My grandson is a sophomore at Watertown High and is taking AP US History and AP Physics this year. ________________________________ From: Lincoln <[email protected]> on behalf of Sara Mattes <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, September 2, 2025 9:13 PM To: Laura Taylor <[email protected]> Cc: Lincoln Talk <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [LincolnTalk] LSRHS - School Rankings (US News & World Report):--the financial impacts of lack of AP offerings.
While my children had great educational opportunities (and experiences) at L/S, the availability of AP courses was not one of them. A little discussed fact is that taking and passing AP exams with a certain score can award you with college credits. Enough AP exams and a student may have been awarded a full semester of college. Both my boys did this. It is money in the bank! One of my boys graduated early and stayed on to take Grad.School courses. My other son deferred his start date by a semester to continue work in an internship in a medical laboratory. Both boys walked with their respective classes. We paid for 7 semesters of college instead of 8. The lack of AP offerings has consequences-academic and financial. On Sep 2, 2025, at 3:53 PM, Laura Taylor <[email protected]> wrote: This was included in the most recent email from Andrew Stephens, L-S Superintendent/Principal You may be aware that the 2025 US News & World Report Best Public High Schools Ranking came out recently and that L-S was listed at #68 for MA. Historically, L-S has had the following rankings among MA schools in this report: 2025: 68th; 2024: 85th; 2022: 85th; 2021: 68th; 2020: 102nd; 2019: 70th. The main reason for L-S’ historical ranking with US News & World Report is tied to the fact that one of the only three categories this publication uses in its rankings (in addition to State testing proficiency and graduation rate) centers on the percentage of seniors only who took and passed at least 1 AP exam and who took and passed an AP test in multiple areas (40% of the overall ranking). While I personally and professionally do not feel that rankings that have limited categories and push the comparison between districts come anywhere close to reflecting the arc of the educational experience for a student at L-S over their four years here, I do understand that many people do pay attention to these types of reports. That said, it is our strong belief that rankings like this are not indicative of all that we do here at L-S, and I hope this provides some context for you. ——- Laura Taylor -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to [email protected]. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln.
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