New Advanced Placement Offerings at McLean HS Next Year
For the upcoming 2024-2025 school year, McLean High School has been selected to pilot two courses – AP Seminar for 10th graders and AP Human Geography for 9th graders. Student course requests for the 2024-25 school year can be viewed on the “Course Request” tab in SIS. Information regarding the course and a survey was emailed to parents on April 26th. If a student would like to make an alteration to their course requests based on these new offerings, please complete the survey by the deadline listed in the email.
Pilot AP Courses Presentation Spring 2024
AP Seminar – Rising 10th Graders
FCPS is piloting the opportunity to take AP Seminar as a graduation requirement, and McLean High School is one of the schools offering this opportunity to 10th grade students. 10th grade students have the option to take English 10, English 10 Honors, or AP Seminar to meet the English 10 graduation requirement.
AP Seminar is a unique course that allows students to practice writing and research skills across a number of different subject areas. According to the College Board, the course helps students, “Develop and practice the skills in research, collaboration, and communication that you’ll need in any academic discipline. You’ll investigate topics in a variety of subject areas, write research-based essays, and design and give presentations both individually and as part of a team.”
AP Seminar is equivalent to a college-level course and requires students to work independently and engage with challenging, college-level materials. Students in this course can expect to read more nonfiction texts and may read less fiction and other literary forms throughout the year. Additionally, they will experience different forms of writing than they would in English 10. Students will engage in project-based assessments which focus on research, individual written argument, and team/individual presentation/defense of student chosen research project. The course builds to an AP exam but also has tasks throughout the year that students use to build a portfolio that they submit to College Board.
AP Human Geography - Rising 9th Graders
FCPS is piloting the opportunity to take AP Human Geography as a graduation requirement, and McLean High School is one of the schools offering this opportunity to 9th grade students. 9th grade students may either take World History 1, World History 1 Honors or AP Human Geography to meet the first World History graduation requirement.
AP Human Geography is an engaging course that allows students a chance to learn deeply about geography and how it has shaped the world today. According to College Board, the course gives students the chance to “Explore how humans have understood, used, and changed the surface of Earth and use the tools and thinking processes of geographers to examine patterns of human population, migration, and land use.” AP Human Geography is equivalent to a college-level course and requires students to work independently and engage with challenging, college-level materials.