Eli Brunsman, a freshman at Ball State, started college ahead of the game. Brunsman earned several college credits from five dual credit and Advanced Placement classes she took at Muncie Central High School. Brunsman said her experiences in AP classes have helped prepare her for college-level coursework at Ball State.
“The difficulty level isn’t exactly the same, but it is pretty similar since AP classes are considered to be a college course in a way since the credit is for college. It kind of prepared me more for the difficulty of actual classes on campus,” Brunsman said.
According to Muncie Central Assistant Principal, Melissa DeWitt, Brunsman is not the only Muncie Central student taking advantage of AP course offerings. Nearly 600 students signed up for AP classes this academic year.
During spring 2014, nearly 250 Muncie Central juniors and seniors took an AP test. Last spring, that number jumped to 430. The consolidation of Muncie high schools played a big role in the growth during the merger year, but the numbers have continued to grow.
State and national participation in these programs has also increased, though at a lower rate. While participation at MCHS increased by 67 percent from 2014 to 2015, Indiana experienced a 4.7 percent increase and the national increase was 8.7 percent.
Tom Jarvis, Muncie Central principal, said the trend of growth in Muncie started four or five years ago when students and staff were challenged to step up to higher standards. The amount of AP course offerings also played a role in the recent growth, Jarvis said. With 17 different AP courses, Jarvis explained that Muncie Central students are able to find classes that challenge them while exploring their interests.
The school has recently added AP classes in studio arts, Spanish, German, and French in an effort to meet the interests of students, according to Jarvis.
Unlike many schools, Jarvis and DeWitt explained that Muncie Central has open enrollment for AP classes. Jarvis said that students are taking the harder classes by choice.
“For the most part, they elect to take those classes. So that’s why it makes it even more fun and exciting to see our kids are electing to take those classes, they’re not put into those classes,” Jarvis explained.
The high school also covers the cost of taking the AP exams so students do not have to. According to Brunsman, not having to pay for the tests influenced her decision to enroll in AP classes at Muncie Central.
“Since these tests are paid for by the school, then it makes you more likely to sign up for it, because you know that if you do do a little worse than you expected, it didn’t make that big of an effect on you, because you didn’t have to pay it out of pocket,” Brunsman explained.
Brunsman said that although a lot of the classes focus on the test, the people she was surrounded by had a bigger impact on her than the assessment in the spring.
“I feel like there’s a different atmosphere even if you’re not taking it for those college credits. If you want to maintain a high GPA, you’re around other students that are taking school really seriously and they’re going to push you to be your best as well,” Brunsman said. “You sort of get a bond with them and you work together to make sure you’re doing the best you can.”
While 29 percent of Muncie Central students who took an AP exam in 2015 got a score high enough to earn college credit, Dewitt says she is encouraged by the 18 percent growth from 2013 and expects to see the numbers continue to climb.
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