Current Advanced Placement Program Considerations:

The overall quality of a school’s Advanced Placement program is critical to the success of its students in their preparation for success in college and also in the college admissions process.  Although almost every high school offers the AP program, not every program is equal, i.e. some are “more successful” than others.  Additionally, not every school offers every one of the 37 available AP courses. 

A transcript showing enrollment in multiple AP courses is, by itself not an accurate or reliable predictor of achievement or success in the college admissions process.  In selective college admissions, students are considered in the context of the high school that they attend.  College admissions counselors are typically given detailed information about the courses that are available to the students in their particular high school, the standardized testing average for the class, the AP exam results of the previous year, percent of students attending a four-year college, and a grade distribution for the class, all to put the high school and its students into perspective.  This report is called the School Profile and is usually attached to a student’s transcript when it is sent to any college admissions office.

While individual high schools are responsible for teaching their AP courses, students take a national advanced placement exam at the end of the school year.  Achieving a 3, 4, or 5 does not guarantee credit at the college level, they simply imply that the student is capable of college level work.  Because every student sits for the same AP exam, an individual school’s AP program can be evaluated on the overall success of its students on these national exams.  (It is important to note that not every high school requires that students enrolled in an AP course actually sit for the national exam.  Failing to sit for the exam at the end of the course, however, does not bode well for recommending that student as “college ready.”  All students enrolling in AP courses should plan on sitting for the national exam in May.) 

In reality, then, colleges and universities consider the strength of the school’s AP program when determining the merits of a student’s course choices and rigor of academic schedule.  If the school’s “pass rate” (percentage of exams earning a 3, 4, or 5) is low, the assumption can be that the AP courses taught are of questionable rigor.  In such a scenario, the number of AP courses on a student’s transcript may not have the advantageous impact they could have had these same courses been taken at a more rigorous AP program. 

According to the St. Petersburg Times, the pass rate for Hillsborough County in 2009 was 36%, Pinellas County’s pass rate in 2009 was 47%. The pass rate for the state of Florida was 43% and the national pass rate was 57% in 2009. 

Recommended number of AP courses required to gain acceptance to a selective college:

Unfortunately, there are many assumptions about what readers at selective colleges consider to be “plusses” regarding AP courses.  One of the greatest oversimplifications of the process is the myth that “X number of AP courses are required to get into a selective college.”  X varies according to whom you speak, but the misguided theory behind this myth remains the same….”If a student doesn’t load up on AP courses, she/he will have fewer college options.”

It is not enough in competitive college admissions to simply have AP courses on the student transcript.  As stated previously, the student’s performance in the AP class is closely examined along with the school’s overall performance on the national exams as a means of determining the quality of the school’s program and its ability to prepare the whole student population for the exams.  For this reason, it is possible for two students at different high schools to have taken identical course loads with identical grades, but for one student to be seen as “more competitive” than the other based upon the reputation and perceived rigor of the individual high school curriculum.      

While an individual student can have no control over their entire high school’s AP program, it is important to be aware of it when considering what courses to enroll in.  Looking at the School Profile can assist a student in planning whether to take an AP heavy schedule or whether enrolling in Honors courses are of equal value.  Often a combination of AP and Honors classes is academically rigorous.  High school counselors should be able to assist with this decision making, acknowledging that the student must be aware of the counselor’s prejudice for/against that particular school’s AP program.