With an increasing number of students nationwide seeking admission to a university or college’s most popular majors, Pali has opted to implement new courses in its curriculum that reflect the subjects in high demand. Starting the 2026-2027 school year, Pali will offer two new Advanced Placement (AP) courses: AP Business with Personal Finance and AP Cybersecurity.
The classes, known as Career Kickstart pilot courses, will not only be new to Pali’s campus, but also new to the College Board. Pali was chosen to be one of the few test schools to offer these courses as it rolls out in its first year.
The College Board advertises these courses as an advantage to students planning on applying into largely impacted majors that share subject matter with these classes. At Pali, these courses will only be available to rising juniors and seniors.
The College Board implemented these pilot courses due to a surge in popularity in business and computer science fields.
According to the College Board: “Four in five high school students want more career exploration, with business and personal finance ranking high in their areas of interest. AP Business with Personal Finance will teach workforce-ready skills that prepare students for careers in a range of businesses.”
The National Center for Education Statistics named business as one of the commonly applied undergraduate majors, as well as a rapidly growing field for people entering the workforce.
The AP Business course has an emphasis on personal finance but also covers marketing, customer research and product development. During the course, students in AP Business will create entrepreneurial experience-based projects (the Business Canvas Project and a Financial Advisor project) that will be used on the nation-wide administered exam in May.
The course has a prerequisite of Algebra I and recommends students to have involvement in Distributive Education Clubs America (DECA) and other business extracurriculars.
Junior Ashton Golden plans on taking AP Business next fall. Golden said he is excited to try the new course because he is “hoping business has a more hands on approach, with projects and analysis [instead of] just notes and tests.”
Golden said that another appeal of AP Business is its uniqueness as a new AP course that could strengthen his course rigor.
“I think AP Business will make me stand out on college applications,” Golden said. “[AP Business] will also help prepare me for my future career, as I hope to do something in law, business is fundamental for this.”
As for AP Cybersecurity, the new curriculum covers ethical hacking, computer science and risk management. According to the College Board, AP Cybersecurity will teach students the basics of what they need to know to work in technology or cybersecurity jobs. The new course has a prerequisite of AP Computer Science Principles.
AP Cybersecurity starts with an introduction into cybersecurity and focuses on networks, devices and application of data.
Junior Miranda Witsken is a current AP Computer Science Principles student who is interested in possibly applying to college for computer science.
“I was super excited when I found out I had the opportunity to take a new computer science-based class,” Witsken said. “I definitely plan on taking it next year.”
Witsken added: “I think it’s super cool that Pali is getting to test these new classes especially because they pertain to popular majors and career paths.”
