Debuting for the 2026-27 school year, Advanced Topics (AT) courses aim to change the narrative around course rigor at USN.
Advanced Placement (AP) courses will no longer define the standard of academic rigor at USN. An abundance of new classes will greet students when they look through next year’s course catalog, many now bearing the AT moniker.
Long known for its reputation as one of Nashville’s most academically rigorous private schools, USN has been at the forefront of thinking through innovative curricula. Whether it is the unique English senior seminar courses or MSON class offerings, USN students have always been met with myriad options whenever course registration season rolls around. AP courses have been the primary designation for challenge within course offerings until now.
Assistant Head of High School for Academics Jeff Edmonds explains how the shift toward AT courses might better reflect the challenges these courses actually pose.
“We’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time…Our labels were just kind of all over the place. We had accelerated, we had advanced, we had courses that weren’t labeled as advanced, that really were advanced,” said Edmonds. “We needed to clarify that for our external audience…At the same time, we just had these questions about [how] challenges in some areas feel different than AP, and we really want to honor that. And so we created this advanced topics label.”
What those advanced topics courses actually look like is decided at the departmental level. Every department chair has led conversations about what exactly constituted an advanced topic in the context of their own discipline.
“We charged [each department] with really thinking about what the difference is between their foundational classes and their advanced classes. And typically, our most advanced classes have just been the AP classes,” Edmonds explained. “But we start, we really try to kind of bear down and sort of think about like, what is the mission?…I think in many cases, the AP program hits that. But we also feel like there are other types of challenges that are not AP, that we want to be able to give kids and also mark them as…the highest form of academic excellence.”
Edmonds says AT courses are specifically not meant to replace the challenge of USN’s AP course offerings; they are meant to supplement them. While the AP curriculum presents a very particular set of challenges, maybe the sheer volume of content or the pressure of an all-important exam, it cannot provide the full spectrum of challenges that USN wants to give students. In recent years, independent schools have increasingly begun experimenting with how AP courses fit into their curricula, some even shifting away from the program entirely.
“The thing with our curriculum is that we do all kinds of innovative stuff, but I think part of what we wanted to do is reflect at this top level,” Edmonds said.
At its heart, Edmonds says that the change to advanced topics courses is “truth in advertising,” rather than a shift towards an entirely new type of class. A number of USN’s staple courses have transitioned to the AT label, notably multivariable calculus and government. The simple renaming of these courses does not necessarily change what is being taught; instead, it is intended to better reflect the content and depth.
AT courses will look different from department to department. Their structure, depth level, and focus will all differ based on what each department deems ‘advanced.’ The English and science departments, for instance, took very different approaches as to what their individual AT courses would look like.
English Department Chair Freya Sachs spelled out what exactly an Advanced Topics label would mean for USN’s English courses.
“Our hope is that advanced topics let students get deeper into the subjects that they are curious about…if somebody, for example, is really excited about creative writing, they can…practice those different techniques and build out kind of their own full portfolio and process,” Sachs explained. “It would give the opportunity for them to pick an author or study and do kind of a more sustained project throughout the semester so that we’re hoping it gives kind of an increased complexity of text, kind of longer-term projects and thinking, and a real commitment to having the work done thoughtfully.”
With the advent of the new course type, AP English will cease to be offered for the 2026-27 school year. Rising seniors will no longer have to decide whether to pursue a senior seminar or devote their full year to AP English.
Traditionally, this junior year decision has led to some issues during the course registration process. As both the Director of College Counseling and as an advisor, Aaron Fulk has dealt with these situations firsthand.
“I think what often broke my heart…is when I would be working with juniors who are choosing their senior classes. We have these really fascinating seminars…but [many juniors have said] ‘I want to take AP English,’ and I’m like ‘Great. Why?’ 99% of the time, it was, ‘well, it says AP.’ It had nothing to do with the skills they were going to be learning,” Fulk said.
“That, to me, is not a great signal for us as a school, and so I’m hoping…now rising seniors can literally choose their…courses based on what [they] want to learn,” he added.
Sachs echoed this sentiment.
“What we have said and have meant is that we’ve really not wanted students to choose AP rather than seminars, because one is more complicated [or] one more difficult…[we want them to choose based on] the type of thinking involved,” Sachs said.
These different types of thinking have become an emphasis of this new English curriculum. Transitioning towards AT courses has “allowed us to actually think about different types of English courses,” Sachs added. These new courses will take a wide array of different shapes, some focusing on analytical reading and writing, while others delve into interdisciplinary and project-based studies.
For the science department, AT courses will work to supplement their current AP offerings. They will be more of an extension of the current curriculum, rather than a trip into new curricular offerings. Science department chair Anne Dervan elaborates on what exactly those AT options might look like.
“In the science department, we do have whole courses that are advanced. Those would be the AP courses: AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Environmental Science, and AP Physics…We wanted to offer other opportunities alongside those for students to do advanced work in science, so we have options in Physics II and in Engineering: Design and Manufacture, for students who are interested in additional levels of challenge, to take a path within those courses that meets our idea of advanced topics,” Dervan explained.
Instead of functioning as stand-alone courses, ATs within the science department will work more as a challenge-by-choice system within its current offerings. Once students enroll in either Physics II or Engineering: Build and Manufacture, they will have the option to engage in advanced work in lieu of regular coursework. Dervan offers a look at what that advanced work might entail.
“More independent experimentation. The ‘more’ being important because there’s an independent experimentation elsewhere, working in more complex systems, more complex models, and more complex math,” Dervan said. “Our advanced topics courses and our AP courses should be extensions into deeper knowledge with an active pursuit by the students, as opposed to the application of knowledge and practicing that application, which is more foundational. So the independence is a hallmark.”
‘Independence’ will be the universal ‘hallmark’ of these new courses. Whether it is the English Department’s sustained project-based learning approach or the switch to more ‘independent experimentation,’ USN students will have a chance to take a new level of ownership over their learning in these new Advanced Topics courses.
For a school with a communal emphasis on individual identity, the AT approach seems like a natural step next step.
