The 9th Annual AP Report to the Nation State Supplement February 13, 2013 Massachusetts
Massachusetts Table of Contents 3 5 Fostering AP Participation and Success A Closer Look at Equity Gaps in AP Participation and Success About This Report This report provides educators and policymakers with information they can use to celebrate their successes, understand their unique challenges, and set meaningful goals to increase opportunity for all students. It s important to note that while AP Exams are valid measures of students content mastery of collegelevel studies in specific academic disciplines, AP results should never be used as the sole measure for gauging educational excellence and equity. Because reliable demographic data for nonpublic schools are not available for all states, this report represents public school students only. Additionally, this report looks at students entire experience with AP tracking exams taken by graduates throughout their high school careers as opposed to reporting exam results from a particular calendar year. Additional data are available at apreport.collegeboard.org. Note: Throughout this report, public high school graduates represent projections supplied in Knocking at the College Door (Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 2008). 2
Fostering AP Participation and Success Figure 1 Growth in AP participation and success Number of graduates leaving high school having taken an AP Exam Number of 12,084 17,036 21,605 12,307 15,129 8,773 2002 2007 2011 22,808 16,251 2012 More graduates are succeeding on AP Exams today than took them in 2002 Figure 2 Participation in and success on AP Exams in the class of 2012 Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of Massachusetts Arts English History and Social Sciences 1.9% 1.4% 16.1% 11.5% 16.4% 22.9% Art History, Music Theory, Studio Art: Drawing Portfolio, Studio Art: 2D Design Portfolio, and Studio Art: 3D Design Portfolio English Language and Composition, and English Literature and Composition Comparative Government and Politics, European History, Human Geography, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Psychology, United States Government and Politics, United States History, and World History History and social sciences had the greatest number of graduates scoring a 3 or higher Mathematics and Computer Science 11.8% 17.3% Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Computer Science A, Computer Science AB*, and Statistics Sciences 10.5% 17.3% Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Physics B, Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, and Physics C: Mechanics World Languages 6.6% 5. Chinese Language and Culture, French Language and Culture, French Literature*, German Language and Culture, Italian Language and Culture*, Japanese Language and Culture, Latin Literature*, Latin: Vergil, Spanish Language, and Spanish Literature Any Discipline 27.9% 39.1% Total Number of Graduates: 58,316 * The AP Computer Science AB, French Literature, and Latin Literature Exams were last offered in the 200809 school year. AP Italian Language and Culture was discontinued after the 200809 school year, and was reinstated in 201112. 3
Fostering AP Participation and Success Figure 3 Score distributions of AP Exams taken by the class of 2012 during high school Ten Most Popular AP Exams Score of 1 Score of 2 Score of 3 Score of 4 Score of 5 Rank Subject No. of Exams % of Exam Scores + 6 10 1 9 4 2 3 7 8 5 Calculus BC French Language and Culture Chinese Language and Culture German Language and Culture Physics C: Mechanics Human Geography Comparative Government and Politics Italian Language and Culture* Studio Art: Drawing Portfolio World History Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Psychology European History United States History Studio Art: 2D Design Portfolio Spanish Language Music Theory English Language and Composition Studio Art: 3D Design Portfolio English Literature and Composition Latin: Vergil Calculus AB Physics B Statistics Chemistry Microeconomics Japanese Language and Culture Macroeconomics United States Government and Politics Spanish Literature Biology Art History Computer Science A Environmental Science 1,862 852 188 116 1,241 229 102 96 334 864 525 5,223 1,962 7,564 300 2,314 286 5,473 30 6,987 332 6,006 1,817 3,950 3,102 1,125 25 745 1,929 133 5,398 200 583 1,814 10 8 4 2 37.7 6.0 3.0 3.3 5.4 7.8 4.3 2.7 7.8 6.0 1.0 1.8 5.9 10.1 8.0 9.8 11.8 7.4 6.9 12.7 19.8 20.7 17.2 15.4 11.5 14.8 10.0 7.1 19.8 8.7 7.3 5.9 8.6 11.9 7.6 13.1 19.9 24.7 16.2 20.6 22.4 26.7 25.9 13.3 24.4 8.8 16.6 17.4 17.6 21.4 15.2 17.0 16.4 17.0 26.5 22.6 27.3 16.6 13.0 19.5 28.0 8.0 19.3 21.6 17.3 13.7 25.0 22.3 2 4 8 13.1 19.7 16.4 19.2 20.6 16.2 18.3 17.5 25.9 22.6 27.2 31.8 30.0 22.4 24.8 24.7 30.7 32.2 36.2 40.6 18.4 27.8 27.2 20.1 22.1 12.0 12.0 18.8 24.2 15.0 12.3 15.0 16.8 27.8 16.5 17.9 25.0 21.3 27.2 25.8 23.5 44.0 24.8 17.5 17.2 29.2 23.7 28.8 39.0 35.8 36.3 16.7 12.3 25.9 35.0 27.9 16.1 21.7 16.0 23.9 28.3 24.2 15.3 56.7 6.7 6.7 14.1 25.0 30.9 17.8 14.8 23.3 16.5 40.0 16.5 20.8 25.6 6.8 26.0 23.5 9.5 22.6 10.6 29.3 22.8 26.3 25.6 20.4 22.5 23.8 22.2 26.7 28.3 17.1 25.6 31.6 21.9 21.3 58.1 23.8 50.0 31.0 10 + Due to rounding, percentages do not always add up to 100.0. *AP Italian Language and Culture was discontinued after the 200809 school year, and was reinstated in 201112. Discontinued subjects, as well as those with fewer than five AP Exam takers, were omitted from this figure. 4
Low Income Figure 4 Trends in AP Exam participation and success... who are from lowincome backgrounds 10,859 exams were taken by lowincome graduates in the class of 2012 10 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 7.3% 5.1% 11.8% 8.2% 17.2% 18.3% 11.1% 12.9% 2003 2007 2011 2012 2003 2007 2011 2012 957 485 2,012 1,013 3,712 1,684 4,163 2,104 At time of press, the numbers of lowincome students for each graduating class and for lowincome AP Exam takers prior to the class of 2003 were not available. 5
Black/African American Figure 5 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are black/african American 1,200 black/african American graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 7.1% 7.3% 7.2% 6.7% 2.9% 3.5% 5.3% 5.3% 1.7% 1.9% 2.4% 2.9% 3,944 351 152 4,539 592 231 4,283 1,154 359 3,936 1,200 466 6
Hispanic/Latino Figure 6 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are Hispanic/Latino 1,684 Hispanic/Latino graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 6.4% 3.5% 3.5% 8.8% 5.4% 4.4% 10.8% 7.1% 5.3% 11.1% 7.4% 5.7% 3,526 417 311 5,469 927 537 6,393 1,544 807 6,486 1,684 929 7
American Indian/ Alaska Native Figure 7 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are American Indian/Alaska Native 46 American Indian/ Alaska Native graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 0.3% 0.1% 2002 2007 2011 2012 136 21 13 137 40 27 149 52 32 136 46 31 8
Asian/Asian American/ Pacific Islander Figure 8 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander 2,214 Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 7.9% 7.5% 4.9% 9.1% 8.8% 4.5% 9.9% 9.1% 4.5% 10.5% 9.7% 4.6% 2,693 952 657 2,836 1,504 1,123 2,661 1,972 1,499 2,686 2,214 1,712 9
White Figure 9 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are white 16,358 white graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 2 81.4% 81. 79.5% 78.6% 76.7% 77.2% 72.7% 75.9% 75.7% 72.2% 72. 71.7% 1 44,973 9,601 7,107 48,148 12,937 9,671 43,143 15,555 11,597 42,094 16,358 12,309 10
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