Chadwick School One of 17 Worldwide Participating in Tough International Program

Chadwick School in Palos Verdes Estates, announced today that it is one among 17 schools worldwide selected to have its junior and senior students participate in the two-year pilot program, AP/Cambridge Capstone Program. 

The two-year program is a jointly piloted by the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) program and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. 

The challenging program emphasizes independent research skills, collaborative teamwork, global curricula, and cross-disciplinary content, according to a press release from the school. 

Students who complete both the Capstone Seminar course as juniors and the Capstone Research Project course as seniors with scores of 3 or higher receive the AP Capstone Certificate, signifying successful performance in those courses. Students who earn scores of 3 or higher on both Capstone courses and on four additional AP exams of their choosing receive the AP Capstone Diploma. 

“This year each senior in the course has been working on a 5,000 word research paper that responds to a question generated by, and of interest to, the student,” Upper School Director Mark Wiedenmann said in a statement. Wiedenmann also taught the Capstone Seminar and Research Project courses.  

“Students began working on their research questions last May,” Wiedenmann says. “‘Good research questions’ were defined as being debatable and investigated with sources the students had discovered.  The students had to submit their questions and initial sources to Cambridge this fall for approval, and send in their finished papers by April 30. In addition, they each gave an oral presentation and defense of their work here at Chadwick.” 

Seniors completing the program include Alex Armitage, Sara Baronsky, Megan Bowen, Sophie Burns, Megan Calfas, Vanessa Contratto, Blake Dittman, Amir Fathi, Cole Freeman, Franny Hocking, Alex Klaassen, Sam Klaassen, Becky Lytle, Dylan Morrissey, Danielle Price, Emily Robertson, Lauren Scott, Lindsay Tong, and Juri Watanabe.