About AP Computer Science Principles

AP Computer Science Principles is an Advanced Placement course.  Students who take and pass the AP exam can receive college credit for the course.

Most AP exam grades are based solely on the AP Exam, but in AP Computer Science Principles you have to do a project, called the Create Performance Task, which is worth 30% of your exam score.  This is of tremendous benefit to many students, as the rubric is quite clear, so it is possible to be confident in that 30%.  To learn more about the AP performance task and see some examples of past projects, visit the Performance Task Resources page in the sidebar!

We use the Code.org curriculum, which is very hands-on and has a lot of collaboration.  The curriculum is designed to be done during class time in a school with five class meetings a week.  Since we have four class meetings a week, you should expect a minimum of one class period's worth of homework over the course of the week, which will often be concentrated over the weekend or on the gap day when we don't meet.

There are many projects in this class, many of which are collaborative.  We will also spend 12 hours of class time on completing the Create Performance Task.  You MUST complete the performance task even if you are not planning to take the exam, it is a substantial investment of class time and will count for a substantial portion of your grade.