AP Capstone is a program that was first introduced to our school in the 2023-2024 school year. It is a two year program where you learn to develop skills such as critical thinking, research and communication. The reward for taking AP Seminar and AP Research for two years is the AP Capstone diploma. The achievement of earning this diploma will be marked on the students’ transcripts for colleges to see. To earn the AP Capstone Diploma, students must score a three or higher on the AP Seminar and AP Research exams, and on four additional AP Exams.
In the first year of the program, students take AP Seminar. In AP Seminar, there are four different projects: the Individual Multimedia Presentation (IMP), the Team Multimedia Presentation (TMP), the Individual Research Report (IRR), and finally the Individual Written Argument (IWA). All of these are focused on a different topic and use different strategies of research.
For example, senior Patrick Lowery,studied the effects of opioids on teenagers’ mental health for his Team Multimedia Presentation.
The following year, the students take AP Research. In AP Research, students conduct in depth research on a topic of their choice. Instead of the research topic only taking up a segment of the school year, like AP Seminar, it takes up the entirety of the year.
As this class is brand new to our school, there are many different perspectives on it. Declan Choi is a junior who is currently taking AP Research, and has had a positive experience.
“My favorite part of the class is the independence of getting to decide when I want to do something and how I wanna do it,” Choi said.
The majority of the year in AP Research is spent working by yourself. There is hardly any interaction with the teacher after the first few weeks. This means that the students find their own interviewees, create their own surveys and analyze reports practically all by themselves.
While the teachers can’t interfere with the students’ research, they can plan things out to help them. In December 2024, Sarah Kiyak, an AP Research teacher, planned a trip to New York City. Throughout this trip, students were given the responsibility of finding a professor at any University in the city. Columbia University or New York University were the most common. At some point during this three day trip, the student had to go to the professor’s office and interview them on their topic. Senior Nathaniel Teres interviewed a professor at Columbia with a Ph.D. in behavioral nutrition.
At the end of each year, there is a final presentation each student must do. For AP Seminar, the final project was just the Individual Written Argument. It took just as long as all of the other projects that class brought along that year. For AP Research, the final project is the presentation of what students have been working on the entire year.
“The presentation will take place in either my classroom or Ms. Kiyak’s classroom… it would be the two of us along with anyone you may want to bring,” Sean Kinnard, an AP Research teacher, said.
After the final presentations, each teacher has their own way of celebrating. Troy Olsen, for example, had the class binge Avatar: The Last Airbender. Other teachers AP Seminar such as Brianna McHugh had their students study for the AP Seminar exam.
Unlike AP Seminar, AP Research has no exam. No teacher has come across what they will do after the presentations, but fingers crossed it will be fun.
“Hopefully we will just watch movies and have free time,” Lowery said.
When AP capstone first got introduced to our school, a mix of sophomores and juniors took it for the very first time. This was also the first time that any of our school’s teachers taught it, so the future was unprecedented. But, the program turned out to be an outstanding way for our students to learn key skills.
If you enter the program, hopefully you take every opportunity in this class to challenge yourself, explore new ideas, and take advantage of the experiences that come your way whether it’s through research, travel, or simply discovering something new about yourself.
