The Advanced Placement (AP) program is a cooperative endeavor between secondary schools and colleges that allows high school students to complete college-level courses during high school. Historically, one of the more common responses to serving exceptionally bright students was to place them in the next grade, accelerating their learning, often leading to earlier completion of college-level work. The AP program falls into this broader spectrum of acceleration strategies. Acceleration of content or services encompasses two perspectives. The completion perspective focuses on maximizing return on one's educational investment by minimizing the time required to complete an educational objective. The enrichment perspective focuses not on time but rather [Page 32]on the increase in challenge that is inherent in attempting more advanced work. The AP program includes both ...