June 22, 2023
AP Research, taken in Grade 12, is an extension of AP Seminar, taken in Grade 11, and the second half of AP Capstone. Students who pass AP Capstone and four additional AP courses in their high school careers will qualify for the AP Diploma, awarded by the College Board. As in AP Seminar, students investigate issues of their choice, develop research methodologies, review and evaluate sources, articulate original arguments in paper and presentation formats, and define themselves as interdisciplinary scholars.
Whereas AP seminar is primarily skill-focused and ends with performance tasks and an AP exam to measure students’ mastery of skills, AP Research is product oriented and ends with a mini-dissertation based on data and research students have collected independently.
Students define themselves in AP Capstone not by the content or skill sets they have acquired, as in many other AP courses, but by the outcomes and articulation of their own research.
To view a sample of this year’s AP Research Projects, keep reading below.
Student: Ayush A.
Project Title: Correlations Between Academic Rigor and Financial Independence
Abstract: The reason I pursued this research is that I’ve always been interested in pursuing a balance between my academic life and also trying to develop in other areas, such as getting a job, etc. However, what I noticed is that after entering high school, especially at BISV, the increased academic rigor threw off this balance as academics became the number one priority and decreased the time available to focus on other areas of personal development. I think this is a more general trend not just as students progress from middle to high school but also over the decades as high school, in general, has gotten more competitive as students compete for spots at the top colleges. This paper aims to establish a correlation between increased academic rigor in schools and decreased financial independence of high school students in the Bay Area. This region is one of the most competitive in the country, with students taking Advanced Placement and honors courses at extremely high numbers compared to the rest of the United States. I aim to identify if this increased academic rigor comes at a cost to the financial development of high school students. Are they working fewer part-time jobs? Are they creating fewer small businesses? I wish to collect data from multiple high schools throughout the Bay Area by surveying students, asking them how many APs they are taking and if they have ever worked for the purpose of earning money, and analyzing that data to determine if there is a correlational relationship between the two variables.
Student: Meha G.
Project Title: Slay Or Nay? An Analysis Of MET Gala Fashion
Abstract: The concept of fashion has evolved from a utility-based invention to protect the human form from our surroundings (in nomadic times), to indicators of status (in medieval times), and more recently, a form of art and expression. One of the most celebrated annual fashion events in the modern era is the MET gala, hosted by Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue Magazine, every year at the New York Metropolitan Museum for art. I aim to uncover what makes certain MET gala outfits more popular in the public eye than others. Social media has become a large part of fashion, inducing trends and revealing public consensus. Using the instagram account @themetgalaoffical, which has amassed almost 600k followers, I conduct a sentiment analysis of comments, likes, and shares of posts of different celebrity outfits. Each celebrity is compared to themselves, meaning I compare different annual MET outfits of the same person in an attempt to uncover the root of fashionability based on each individual image (examining for things like silhouettes, color ratios, and textures of outfits, as well as other factors like sustainability), controlling for the popularity of each individual celebrity. The general attractiveness/success of an outfit is based on each post’s comment section. Through this research, I hope to provide a basis for future MET gala attendees to achieve success in their fashion choices.
Student: Alyson J.
Project Title: Arcane: League of Legends: Animating Women from Video Games Without Catering to the “Male Lens”
Abstract: Arcane: League of Legends (Arcane) is an animated show produced by Riot Games as an extension of their popular video game, League of Legends. Since its release in 2021, Arcane has received 4 Emmys in addition to widespread recognition for its animation, story, worldbuilding, and characters. However, while the remarkable blend of 3D and 2D animation in Arcane has already been praised for its revolutionary effect on the animation genre, I intend to analyze specifically how the art contributes not only to the show’s reputation, but the actual content and themes within. Specifically, through an in-depth examination of the main plotline and a study of the production, animation and writing process behind the show, I intend to study how Arcane’s development of female characters and lesbian relationships is enhanced by the specialized combination of realism and cartoon-animation in the show’s art style, which has enabled the show to portray nuanced, complex women without catering to male fantasies or one-off stereotypes. In addition to the show’s contents, I will consider its unique status as an adaptation from a well-known video game almost entirely dominated by a male audience. The deliberate changes made between the videogame character designs and the show’s marks a change in the intentions of both the creators and Arcane’s target audience. This, in combination with its remarkably positive reception across all audiences and critics, has resulted in a significant cultural effect wherein the very notion of adult animation has been shifted from the standard 2D animated, cartoonish media that has been popularized in the early 90s and 2000s.
Student: Claire W.
Project Title: Why Y/N May Represent Women Better Than Simone De Beauvoir Does; Fanfiction and Female Fantasies
Abstract: Arcane: League of Legends (Arcane) is an animated show produced by Riot Games as an extension of their popular video game, League of Legends. Since its release in 2021, Arcane has received 4 Emmys in addition to widespread recognition for its animation, story, worldbuilding, and characters. However, while the remarkable blend of 3D and 2D animation in Arcane has already been praised for its revolutionary effect on the animation genre, I intend to analyze specifically how the art contributes not only to the show’s reputation, but the actual content and themes within. Specifically, through an in-depth examination of the main plotline and a study of the production, animation and writing process behind the show, I intend to study how Arcane’s development of female characters and lesbian relationships is enhanced by the specialized combination of realism and cartoon-animation in the show’s art style, which has enabled the show to portray nuanced, complex women without catering to male fantasies or one-off stereotypes. In addition to the show’s contents, I will consider its unique status as an adaptation from a well-known video game almost entirely dominated by a male audience. The deliberate changes made between the videogame character designs and the show’s marks a change in the intentions of both the creators and Arcane’s target audience. This, in combination with its remarkably positive reception across all audiences and critics, has resulted in a significant cultural effect wherein the very notion of adult animation has been shifted from the standard 2D animated, cartoonish media that has been popularized in the early 90s and 2000s.
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