A college preparatory course is a means by which college bound high school students may better meet the more stringent scholastic requirements for entry into colleges and universities.
[1] Students taking college-preparatory courses may have an increased quantity of classwork, and expectations to achieve are at a higher level.
[3] College prep courses are particularly appropriate for providing the academic background needed to succeed in a degree program at a college or university.
[3] Above college-preparatory in difficulty is honors, where the advanced structure while similar in many ways to college prep, requires even more effort from the student.
[4] In many schools, a student can move from college-preparatory courses to Advanced Placement courses, if they attain a certain average.