The AP Scholars program began my freshman year and, at the time,  it seemed like an incredibly prestigious organization. The teachers told us that it would look fantastic on college resumes as an extracurricular and that it would develop into a very important club. Every student was vying for a spot in the program and it was extremely desirable.

Freshman year, tons of students attended the meetings and took it very seriously. We tried to go to as many meetings as possible, not only because they were required, but also legitimately helpful. However, as the year progressed, the directors of the club started to find fewer subjects to discuss and the club lost its sense of purpose, which initially was to help students manage AP classes.

Now, as a sophomore, hardly anyone attends the meetings. A couple weeks ago, I was one of only about twenty students who went, even though there are over twice that many members. Nobody takes it seriously anymore. Before the last meeting, I asked an unnamed acquaintance of mine if he was planning on going, and he said,“No, I don’t feel like it. That club is a joke.” In the meeting, the only thing we did was listen to a social studies teacher describe the AP Human Geography course. The very same description is available in the book accompanying the CRFs that provides a description of every class.

The question becomes whether or not AP Scholars is worth continuing. It is no longer taken seriously and has no particular use to students. This program should not be continued unless there are some drastic changes made to increase its usefulness. I think that possibilities include meetings that are more informative and the recruitment of upperclassmen mentors to help out. Also, students should actually be required to go or else there’s no point in having AP Scholars at all. If these changes are not made, in my opinion, AP Scholars is dead.