Dear Editors of the Newspacer:

 It is with great sadness that I read your condemnation of the APUS program. It appears that you basically have three complaints: the class did not prepare you to take the AP College Board exam, students cheat (you claim 50% of them), and in your last paragraph, APUS was an “abundance of work” and created problems in your college application.

 Let me respond simply: if you wanted to take the College Board exam, all you have to do is pay the fee and take the exam. You are not required to be in an Advanced Placement course to take a College Board exam. APUS trained you how to write a Document Based Essay in multiple classroom activities and Notebook activities and APUS trained you how to write an essay from a prompt parallel to college history course. The missing ingredient was that APUS did not train you how to take the multichoice portion of the exam. You were not grilled on content from a textbook. You were not required to take multichoice exams for every unit, quarter or semester. Instead, you were taught to argue, view multiple perspectives, write abstracts and book reviews, compile large sources of data, analyze that data, do complex research, write an extensive research paper and defend your point-of-view with facts, data and analysis. In all that learning, you were “trained” to take the APUS College Board Exam – if you choose. You chose not to do so.

 As to students cheating, you have made a bold, gross generalization without evidence or analysis. Historians, and journalists, before they make an assertion need reliable confirmation; however, in your article a single unnamed student said that present day students use old notebooks and outlines. In order for that to be of use to the students, the notebook extras must remain the same (they are not), test questions must remain the same (they are not), activities in class must remain the same (they are not). All papers that must be completed individually are checked through turnitin.com. I have been using turnitin.com for over twenty years. Sometimes students do make a bad choice to cheat. It is a rare event, and when it is done, it is treated as a disciplinary violation that is dealt with according to school district rules and student’s privacy rights.

 As to the issue of an abundance of work… I find this rather curious. So, do you think that a class designed to take the College Board exam will not be an “abundance of work”? Or do you think a class that offers college credit would not have an “abundance of work”? I guess I just don’t understand the issue you note. Furthermore, the problem with your college application, and supposedly admission, is unclear. Since you don’t explain the problem, nor did you talk with me about a potential problem with your application process as it relates to APUS, I can only wonder about your meaning.

 The issue of whether Ivy League universities will accept Portland State University credits is debatable. The only research you did was to look at the websites of a select number of universities. A university will not unilaterally accept pre-matriculated college courses without seeing a college transcript. Until a transcript is sent, every college will turn down such credit. The attending university needs to verify the accreditation of the crediting institution. It is that simple. (Incidentally, over the years, every one of the colleges you listed, have accepted the PSU credit.)

I respect your right to evaluate your own experiences in APUS as not meeting your own particular expectations. However, when you evaluate a program, and make a recommendation as a journalist, you have a greater responsibility than simply expressing your personal experiences and biases. That responsibility means doing your research and making sure your facts are correct.

Sincerely,

Karen E. Hoppes, Ph.D.