AP Opportunities Reveal Participation Gaps

Participation in Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs has increased significantly over the past decade, but participation data indicates that not all qualified students are benefiting from AP programs.  Students can earn college credit if they score strongly on the culminating, externally-scored AP Exams. AP programs thus prepare students for college by giving them experience with challenging coursework, and in many cases increasing their chances of admission to postsecondary programs.  Qualified students who miss out on these opportunities can be disadvantaged compared to their participating peers – and yet, many schools are failing to ensure all students are benefiting from AP offerings.

Even among schools that offer AP courses, there are significant gaps in participation rates among low-income and certain minority groups.  According to The Education Trust’s recent report, “Finding America’s Missing AP and IB Students,” participation gaps could be almost eliminated if schools with existing programs worked to find their “missing students.” More than 640,000 additional low-income and minority students nationally are “missing” from AP and IB participation – meaning that while these students attend schools offering these programs, they are not participating at the same rate as other students.  According to a 2013 report by The College Board, the AP exam administrator, 75% of American Indian students, 72% of black students, and 66% of Hispanic students whose PSAT scores indicated potential for AP math success did not participate in AP math courses, for example.

In Massachusetts, participation in AP exams has increased significantly since 2002, with 39.1% of Class of 2012 graduates having taken an AP Exam during high school according to Collegeboard’s  2013 Massachusetts Supplement Report. But the participation rate breakdown indicates that these programs are not serving every student who could benefit from these opportunities.

37% of the Massachusetts students are low-income, yet just 18.3% of the Class of 2012 graduates who took AP exams were low-income. The gaps for minority groups were smaller, but still evident: 5.3% of 2012 graduates who had taken AP exams were black, while 6.7% of the graduating class was black; 7.4% of 2012 graduates who had taken AP exams were Hispanic, while 11.1% of the graduating class was of this ethnicity.

White students’ participation in AP exams was approximately proportionate to their percentage of the 2012 class, while Asian/Pacific Islander students participated in AP exams at a rate greater than their peers: while they constituted 4.6% of the Class of 2012, they made up 9.7% of AP Exam test takers in the group.

In addition to participation gaps, there was also a discrepancy in performance: while 72.8% of white students scored 3 or higher, making them “qualified” for college coursework in the subject, only 46.7% of Hispanic students achieved this score, as did 34.7% of black students.

A positive finding by the Education Trust was that of nearly 5,000 schools nationwide that were diverse and had strong AP participation, 247 had no “missing” students – i.e., participation rates were proportionate to population distributions. This provides strong evidence that closing these gaps is possible. The report provides numerous recommendations for steps districts, educators, and policymakers can take to work towards reaching these missing students, including examining barriers to entry, reducing information gaps, expanding access to AP programs, and investigating state data to see which districts are in particular need of support.

The gaps in AP participation can serve to further widen gaps in college readiness and achievement, as students miss out on valuable opportunities to take challenging coursework, prove their readiness to admissions offices, and prepare for college-level curricula.  Schools must take an active role in closing these gaps and reaching all qualified students. Simply having the courses available is insufficient: schools should actively seek out students whose academic and testing records indicate potential for success in AP-level work, and ensure that all students, teachers and guidance counselors are aware of the offerings, the steps to enrollment, and the advantages of participation.  Otherwise, the Commonwealth is failing to equally prepare its students for success, and ultimately could miss out on a great wealth of potential talent.