Advanced Placement Program (AP)
"It has finally become evident to educators taht the College Board's AP Program® provides rigorous curricular guidelines with a reliable common assessment. The Advanced Placement Program is recognized as setting a national standard of excellence with equal access for all."
Peter Negroni
Vice President, Teaching and Learning
The College Board
The Advanced Placement Program® is a cooperative educational endeavor between secondary schools and colleges and universities. Since its inception in 1955, the Program has provided motivated high school students with the opportunity to take college-level courses in a high school setting. Students who participate in the Program not only gain college-level skills, but in may cases they also earn college credit while they are still in high school. AP courses are taught by dedicated and enthusiastic high school teachers who follow course guidelines developed and published by the College Board.
The Program's success is rooted in the collaborative efforts of motivated students, dedicated teachers, and committed schools. By participating in the Program, secondary schools make the commitment to organize and support at least one class that is equivalent to a first-year college course.
- The AP Program offers 30 courses across multiple subject areas.
- More than 17,000 schools worldwide participate in the AP Program.
- 26.5 percent of U.S. public high school students in the class of 2009 took an AP Exam at some point in high school. In 2009 nearly 1.7 million students worldwide took more than 2.9 million AP Exams.
- More than 90 percent of the nation's four-year colleges and universities, and institutions in more than 45 countries, have an AP policy that grants incoming students credit, placement or both for qualifying AP Exam grades. In 2009, more than 3,600 colleges and universities accepted qualifying AP Exam grades for credit and/or placement.
The AP Examinations are administered each year in May and represent the culmination of college-level work. Rigorously developed by committees of colleges and AP high school faculty, the AP Exams test students' ability to perform at a college level.
Development committees meet throughout the year to create new exams, each contain a free-response section (either essay or problem solving) and a section of multiple-choice questions. (The only subject that does not follow this format is AP Studio Art, which is a portfolio assessment.) The world language exams also have a speakingcomponent, and the AP Music Theory Exam includes a sight-singing task. The multiple-choice questions are scored by computer, while the free-response portions are evaluated by a team of skilled college professors and high school teachers who meet annually to score exams in their subject area. The involvement of college faculty at all levels of exam development and scoring ensures that the AP Exams truly reflect college-level achievement. Students who perform well can receive course credit and/or advanced standing at thousands of universities worldwide.
The scale is based on a point basis. 1 - 5 which defines the students' qualification at the college level
- 5 = extremely well qualified ('A' level college work)
- 4 = well qualified ('A-, B+, B' level college work)
- 3 = qualified ('B-, C+, C' level college work)
- 2 = possibly qualified
- 1 = no recommendation
AP EXAM FEE for 2012 is $87.00 per exam
Subsidized funding has been made available for any student on free/reduced lunch. For further information contact the Testing Coordinator at the school your child attends.
For further information visit the following web page: www.apcentral.college.board.com
Back to Testing Information