When I chose AP Seminar as one of my sophomore-year courses in January of my freshman year, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. The main thing I’d heard about the class was that it was writing-heavy and definitely not for students who aren’t fans of writing. Being someone who has loved writing since elementary school, though, I signed up for the class despite feeling hesitant about the two-year AP Capstone commitment.
This, along with my decision to switch from Musical Theater to Journalism at the beginning of my sophomore year, was one of the best course decisions I’ve made in my high school career. In AP Seminar, I enjoyed working with my group on research projects but didn’t feel an extremely strong personal interest or connection with my research topic in either the spring or fall semester. A main difference between AP Seminar and AP Research is that in AP Research, your research project is entirely your own; therefore, you can research anything you want. Any personal curiosity that might stem from a lifelong passion or from a social media post can be explored. The class culminates in a complete research paper and presentation, which are what make up students’ AP scores for the class rather than a typical AP exam.
To me, the coolest thing about this class is that you’re contributing to the body of knowledge in the field of research on the topic you’ve chosen. You are filling a gap in knowledge and actually contributing knowledge to the world, which I think is incredible. After completing your paper, you can continue your project on your own time without College Board guidelines, such as by conducting further research or submitting your paper to an academic journal for publication.
Chamblee is the only school in DeKalb County that offers AP Capstone (AP Seminar plus AP Research), and if you choose to commit to this program, you probably want to get as much as you can out of AP Research. After all, you’ll spend an entire school year on your project, writing your paper as a professional researcher would: introduction, literature review, methodology, results, and discussion.
A crucial step of AP Research and your research project is choosing a topic, which ultimately leads to developing a research question. In Chamblee’s AP Research class, currently taught by Fred Avett, students devote about three months to gaining knowledge about a field they’re interested in before finalizing their research questions. This question will dictate how you spend the rest of your year in the class, and although you can change your question later on in the research process, doing so will require you to put in a lot of extra time and effort. I recommend trying to find and choose a topic you feel 100% interested in from the beginning, and don’t choose a topic you think College Board will like. A topic in any field of study can earn you a high AP score, so choose something you truly want to research. This will also keep you motivated and interested throughout the rest of the year and likely lead you to produce higher-quality work.
Another important skill to utilize in this class is time management. Keeping up with deadlines is necessary to obtaining a high grade in this course and keeps you on track with each step of the research process. My AP Research class just completed its final presentations, which are scored by our teacher and make up 25% of our AP score, and in the oral defense portion of the presentation in which students are asked questions about their research and research process, I’ve heard many students say that they wished they’d managed their time better. Throughout the school year, you may feel like you’ll have a lot of time to revise your paper at the end of the year before submitting it to College Board, but around that time, with other AP exams and school tests coming up, you probably won’t be able to devote as much time to your paper as you’d thought. Basically, don’t write an entire section draft the night before it’s due, and improve your paper as you continue with your research rather than waiting until the last minute.
If you’re in AP Seminar right now, Mr. Avett will visit your class before the end of this school year to introduce AP Research to you. Take his advice and decide on a general topic you’d like to study this summer so that you’re ready to jump right into AP Research this fall, and good luck! Also, if you’re in AP Statistics right now or plan to take it next year, that class could end up being very helpful to you in your research.
