Twenty-one Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School students recently made school history by becoming the first group of students to be recognized as AP Capstone Scholars. To achieve this noteworthy recognition, students had to receive qualifying scores of “3” or higher (out of 5) in both AP Capstone program courses, AP Seminar and AP Research, as well as four additional AP courses of their choosing.
Congratulations to the following students on becoming the first AP Capstone Scholars in the prestigious history of Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School:
Class of 2020 graduated seniors earning this distinction:
Courtni Began
John Galick
Katherine Schwenn
Class of 2021 current seniors earning this distinction:
Stephen Choi
Amrin Choudhury
David Drinko
Nicoleta Durlesteanu
Niklas Firestone
Max Hartland
Elyse Hensley
Manith Humchad
Luke Kirin
Helen Lee
Shahil Merchant
Kenzie Mounir
Michael Palmer
Shubham Patel
Maddie Shaheen
Evan Shaw
Joong Soo Shin
Ethan VanRumppe
Created and administered by The College Board, AP Capstone is a new two-year program at BBHHS which helps students develop valuable college and career ready skills such as conducting research and communicating related results. Both courses are taught by BBHHS English/Language Arts Teacher, Mr. Ben Lesh.
Students entering the program take the AP Seminar course which requires students to complete two specific performance tasks: a group project and an individually written argument. For the group project, students begin by writing individual papers on a topic of the group’s choosing. The individual papers are then synthesized into a solution to the selected topic using references from the group members’ work. For the individual written argument, each student is assigned a group of thematically linked source materials by The College Board and asked to identify a problem linked to at least two of the sources. Students then complete a research paper detailing a solution to the identified problem and submit it to The College Board for review. Due to limitations imposed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the required seated exam and group presentation course components were waived during the 2019-2020 school year.
For the second and final course, AP Research, students complete a rigorous year-long research project on a topic of their choosing. During the research process, students are required to identify and attempt to resolve gaps in their final analysis. This includes successfully identifying and executing a data collection method. In response to adjustments made necessary due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the required 20-minute presentation was waived, and students were only required to submit a 5,000-word paper summarizing their findings.
Congratulations, once again, to all BBHHS AP Capstone Scholars on their impressive accomplishment!