of AP world history, recently completed her first time as a College Board AP Examination reader, scoring those sophomores who completed their AP level tests this past May.

There were 820 reviewers (among 1,500 applicants) who graded 147,000 AP exams from American students in schools from all over the world for one week in mid-May at Colorado State University from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Sohnleitner recalled.

"It was grueling but amazingly interesting. It was a mix of amazing people, college professors and high school teachers."

At Gila Ridge, they hold open enrollment for any student willing to take on the rigors of college level AP classes. However, most other schools require a minimum grade-point average standing and/or written recommendations to be accepted into AP classes, Sohnleitner noted.

"With 10th graders, it's sort of like a deer-in-the-headlights scenario that requires massive amounts of reading and working weekends, so we set up a schedule where AP students had to do an hour of work a day, seven days a week."

Toward the end of the course, students admitted they should have worked harder and should have listened more closely to teachers' advice, but they were all proud of the work they achieved. As juniors, they are better prepared to handle AP's college standards, so their sophomore year served as a kind of academic boot camp, Sohnleitner noted.

The AP world history exams, designed by the College Board, the same institution that writes the SAT college entrance exams, are divided into three areas: a 75-question, multiple-choice section, and two essay sections, just one of which she focused on, Sohnleitner explained.

"The head reader said scores were 22 percent higher this year than last year and the review judges thought essays were better this year than at any other year." 

Exams were graded on a scale up to 5, with those who scored 4 or 5 receiving college credit for the course and therefore able to skip the class once they arrive in college. Even for those who scored only a 2 or 3, it was still encouraging, Sohnleitner explained, because AP classes are weighted grades that carry far more prestige than a higher score with regular classes.

Therefore if a college admissions officer sees a students with a GPA of 3.3 who has taken all AP classes, it would pay off in the final analysis by possibly gaining entrance for them, whereas those with even a higher GPA could be denied because their grades were based on regular classes.

"For me it's not so much the final AP exam score, but the fact the student completed the AP curriculum," Sohnleitner said. "But it's hard on students because AP is a lot of work and some parents get concerned over the demands of AP, but it's the first rigorous class in a sophomore's high school career."

She added that sophomores are simultaneously dealing with sports, club participation and accelerated classes, which are also rigorous but not as strenuous as college-level AP classes.

There were two teachers who worked in AP world history, Sohnleitner said, and they put a lot of preparation into the class and they expected the same of their students, she stressed. There were 104 Gila Ridge students who took AP world history, while 90 had AP U.S. history, 24 AP psychology and 45 AP English.

"This is why kids have to learn to manage their time," Sohnleitner said. "They have to figure out how get all their various responsibilities they have in a day done, by balancing all the coursework with extracurricular activities and their family life, too."

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William Roller can be reached at
wroller@yumasun.com or 539-6858.