The 9th Annual AP Report to the Nation State Supplement February 13, 2013 New York
New York 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 42,000 54,201 63,032 28,196 35,707 41,427 2002 2007 2011 64,946 42,627 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 New York Arts English History and Social Sciences 3.2% 2.4% 12.3% 19.4% 17.6% 27.8% 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 10. 14.9% Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Computer Science A, Computer Science AB*, and Statistics Sciences 10.8% 17.6% Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Physics B, Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, and Physics C: Mechanics World Languages 6.2% 4.4% 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 28. 42.7% Total Number of Graduates: 152,224 * 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 + 9 3 8 4 6 10 1 5 2 7 Chinese Language and Culture Calculus BC Studio Art: 2D Design Portfolio Physics C: Mechanics Studio Art: Drawing Portfolio Japanese Language and Culture French Language and Culture Physics B Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism English Language and Composition Microeconomics German Language and Culture European History Spanish Language Music Theory Psychology Studio Art: 3D Design Portfolio Chemistry Computer Science A Calculus AB Comparative Government and Politics World History Latin: Vergil Macroeconomics Italian Language and Culture* Statistics United States History Human Geography Biology Spanish Literature Environmental Science English Literature and Composition United States Government and Politics Art History 813 4,786 1,642 1,996 1,243 79 1,160 7,101 1,159 18,781 3,480 182 6,595 6,079 1,244 8,439 203 6,783 1,423 13,992 1,080 13,260 391 6,839 451 6,346 27,568 1,023 13,810 885 5,542 20,755 11,314 854 8 4 2 6.2 10.8 5.1 1.9 2.8 1.4 1.0 16.7 10.9 16.7 16.5 10.1 8.4 19.5 11.5 11.1 14.6 13.7 15.2 8.5 20.3 9.2 19.5 7.9 14.0 16.6 17.3 22.7 16.3 17.6 11.0 16.5 22.8 13.0 25.1 19.3 15.0 27.0 7.3 12.8 19.7 16.8 9.3 12.6 18.5 18.6 26.2 18.6 9.4 17.8 23.5 24.1 24.6 10.0 20.9 22.6 15.9 18.6 27.1 18.1 23.9 19.6 15.2 17.9 24.1 33.9 26.9 22.1 2 4 8 6.6 10.2 14.8 12.3 13.8 18.8 22.7 21.5 23.5 19.4 18.4 23.1 21.1 20.7 31.5 39.3 34.2 11.4 36.3 29.8 32.4 29.7 29.6 26.1 26.8 23.4 21.7 16.5 18.5 36.9 34.4 32.0 38.4 27.8 12.1 19.2 36.2 14.6 16.4 15.9 13.0 21.9 23.6 21.9 10.8 19.9 25.0 28.0 16.9 13.2 22.3 28.3 15.5 22.6 6.7 18.4 7.7 10.4 31.2 17.9 7.6 27.3 15.3 12.7 26.1 16.1 23.1 25.9 24.9 20.9 26.3 26.8 19.1 22.7 27.0 22.9 30.0 23.1 10.3 32.4 23.7 23.8 24.1 18.7 17.7 21.8 16.1 23.1 25.9 13.6 14.2 25.4 14.8 19.1 23.0 28.4 17.9 53.2 17.5 35.9 17.5 80.8 + 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 39,790 exams were taken by lowincome graduates in the class of 2012 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 15.7% 12.3% 18.7% 14.4% 22.7% 24.6% 17.9% 19.1% 2003 2007 2011 2012 2003 2007 2011 2012 6,928 3,635 10,122 5,148 14,330 7,408 15,962 8,161 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 5,880 black/african American graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 9 8 7 5 4 2 14. 6.4% 3.5% 15.1% 7.6% 3.7% 15.3% 8.8% 4.4% 15. 9.1% 4.8% 1 19,686 2,670 998 24,061 4,095 1,336 23,890 5,520 1,809 22,827 5,880 2,063 6
Hispanic/Latino Figure 6 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are Hispanic/Latino 9,034 Hispanic/Latino graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 11.1% 9.7% 9.3% 13.1% 11.1% 10.3% 14.5% 13.4% 12. 14.5% 13.9% 12.1% 15,524 3,906 2,737 20,875 5,993 3,686 22,622 8,434 4,966 22,075 9,034 5,168 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 208 American Indian/ Alaska Native graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 0.3% 0.2% 0.2% 0.4% 0.3% 0.2% 0.6% 0.3% 0.2% 0.6% 0.3% 0.2% 455 90 47 648 150 81 907 180 94 886 208 103 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 8,941 Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 9 8 7 5 4 2 1 12.5% 11.6% 7.1% 13.5% 12.2% 7.8% 14.9% 13.1% 8.3% 15.9% 13.8% 8.8% 9,946 4,889 3,533 12,449 6,597 4,805 12,993 8,250 6,178 13,331 8,941 6,764 9
White Figure 9 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are white 36,394 white graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 9 8 7 5 4 67.5% 67.5% 65.5% 65.5% 63.4% 61.4% 61.7% 60.2% 56.9% 61.3% 60.1% 56. 2 1 94,528 27,493 19,032 101,326 33,266 23,398 94,159 35,893 25,575 91,457 36,394 26,119 10
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