At Fairfax High School, it is never too early to start preparing for college.
That is why the school offers an Advanced Placement boot camp — four nights of crash-course seminars on how to succeed in the college credit courses offered at the high school level. The classes start as early as ninth grade, and teachers want to make sure the students enrolled in the difficult classes are prepared for a grueling year.
Last year, the boot camp attracted 150 students. This year, about 300 showed up for the camp, Aug. 13-16, said Tracey Kyle, an FHS Spanish teacher and the AP Boot Camp organizer. The school promotes the camp by sending letters home, having teachers tell their students about it, and by relying on word of mouth.
"The kids will follow other kids," said Kyle.
The boot camp’s seminars teach the critical skills needed to excel in the Pre-AP, AP and honors classes. Skills like writing, reasoning, organization, time management and test-taking strategies help the students once they begin class, Kyle said. Many students who drop AP courses are first-timers, which is another reason the boot camp has the potential to benefit a lot of students, said Kyle.
"It’s pretty much helpful for those people who aren’t used to taking hard classes," said Amnah El Tahir, a junior.
Tahir has always taken honors courses, but this year will be her first experience with AP class. She is signed up for history, music and English, but she is not worried about the added level of work. She said she has been learning most of the skills reviewed during the boot camp since she was in the sixth grade.
"They showed us the basics, like writing essays and things we’re going to need to do in AP," she said. "I’m pretty sure for most of the people there, it helped."
Kyle needed help signing people in this year because of the boot camp’s newfound popularity. Richard French, a social studies and AP teacher, helped get the students organized when they first walked through the Fairfax High School doors. For the freshmen, he said, walking into high school for the first time can be pretty intimidating. That is why the boot camp can really benefit them, since it takes away some of that first-day pressure by preparing students, he said.
Students who enroll in AP courses and end up not doing so well right off the bat are assigned to mentors. The mentors provide remediation for the students, as well as an outlet to discuss any difficulties or frustrations with the course. AP credit, which many colleges and universities accept as college credit toward a degree, is not given unless students pass the AP exam at the end of the school year.
"We hope that when they get into these classes, that they’re ready," said Kyle.