A few weeks ago, students were asked to take the Equal Opportunity Schools survey in order to encourage more students to enroll in AP classes.

I took this survey for the third time in my high school career. I took this survey — which asked if I had plans to take AP courses — while sitting in my AP Lang class.

Does this make sense? No.

For students already in AP, this survey wastes precious time that we cannot get back.

With an estimated 30 minutes to take the survey, we are losing 30 minutes we could have spent learning or catching up on work in a, you guessed it, AP class.

Does this make sense? No.

EOS’ mission statement is to provide access for and assist socio-economically disadvantaged students in rigorous courses such as AP, yet we still ask every student on campus to take a redundant survey.

Does this make sense? No.

And to believe this one survey alone can convince students to enroll in an AP class albeit having never taken one is a logical fallacy.

If we aim to be an “equal opportunity school,” reach out to and target the students currently enrolled in CP courses.

The AP push has not declined, nor has it spiked in recent years, but the methods that once proved effective no longer work in a day and age when students can formulate opinions of AP themselves.

Ultimately, students are already given the resources and information necessary to consider taking AP classes and their decision to do otherwise is at their discretion. A survey will not make a difference.

Not only is the distribution of the survey itself tedious but where is the evidence that these surveys actually achieve its purpose?

As students identify which teacher(s) they trust to confide in regarding AP, we must consider this: Students will choose their current teachers.

Students will choose their AP teachers.

These select teachers then receive note of which students claimed they would trust with AP information so they may encourage those students to take those classes. I don’t think my APUSH teacher has to come and ask me if I’m considering taking AP courses.

To that point, the staff list given for teachers is outdated which leads me to believe even administrators neglect the importance of EOS.

The concept of encouraging students to take AP courses who otherwise would not is one of virtue, but the AP push has been tried and tried again and efforts to motivate students have just become redundant and unnecessary.