Georgia Board of Regents accepts APCS as “counting”

Just found a great piece of email in my (massive!) unread pile from the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.

Here’s the latest on the AP CS. After much thought and discussions on the AP CS course, we have decided to accept the AP CS course as a 4^th course for admission to the USG institutions. However, the course will be listed in a separate category.

To follow up…..I do have a question for you. Would it be helpful to the students and our institutions if the AP CS course was to be accepted as a fourth science course only, or as a fourth science OR math course? We would like to do what’s best for the students and our institutions.

This could hardly be a better answer for us.  Computing is something different, so it gets a new category.  Of course, yes, we have asked for the “science OR math” option — which also matches with the understanding that computing has aspects of both, and helps students with either.

There’s another step yet.  This is the University saying, “This will count for University admissions.”  Next, the Georgia Department of Education has to say, “And we’ll count that for high school graduation.”  Normally, that should be nearly automatic, but creating a whole new category of courses may take some more convincing.  We’ll keep you informed.