The College Board is moving to tighten control over its Advanced Placement program by requiring schools and teachers to submit to an extensive review of their lesson plans before they can label courses "AP."

The new policy, a departure from the program's tradition of largely allowing teachers the freedom to construct AP courses as they see fit, aims to discourage schools from just slapping the name on any course.

A larger goal is to shore up a brand that has become increasingly important in the competitive college-admissions process. AP classes typically are considered the most rigorous a high school can offer, giving students the opportunity to earn college credits early.

But as the number of schools offering AP classes has jumped 36 percent over the past decade to over 15,000, there have been more complaints from students and admissions officers that the content and rigor of AP courses can vary widely from one high school to the next.

Starting with course offerings in the 2007-08 school year, high schools teaching AP classes will need authorization from the College Board, the New York nonprofit that owns and administers the program, to use the AP label. Colleges, meanwhile, will receive a list of high schools that have received College Board approval to teach AP courses.

To get that approval, high-school officials will have to fill out two-page "audit" forms that list certain elements that courses must include. (For instance, AP Chemistry should cover thermodynamics.) In addition, teachers will have to attach their syllabi, a sample assignment and a sample test, and select their books from a list of approved texts. Their classes might even be observed by visiting experts designated by the College Board.

The College Board says schools that want to diverge from the requirements can file appeals showing why they might want to take a different approach in covering certain topics or stray from the list of approved textbooks. After the initial audit, schools only need to resubmit an annual form to retain their AP authorization.

Trevor Packer, executive director of the College Board's Advanced Placement program, says the new requirements aren't meant to be punitive but aim to help the roughly 2 percent of schools that aren't meeting College Board standards. The College Board will post supplementary content online for schools that may have outdated textbooks and send consultants to help fledgling AP teachers with challenging topics.

In 2005, students took over two million AP exams -- a 12 percent increase over last year and 66 percent more than five years ago. The growth of the AP program also has been accelerated by states' school-reform movements. For instance, a 2003 Arkansas law requires every high school in the state to offer four AP classes in core subject areas, such as English and Math, by 2008. Florida rewards teachers with a bonus for each student who scores well on his or her AP exam.

But at the same time, some academics have questioned the value of the AP name on a course. The AP exams are optional and can take place after students already have filed college applications.

One 2004 study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, tracked over 80,000 incoming freshmen across the UC system to gauge whether taking AP courses in high school was a predictor of academic achievement in college. It found no correlation. (It noted that performing well on the AP exams, rather than simply enrolling in AP courses, better predicted academic success.) Partly as a result of that finding, a UC faculty committee is expected to meet Thursday to weigh whether campuses should continue awarding extra points in admissions to applicants who boast AP courses on their transcripts.

It isn't clear whether the College Board's move will raise college admissions' officers confidence in the value of the AP brand on course work. But Bruce Poch, dean of admissions at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., says the change is welcome as it will help admissions officers get a better handle on what the AP moniker next to a course name really means. "The more information we have to clarify what's really going on, the better," he says.

Meanwhile, the College Board's move to tighten control over the content of its courses could come at the cost of some high schools moving away from the AP program. Already, some well-known private schools, including New York's Ethical Culture Fieldston School and the Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica, Calif., have renounced AP courses. Schools such as these say they have the resources to develop more creative classes, with names such as "Great Books" or "Constitutional Law," that still maintain rigor.

Westtown School has spent the past four years contemplating whether to continue offering AP classes. Susan K. Tree, director of college counseling at the Quaker day and boarding school in Westtown, Pa., says that some faculty felt that the courses stifled more creative teaching approaches. But initial rumblings about the new audit process were the "kicker," she says, that led to the school's June decision to stop designating classes AP. "We always viewed the College Board as an important partner in serving our students," she says. "But not in telling us what to teach and how to teach it."

Bruce Hammond, director of college counseling at Sandia Preparatory School in Albuquerque, N.M., believes the College Board's new audit could cause more private schools to jump ship. Mr. Hammond, who formed a committee several years ago for teachers and counselors who are reconsidering AP, notes that the College Board could make money through the new policy, which strongly encourages teachers to attend fee-based workshops offered by the organization and other groups.

Mr. Packer says that rather than profiting, the College Board is making a "significant financial investment" to upgrade AP. The workshops aren't required and in many cases aren't run by the College Board, he adds.

Rules for Schools

To label courses Advanced Placement, high schools will need to:

Attach a syllabus, sample assignment and a sample exam to an "audit"

form.

Be sure to include specified topics in their classes.

Choose text from a list of pre-approved college-level textbooks.

Submit an "appeal" if a school wants to diverge from any requirements.