You know what I'd like to see - is a second study, in which students who got the highest scores on the Dartmouth course, with the same interval of delay also take that same final exam.

I was surprised at the number of fellow students at my University who openly admitted that within a month or two of the final exam, they couldn't recall much of anything about some of the courses in which they had scored an A or higher in.

It's entirely possible that the issue isn't the AP courses, but the significant delay taking (and doing well in the course) - and retesting again.

Alternatively - take a student from another Ivy League, Yale, Harvard - and see how they would do on a Dartmouth Final exam with some delay between taking the course and testing out again.

Indeed. A lot of education in the western world is remarkably shallow. Blitz through a lot of "material" and busy work, then cram so you can pass the test the next day, then forget everything. It's a horrible way to "learn" anything.

I found the issue was just building on my education. You could teach me concept X until you were blue in the face, and I wouldn't remember a whole lot a few months later. But give me a half-decent education on concept X and then soon after move to something that builds on concept X, and I will retain a far greater understanding of concept X for far longer.

I think it is related to a similar effect I have noticed- when I teach something, I again retain that information much better.

In defense of AP tests, they're meant to replace college level courses ... not university level courses. They're equivalent to what you'd encounter at a local community college, not what you'd encounter at the top 100 research universities in the country.

That's not what "college" means in the United States. "College" is a synonym with "University." There is sometimes some word usage where the connotations can be different, but rarely, and in particular, there's no difference in the notion of "university level courses" and "college level courses."

This is doubly confusing in the case of Dartmouth College, which is actually a university (I got my physics Ph.D. there - and they have a medical school, a prominent MBA school, etc.) but is called a "College" for interesting historical reasons involving Daniel Webster.

Generally the difference is that a college will offer undergraduate programs and universities offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Interesting. I wonder how much the trend of "teaching to the test" has infected the AP program.