The 9th Annual AP Report to the Nation State Supplement February 13, 2013 South Carolina
South Carolina 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 6,444 8,142 10,149 3,944 4,765 5,855 10,564 6,231 More graduates are succeeding on AP Exams today than ever before 2002 2007 2011 2012 Figure 2 Participation in and success on AP Exams in the class of 2012 Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of South Carolina Arts English History and Social Sciences 2.4% 1.7% 10.1% 10.7% 17. 19.6% 3 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 6.6% 12.1% Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Computer Science A, Computer Science AB*, and Statistics Sciences 4.4% 8.1% Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Physics B, Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, and Physics C: Mechanics World Languages 0.8% 0.5% 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 18. 30.5% Total Number of Graduates: 34,616 * 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 + 8 9 1 3 5 7 4 2 10 6 Comparative Government and Politics German Language and Culture Studio Art: Drawing Portfolio Calculus BC Studio Art: 2D Design Portfolio Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Studio Art: 3D Design Portfolio Psychology Art History Physics C: Mechanics Microeconomics Environmental Science European History French Language and Culture Physics B English Language and Composition Latin: Vergil Music Theory Chemistry Spanish Language English Literature and Composition Computer Science A Statistics Biology Calculus AB United States History Human Geography United States Government and Politics Macroeconomics World History Chinese Language and Culture Italian Language and Culture* Japanese Language and Culture Spanish Literature 26 23 220 689 281 82 62 1,574 128 216 314 253 1,210 61 389 4,317 10 227 954 177 4,051 225 1,822 1,592 2,460 4,270 1,152 1,794 709 1,021 3 0 0 1 10 8 4 2 8.6 10.0 9.4 17.8 3.2 7.3 6.5 24.5 24.1 4.1 12.5 14.4 15.3 12.3 16.4 17.2 17.2 25.0 30.6 29.3 3.8 18.7 24.2 28.3 30.4 30.5 2 4 8 11.5 3.8 17.4 15.5 17.1 7.1 33.8 34.6 22.1 18.3 19.4 12.6 20.3 18.5 17.8 21.3 13.2 21.3 21.9 30.8 30.0 10.0 23.8 13.7 12.4 33.9 10.7 20.0 17.3 13.8 31.1 20.9 27.8 23.1 29.7 18.9 22.0 20.4 17.1 17.0 13.8 22.9 28.1 31.1 37.4 43.5 42.3 28.0 40.3 37.6 26.5 33.7 22.5 20.4 17.1 18.1 22.6 32.8 22.2 28.2 23.0 24.2 23.2 20.2 21.6 30.8 14.9 20.0 16.1 15.0 22.3 22.7 25.0 15.9 13.8 8.1 9.8 19.5 14.9 19.0 7.9 30.0 13.7 17.1 17.5 17.2 6.7 19.6 19.3 7.6 19.2 18.5 13.5 11.0 20.6 6.8 16.7 7.8 25.9 16.4 25.0 20.4 16.9 22.9 28.0 35.6 16.9 21.3 19.2 8.9 15.3 9.0 17.4 22.7 24.9 41.9 12.5 50.0 21.7 15.5 24.4 22.6 11.3 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 4,611 exams were taken by lowincome graduates in the class of 2012 10 9 8 7 5 4 3 2 12.7% 1 10.1% 11.7% 13.2% 17.1% 18.8% N/A N/A 1,034 483 1,732 683 1,981 823 At time of press, the numbers of lowincome students for each graduating class and for lowincome AP Exam takers prior to the class of 2007 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 1,696 black/african American graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 3 37.2% 38.5% 37.9% 36.9% 2 13.9% 15. 16.3% 16.1% 1 7.5% 8.2% 8. 8.6% 11,647 897 296 14,657 1,225 390 13,452 1,659 470 12,779 1,696 536 6
Hispanic/Latino Figure 6 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are Hispanic/Latino 415 Hispanic/Latino graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 3 2 1 4.3% 5. 1.8% 2.9% 2.8% 3.8% 3.9% 1.5% 1.2% 2.4% 3.7% 3.7% 380 96 71 921 226 138 1,538 387 217 1,718 415 231 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 40 American Indian/ Alaska Native graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 3 2 1 0.4% 0.3% 0.5% 0.4% 0.3% 0.2% 2002 0.2% 0.2% 2007 0.4% 0.3% 2011 0.4% 0.3% 2012 66 26 10 93 27 9 97 50 25 101 40 26 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 417 Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 7 5 4 3 2 1 4.3% 4.6% 4.8% 3.6% 3.6% 3.6% 1.2% 1.4% 1.7% 5. 3.9% 2. 376 234 170 542 291 218 613 370 282 689 417 309 9
White Figure 9 Trends in AP Exam participation and success students in the graduating class... who are white 7,465 white graduates in the class of 2012 took an AP Exam during high school 10 9 8 82.8% 80. 78.4% 77.6% 7 5 4 3 77. 59.5% 74. 57.9% 70.7% 56.5% 70.7% 57. 2 1 18,614 4,961 3,264 22,000 6,028 3,810 20,036 7,177 4,589 19,729 7,465 4,835 10
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