OPENING CLASSROOM DOORS:

Strategies
for Expanding
Access to AP ®

AP
The College Board:
Expanding College Opportunity

The College Board is a national nonprofit membership association whose mission is

to prepare, inspire, and connect students to college and opportunity. Founded
in 1900, the association is composed of more than 4,200 schools, colleges, universities,
and other educational organizations. Each year, the College Board serves over three
million students and their parents, 22,000 high schools, and 3,500 colleges through major
programs and services in college admissions, guidance, assessment, financial aid,
enrollment, and teaching and learning. Among its best-known programs are the SAT®,
the PSAT/NMSQT®, and the Advanced Placement Program® (AP®). The College Board is
committed to the principles of excellence and equity, and that commitment is embodied
in all of its programs, services, activities, and concerns.
For further information, visit www.collegeboard.com.

AP Equity Policy Statement:

The College Board and the Advanced Placement Program encourage teachers,
AP Coordinators, and school administrators to make equitable access a guiding
principle for their AP programs. The College Board is committed to the principle
that all students deserve an opportunity to participate in rigorous and academically
challenging courses and programs. All students who are willing to accept the challenge
of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses.
The Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses
for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally
underrepresented in the AP Program. Schools should make every effort to ensure that
their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population.

Copyright © 2002 College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. College Board, Advanced Placement Program,
AP, AP Vertical Teams, Pacesetter, SAT, and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Entrance Examination
Board. AP Central, APIEL, and Pre-AP are trademarks owned by the College Entrance Examination Board. PSAT/NMSQT is a
registered trademark jointly owned by both the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit Scholarship
Corporation.
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

AP® Facts and Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

I. Open Admission: From Philosophy to Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Peeling Off Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
J.B. Alexander High School
Laredo, Texas
Sidebar: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Growing Strong
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Masters in Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
High Point High School
Beltsville, Maryland
Bigger and Better . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Mountain View High School
Mountain View, California
Sidebar: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Growth in Minority Student Participation in AP 1992–2001 (graph)
Sidebar: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Financial Support for Students Taking AP Examinations

II. Faculty Focus: Foundation of Excellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Community of Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Graves County High School
Mayfield, Kentucky
Sidebar: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Crazy About Kids
Northside College Preparatory High School
Chicago, Illinois
Sidebars: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Teachers Learning Through AP
AP Teacher Survey Results

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III. Enhanced Learning: Creative Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Beyond the GPA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Henry T. Gunderson High School
San Jose, California
Sidebar: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Budding Scholars
Warren G. Harding High School
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Sidebar: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
PSAT/NMSQT® and AP

IV. Putting It Together: Linkages and Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Support System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Guilford County Schools
Greensboro, North Carolina
Sidebar: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Florida Partnership: A Statewide Effort
Sidebar: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
AP Exam Takers in Large Urban Areas and the Nation
Continuum of Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
James A. Foshay Learning Center
Los Angeles, California

V. Further Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

VI. AP Courses and Exams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

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Introduction
“No matter how one divides the universe of students… a high school curriculum of high academic
intensity and quality” is the factor that most contributes to a student’s likelihood of completing a
college degree.
(Source: Answers in the Toolbox, U.S. Department of Education, 1999)

This guide is a sampler of activities from across the country that weave excellence
with access to AP and other rigorous courses. In urban, suburban, and rural schools,
educators have come up with many practical and effective ways to open the classroom
doors and maintain high academic standards in the Advanced Placement Program®
(AP®).
The schools and districts represent a cross section of America, serving populations
as diverse as the nation itself. The many approaches to increasing AP participation
by traditionally underrepresented and at-risk students include:
• administrative efforts such as creative scheduling and staffing,
• instructional efforts such as teacher professional development and curriculum
alignment to germinate academic excellence in the middle schools, and
• counseling outreach to recruit and encourage young scholars while informing
them and their families of what is expected in advanced courses.
The institutions featured in this booklet have various policies and practices, and may
be in early stages of implementing broader equity programs. Some approaches are
homespun or privately contracted while others are sponsored by the College Board.
But they all have in common a philosophy and commitment to making sure that students
of every ethnic group and socioeconomic background are represented in AP.
Ultimately, these schools and the College Board share the mutually inclusive goals
of excellence and equity: a mission to prepare, inspire, and connect all students
to college and opportunity.

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AP® Facts and Stats

2001 AP Students by Ethnicity

Number of % Total Number of % Total

Ethnicity Students Students Exams Taken Exams Taken
Native American 3,502 0.4 5,413 0.4
African American 40,448 4.8 60,481 4.3
Chicano 45,740 5.4 69,523 4.9
Asian 97,280 11.5 192,293 13.6
Puerto Rican 5,842 0.7 8,734 0.6
Other Hispanic 35,950 4.3 55,124 3.9
White 556,865 65.6 926,232 65.5
Other 29,231 3.5 44,954 3.2
Not Stated 29,883 3.5 51,633 3.2
Total 844,741 1,414,387

Secondary Schools Offering AP

Nearly 60 percent of U.S. high schools participate. Worldwide, nearly 14,000 schools
offer AP.

Colleges and Universities with an AP Policy

Most U.S. colleges and universities have an AP policy granting incoming students credit
or placement based on their AP Exam grade.

Growth in AP: 1992–2001

1000000

800000

600000 Fee Reductions

400000 Total Number of
Students Taking Exams
200000

0
92

93

95

96

97

98

99

00

01
9
19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

20

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I. Open Admission:
From Philosophy to Reality
Peeling Off Labels

J.B. Alexander High School

United Independent School District
Laredo, Texas
Description: Suburban
Enrollment: 1,885
AP since: 1995
AP courses offered: 11
Highlights: 80 percent of AP Exam takers are Hispanic.
Best practice: Open-door policy

The academic success of J.B. Alexander High School is attributable to a single,

undefiable force—the students themselves.
“Our kids are very motivated and have always wanted a challenge…they like taking
the difficult courses,” said head counselor Velma Martinez.
The school’s well organized Advanced Placement program and open-door policy to
AP courses give students (90 percent of whom are Hispanic in this Mexican border
town) the greatest opportunity to succeed academically.
Students simply do not have to meet any criteria to take AP.
“It’s open to everyone and it is supposed to be,” said Principal Severita Sanchez.
“We don’t say to any child, ‘You can’t join because you don’t have the grade,’”
Martinez said.
“By having that open-door policy, you tap more students,” she added. “Some students
might be afraid or feel they don’t have what it takes to be in the courses, but once they
try it, they say, ‘Wow! This is something I can do.’”
Students and parents are advised of the expectations of the program so that they can
make their own decisions to participate in AP courses.
The school holds an AP night twice a year at the beginning of each semester. AP
teachers set up projects, reports, and text books in the library and conduct a “mini
teach” to explain to parents the rigors of AP.

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“A lot of our parents…get very upset when their kids don’t come home with As,”
Sanchez said. “But the AP teacher says, ‘Yes, but look what your child is doing and
being challenged with.’ The parent now has a better understanding of what the child
is exposed to… [and] they are impressed.”
AP courses are weighted to boost students’ GPA, adding an extra incentive to
participate. And AP is popular to boot.
“The kids push AP a lot because they talk to each other,” Sanchez observed.

Vertical Team Approach

Teachers attend state-sponsored professional development workshops and plan content
across grade levels in what is known as a vertical team approach.
J.B. Alexander High School includes a magnet health and science program with about
450 students, for whom AP is required. But perhaps more interesting is the way the
school gets other students into the pipeline.
“For eight years [prior to secondary school], students have thought that the only
ones who can be in these advanced courses are those identified as ‘GT’—gifted and
talented,” Martinez explained. “But once they go to the high school we tell them they
don’t have to be identified as gifted and talented to take AP. A lot of students are not
labeled ‘GT’ but are very smart and hardworking. They can handle it.”
Students are encouraged to take the AP Examinations and the state of Texas provides
funding to support exam fees.
Some of the school’s AP teachers insist that all students in their courses take the AP
Examinations, Sanchez explained. “It’s nonnegotiable and they usually do very, very
well.”
Special tutoring kicks in on Saturdays and after school to further prepare students for
the examinations.
“All you have to do is feed them pizza. It works. The kids come,” Sanchez said. “A lot
of them are just your average kids who have been given an opportunity to…take those
college courses for free and take the test.”
Counselors are a big part of the program and play an important role by visiting the
feeder middle schools to inform and encourage students to participate.
“It works and we want to see our students taking advanced courses and being prepared
for college. We challenge them to do the best that they can,” Martinez said.

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Growing Strong

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) proves that opening the doors to AP can be done on a large scale.
The North Carolina district is the nation’s twenty-third largest, with more than 109,000 students in grades
Pre-K through 12. More than 25,000 students attend 16 high schools. The district is growing by more than
3,000 students every year. Their total AP enrollment now exceeds 8,500.
At CMS, AP requirements are placed on the schools and not the students. Prior approvals and course
requirements have all been removed from the registration process for AP. Every student can enroll in AP
without prerequisites. In addition, more than 90 percent of those in AP courses take the exams.
The district has implemented support systems and programs to ensure student success. Schools must offer
a vertically articulated curriculum, along with mandatory counseling and special academic tutorials for
underrepresented populations.
As a result of these measures, the number of African American students enrolled in AP has tripled since
1995–96 to 1,277 in 2000–2001. Overall, the district enrolls 11 percent of North Carolina’s African American
students and 25 percent of African Americans taking AP Exams in the state. CMS contributes 20 percent of
all AP Exams taken by African American students in North Carolina earning grades of 3 or higher, according
to the latest available data.
Several other systemic efforts contribute to AP success at CMS. For example, as a preparation for AP,
schools must provide Pacesetter®. This College Board program integrates curricular innovations, teacher
development, and performance assessment in challenging English, mathematics, and Spanish courses.
Another required offering is AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination). AVID is a nonprofit
organization that, in partnership with the College Board, aims to prepare and encourage educationally
disadvantaged students to take AP. Another dimension of support for AP at CMS high schools takes the form
of online tutorials.
Perhaps most important, more than 300 teachers completed AP training in 2001–2002; schools are required
to have AP Vertical Teams® and AP instructional materials. Their teaching talent allows each high school to
offer a minimum of 12 AP courses, giving students a wide variety of college-level courses from which
to choose. Half of CMS high schools offer 17 or more AP courses.

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Masters in Leadership

High Point High School

Prince George’s County Public Schools
Beltsville, Maryland
Description: Urban
Enrollment: 2,150
AP offered: more than 25 years
AP courses offered: 11
Highlights: 80 percent minority enrollment includes a nearly 50 percent African American
student body. This diversity is represented in AP course enrollment and exam rosters.
Best practices: AP committee of administrators, teachers, and counselors; creative scheduling

Advanced Placement at High Point High School is a function of team leadership among
administrators, teachers, and counselors, including educators in the school’s program
for students for whom English is a second language.
The ESL participation is important at one of the most diverse schools in a district of
more than 23 high schools and nearly 130,000 students in Prince George’s County. In
fact, the school draws from a community with roots in more than 60 countries. Together
the families speak dozens of languages including Cameroon Pidgin, Twi, Amharic,
Tagalog, and Dinka. About 15 percent of students have limited English proficiency.
“There’s a good flow and exchange of information from our [ESL] department for those
kids that are international,” said Principal William Ryan. “Our goal is to transition them,
as they learn English, right into some of our AP courses, where they need to be.”
The school recently increased student time with a guidance counselor to ensure that
course selections were appropriately challenging. The result has been a significant rise
in the number of students enrolled in AP courses and taking AP Examinations.

Removing Barriers
Students self-select for AP participation, after being given these guidelines: They should
have a “B” average or better and an excellent attendance record. They must not allow
other activities to interfere with AP course preparation and must allot a minimum of one
hour of study per course each night. Students are advised to attend regular tutorials and
to complete required summer assignments.
Teachers sign student AP registration forms, but this is a measure toward inclusion,
not exclusion.

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“I like to think that we don’t put up any road blocks [to AP]. I always leave the decision
up to them. I never tell them they are not welcome in my classroom,” said AP teacher
Jack Dibler. “That’s why we put most of the emphasis on teacher recommendation. If
you’ve got a kid that really loves biology and has a lousy GPA, why keep a kid like that
out [of AP] just because he doesn’t have the GPA?” he said.
The chemistry teacher has a simple formula for improving AP access.

“ Open those doors…

As a result, the kids
don’t see the barriers.”

To encourage participation, the school provides students and parents with a packet of
information to explain the AP Program. In an unusual twist, they require a $20 deposit
in the fall.
“We found that gives them a buy-in, a real commitment to the test,” said John Sibert,
coordinator of the Academic Center, the school’s magnet program. The deposit is later
applied to exam fees, which are also supplemented with state funding and College
Board fee reductions for eligible students.

Scheduling Success
High Point has made several scheduling adjustments in the interest of academic
excellence. For example, ninth-graders receive 85 minutes of instruction each day
in both English and math.
“We want to set the firm foundation for students…so that when they get to be juniors
and seniors they are able to handle an AP course,” Ryan explained.
In another scheduling strategy, the school switched from a seven-period block schedule
to an eight-period schedule that allows five classes to be double periods meeting every
day. Extended AP class time in selected courses allows more time for discussion and
other teaching strategies. It also allows the AP English Literature teacher to prepare
students for the AP English Language Exam, vastly expanding teaching and learning
opportunities. Double periods are also used for AP U.S. History, AP Biology, AP Calculus,
and AP Chemistry.
“It’s wonderful. It allows me to get more labs in,” Dibler said. “It gives me more time to
work with them individually in the classroom with problem solving.”
However, the double periods also create some scheduling problems and make it difficult
for students to fit in multiple AP courses.
“It does conflict [with other offerings] for some students. But we feel the benefits of
being prepared for the AP Exam and also being successful in the program outweigh
some of those issues,” Ryan said.

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To help overcome classroom time constraints and improve preparation, each AP teacher
runs after-school tutorial programs—for example, chemistry tutorials are held once a
week for two hours and are voluntary.
“These kids are so involved in after-school activities…some of them work, so it’s
impossible to hold mandatory tutoring sessions,” Dibler said.
The proof is in the continual growth of AP participation and exam taking. Of those
enrolled in AP, 86 percent took the exams in 2001.
“Kids benefit from the AP experience whether or not they pass the test,” Sibert said.
“That’s a critical philosophy to have in the school because if you don’t, then people pick
and choose who can take the test, sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly. Our
AP teachers could double our pass rate tomorrow if they [selected students] to take
the test.”
Overall, High Point High School is a paragon because AP is part and parcel of what they
do for all students and has been an integral part of the school for decades.
“If it’s just another thing to do, it’s not as effective as if you have a group that is out
there, planning it, coming up with suggestions, and working on scheduling,” Ryan said.
“[AP] has to have a functioning leadership component within the school. You have to
make it part of your organizational framework so that it becomes a vital part of your
culture,” he said.
“We don’t ever forget…that we’re doing whatever we can to prepare our kids for
college.”

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Bigger and Better

Mountain View High School

Mountain View–Los Altos Union High School District
Mountain View, California
Description: Suburban
Enrollment: 1,400
AP courses offered: 12
Highlights: AP participation growth
Best practices: Open-door policy

A couple of years ago, Mountain View High School did something radical: They flung
wide open the doors to their Advanced Placement program. AP enrollment went from
264 to 438 during the first two years of the open-door policy and the number of AP
sections increased accordingly.
Their district allows students and families to select their high school and the AP
offerings have attracted a crowd to Mountain View. The school anticipates
a 17 percent enrollment increase for 2002–2003.
“Everyone’s belief is that if you build it, they will come. If you raise the bar they will
succeed, and that is what I see happening,” said Principal Patricia J. Hyland. She was
the early adopter who was instrumental in the reforms.
“I sat in on conversations where students were excluded from participation because
they didn’t go to the meeting for the class or didn’t turn in an essay on time,” she
recollected. “[Taking AP] was a capricious decision and that was silly.”
Letting any student opt for AP seemed like a logical solution, and a practical one.
“Ultimately, the parent has the right, no matter what we say, to put their kid anywhere
they want,” Hyland noted.
The school compiles significant data to present its case for AP success. For example,
some parents worried that an open-door classroom would erode the quality of learning
for traditional honors students. But the school’s data shows that the best prepared
students continue to receive grades of 3 and above on the AP Examinations.
“The kids who were getting the 3s, 4s, and
5s are still getting their 3s, 4s, and 5s, and
now more kids are getting those grades,”
Hyland said. “Percentages [of high AP
grades] are not as good as they used to
be. That is to be expected,” she said of the
statistical effect of increased numbers of
examinees.
David Rygiol
AP Studio Art
Mountain View
High School

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By analyzing data on students from their feeder middle schools, Hyland can ensure
that high-performing students continue to soar, while she takes steps to encourage
underrepresented students to strive for AP and honors courses. For example, an AVID
program at one feeder middle school provides an important mechanism.
“Those kids are going to flow right in, make a seamless transition, and move right into
AP classes,” Hyland explained. “So we’re tracking it to make sure that we’re reaching
the students that have heretofore been underrepresented.”
Open access has lead to dramatic AP growth, a two-thirds increase in participation
since 1999–2000. The school’s Latino population declined from 17 percent in 2000–2001
to 13 percent in 2001–2002. At the same time, Latino student representation in AP has
nearly held steady. Latino students represent seven percent of AP and honors students.
Increasing their participation is very much on the school’s agenda.

Growth in Minority Student Participation in AP: 1992–2001

120000
100000 Asian Students
80000 Latino Students
60000 African American
40000 Students
20000 Native American/
Alaskan Native
0
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
00
01
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20

“Even with opening the doors, we’re increasing the number of students but we have yet
to reach parity [among underrepresented minority students] with our enrollment in the
school,” Hyland said. (White students have near identical parity and Asian students are
overrepresented in AP.)

Minjeong Kim
AP Studio Art
Mountain View
High School

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To address this, the school is reaching out to Latino parents through a Spanish
counseling effort to educate families about the need for a rigorous curriculum. “We
are trying to create the culture, but it does not happen overnight,” Hyland said.
In another measure, teachers take a diversity training program to make sure they
are adept at working with students from many backgrounds. Teacher training also
incorporates vertical teams and differentiated instruction, one of the latest pedagogical
approaches. Instead of lecturing, teachers tap a variety of instructional techniques to
accommodate different styles and levels of learning.
“Some students are going to be at your top level no matter what, and you can give them
assignments appropriately,” Hyland said. “Another student is going to be challenged by
a lesser assignment but still meet the criteria of the course. So it differentiates what
you expect of different students based on their ability levels.”
Obviously, this takes a very well prepared and flexible teacher.
“It does take a talented teacher, and I am very, very fortunate,” Hyland said of the
quality of her instructional staff.
The curriculum also has an open door at Mountain View. Students choose their courses
from a college-style course catalog and receive counseling about recommended
sequences. A yearly “academic arena” provides a day for students to talk to teachers
in each core academic department—science, math, social studies, and English—to go
over the sequence of courses for the next year.
“It’s sort of an open house to give kids as much information as possible and support
informed decision making so that they don’t get themselves in over their heads and want
to make changes,” Hyland said.
As for AP Exams, they are voluntary and the school is working to increase the numbers
of students taking them. (Mountain View uses fee waivers and finds the resources to
ensure that any student can afford to take AP Exams.)
“The thing I am most passionate about is that every student deserves the opportunity
to try, and we have no business closing that door to them,” she said.

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Financial Support for Students

Taking AP Examinations

Several fee reductions and subsidies are available to help students meet the costs of AP Examinations.

College Board Fee Reduction

To enable students in financial need to take AP Examinations, the College Board offers fee reductions
to students from low-income families. The College Board provides eligible students with a $22 discount
on each examination and expects schools to forgo their $8 rebate; thus, instead of the full $80 fee,
the College Board collects only $50 for each fee-reduced examination. More information, including
guidelines for determining a student’s eligibility, can be found at http://apcentral.collegeboard.
com/exam/fees.

Does Your State Participate?

More than 40 states use federal and/or state funds to supplement the College Board’s fee reduction by
amounts ranging from $10 to $50 per exam. Go to http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/exam/fees to find
out what your state is doing to support AP students, or check with your state’s education department.

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II. Faculty Focus:

Foundation of Excellence
Community of Learning

Graves County High School

Graves County School District
Mayfield, Kentucky
Description: Rural
Enrollment: 1,240
AP since: 1996
AP courses offered: 13
Highlights: Nearly 10-fold increase in student AP participation in one year.
Best practices: Vertical teams with middle and elementary school teachers

Rural communities face particular challenges to increasing college-going rates,

including high dropout rates and low expectations, often among families who do not
want their children to leave the community.
Graves County High School in Mayfield, Kentucky, faces these burdens of ordinary life
yet is doing some extraordinary things to improve education.
“It’s not easy and we aren’t going to accomplish everything overnight,” said Assistant
Principal Carla Whitis. “I am realistic that we will just keep making strides.”
A big step forward came through a grant from the state of Kentucky that allowed
the school to get their curricular house in order by funding teacher professional
development efforts. Teachers are working together in vertical teams in English, math,
and social studies, including the high school, the feeder middle school, and even
reaching into some of the seven elementary schools in the district.
“We are working with the vertical team to try to prepare students all the way through,”
Whitis said. “It’s crucial that middle school and even upper elementary teachers go to
some of these trainings.” (Their middle schools include seventh and eighth grade, so
they include sixth-grade teachers in vertical teams.)
“Teachers realize that, even though AP seems like a long way off for their students,
they are the ones building that foundation,” Whitis said.
The vertical teams integrate continuous and more challenging courses of study, in
an alignment towards AP. It’s a way to adjust the backbone of the school district—
its curriculum.

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“The professional development lets our teachers see through a different perspective
than they have in the past,” Whitis explained. She said that the effort has helped them
identify “glaring gaps” in the math and English curriculum.
Other outcomes of vertical team training were also unexpected. For instance, teachers
discovered that, at different grade levels, they referred to the same concepts using
different terminology, often without helping students make the connection.
“They might use ‘slope’ at the high school but ‘upward and downward trend’ as the
vocabulary in elementary school,” observed Whitis, a former teacher. “So coming into
the middle school, we can help students start making the transition to ‘slope.’”
Vertical teams expand critical thinking through cooperative, organized instruction. “We
give students activities in which they use the same type of problem every year, coming
up from elementary to high school, but every year it gets deeper,” Whitis said.
Their teachers are learning and their students are teaching. In an in-service training
session, AP Calculus students give demonstrations on their graphing calculators to
elementary teachers to inspire visual ways to introduce mathematical concepts at the
lower grades. The AP students also work with middle school students who are taking
Algebra I.
In another team effort, a school curriculum committee includes parents and students as
well as teachers and administrators, all focused on raising expectations and providing
incentives for increasing AP participation and preparation.
The local media are also onboard and promotes the school’s activities in newspapers,
radio, and cable television. Public relations efforts are part of the reason for the
sensational growth of AP — from 35 students in 2000–2001 to 324 students in 2001–2002.
During the same time, they’ve gone from three to 13 AP offerings.
The school has become part of a professional learning community. “We have only a
parking lot separating the high school and the middle school but until the last year or
two you would have thought it was 20 miles,” Whitis reflected. “Communication is a
huge benefit.”

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Crazy About Kids

Northside College Preparatory High School

Chicago, Illinois

At Northside College Prep, the teachers are held to high standards just like the students.
“Teachers have expertise in their particular field but also are passionate about learning,”
said Principal James C. Lalley. Teacher professional development efforts include College Board
workshops, university programs in their subject matter, and other activities.
Teachers must also be adept at hands-on teaching, project-based instruction, and inquiry-based
teaching rather than just lecturing. An example of project-based instruction is a social science
simulation of historical events or document-based or computer-enhanced learning that carries
over into AP courses such as World History and U.S. History.
But perhaps the most important trait in a teacher is impossible to impart.
“They must love kids,” Lalley stressed. “That may sound strange, but if you ask a person why they
are a teacher and they say they love German more than anything else in the world, and they don’t
say anything about kids, there’s often a problem.
“We’re looking for a teacher who has the expertise but also is a person who is a life-long
learner and enjoys being with these crazy adolescents.”

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Teachers Learning Through AP

AP Workshops and Summer Institutes

AP workshops and summer institutes are available for those who want to begin an AP course in their
school or improve and expand established AP courses. The 2000–2001 school year saw 1,874
workshops and summer institutes for three different experience levels; more than 60,000 individuals
attended.

Print Materials and CDs

AP offers an array of materials for AP teachers, coordinators, and administrators, with nearly 200 print,
software, and/or online resources available.

AP Central™ apcentral.collegeboard.com
The AP Central™ Web site is the College Board’s official online home for all professionals involved or
interested in the AP Program. The site is free for all users and offers a unique and growing set of
resources, including contributions by over 100 members of the AP community, including those involved
in Pre-AP™ initiatives.
Featuring information and content customized by course and professional role, AP Central offers
the most up-to-date information on the AP Program, including course descriptions, exams, syllabi,
teaching resources, AP readings, publications, FAQs, and other content written by AP professionals for
AP professionals.

Pre-AP™ Professional Development

Pre-AP is not a course or prescribed curriculum. Instead, it consists of three teacher professional
development workshops: Building Success, Setting the Cornerstones, and AP Vertical Teams. The
workshops help teachers build a demanding curriculum and support the creation of teams of middle
school and high school teachers that work together to prepare students for AP and other challenging
courses. In 2001, more than 12,500 teachers attended Pre-AP conferences and workshops.

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AP Teacher Survey Results

There are currently more than 100,000 teachers teaching AP courses in high schools worldwide.

1. Findings suggest recruiting efforts may need to be initiated if increases in the distribution of
ethnic minority teachers are to occur.
• Demographic characteristics of sample of 31,811 teachers

Characteristic Percent * Characteristic Percent *

Male 46.3 Female 53.7
Native American 1.8 African American 1.3
Asian/Pacific Islander 3.1 Cuban 0.1
Mexican American 3.1 Puerto Rican 0.1
Other Hispanic/Latino 0.1 White 95
Other 2.4 Not Stated 2.2

AP Teachers by Ethnicity
100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
er n o n n n
hit
e ed
ian ve nd ica a tin ica ba ica at
d
n t i l a e r L r Cu oR W
tS
t
n I Na ic Is m ic/ Ame ck er
t
ir ca kan if nA an n la No
e s a c ic a is p
ca or B Pu
m a / P x H r i
A Al ian M
e
he
r Af
or As Ot

2. Findings suggest access to AP seems to be limited only by academic preparedness.

• Course grades (49%), faculty recommendations (58.8%), and participation in prerequisite
courses (53.3%) were the most widely used criteria for enrollment in an AP course.
• Exams, such as the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test
(PSAT/NMSQT®) (7.9%) or a school designed AP admissions test (3.9%), were generally not
required for enrollment in AP.
• Many teachers (34.1%) worked at schools with an open enrollment policy for AP.

* Since repondents were asked to select all ethnic categories that applied to them, the percentages listed above
exceed 100 percent.

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3. Findings suggest ethnic minority, ESL, and economically disadvantaged students are under-
represented in AP classes.
• 75.5% of surveyed teachers indicated less than 10% of their students were part of an ethnic
minority group.
• 65% indicated less than 10% of their students have English as a second language (ESL).
• 58% indicated less than 10% of their students receive free or reduced lunch on a regular
basis.

4. Despite underrepresentation of minority students, most schools did not have specific initiatives
geared toward increasing minority participation.
• Only 12.1% indicated their school had such initiatives.

5. Findings seem to suggest an added benefit of increasing the number of ethnic minority teachers
may be an increased amount of ethnic minority AP students.
• Ethnic minority AP teachers tend to teach a greater proportion of ethnic students. African
American teachers tend to have classes with 40% African American students, whereas white
AP teachers have classes with fewer than 10% African American students.

All Teachers African American

School has special initiatives to increase

minority participation in AP classes 11.5% 20.9%

Minority students are recruited

by AP teachers 8.4% 15.7%

Minority students are recruited

by teachers of courses prior to AP 7.6% 14.1%

Minority students are recruited

by guidance counselors 7.3% 11.8%

Minority students are recruited

during meetings with parents 3.5% 7.5%

Minority students are recruited through

special mailings or communications 3.2% 4.6%

6. AP teacher retirement
• A third anticipate retiring by 2010.
• 59% anticipate retiring within the next 15 years.

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III. Enhanced Learning:

Creative Approaches
Beyond the GPA

Henry T. Gunderson High School

San Jose Unified School District
San Jose, California
Description: public magnet school in urban area
Enrollment: 1,170
AP since: 1976
AP courses offered: 8
Highlights: 43 percent of the school and 42 percent of AP examinees are Latino
Best practices: Priority scheduling, creative staffing and outreach; learning contract with students

At Gunderson High School, it’s harder to get out of AP than into it. That’s because
students and parents sign a contract, which affirms that they will stay the course all
year long.
“I created the contract because I felt the frustration that every AP program experiences
when the kids sign up for the classes and then they get frightened or they don’t do
the summer work,” said Principal Linda Ferdig-Riley. “The contract says that they
understand fully that this is a…yearlong commitment and that they are going to put
this course as a priority in their lives above sports and activities.”
Nevertheless, some students try to wiggle out of AP. “Once they realize they haven’t
done the summer work they say, ‘I have to get out. I can’t do it. It’s too hard!’”
Ferdig-Riley said. In some cases, if students are truly overwhelmed, they can remove
themselves, but not before a nail-biting conference with the principal and a parent.
“One very bright young lady who didn’t challenge herself…was trying to go around
me to get other administrators to move her out of AP,” Ferdig-Riley recalled. She asked
the student and her mom into her office.
“I said, ‘Are you capable of doing this?’ And she and her mom said yes. I said, ‘If you are
capable of doing all these things, what’s the problem?’ I just made it really difficult and
she stayed in and she is having success,” Ferdig-Riley said.

Getting into AP
“In the old days, we allowed students into honors and AP only if they had a certain GPA,
only if they had a teacher recommendation, only if they had a certain score on an
entrance test. And we found we weren’t serving all of our populations,” Ferdig-Riley
said of San Jose’s diverse mix of Hispanic, Asian, and African American students.

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“We just opened that door and did not put a GPA on it because we found that a lot of
our kids who are really, really bright aren’t necessarily successful in...regular classes
where, frankly, maybe they aren’t challenged, or they’re bored.”
This approach did meet with some resistance at first.
“Initially, there was a lot of teacher concern because of the old stigma—if they don’t
have the requisite skills, they’re not going to be successful. I don’t know that we’ve
completely eliminated that. But certainly our teachers are seeing, by virtue of our
success rates, that our kids can do the work.” Ferdig-Riley explained. “They need the
rigor and the challenges that an AP or honors class offers.”

Access Abilities
The school uses a number of other strategies to support its AP efforts. For example, the
courses are scheduled during first period, at the end of the day, or before or after lunch,
to give teachers the opportunity to extend class time, particularly for labs.
“We are not on a block schedule, but we need to create opportunity and flex time for
the teacher,” Ferdig-Riley said. “We put a lot of time and effort into [scheduling]. It’s like
working on a puzzle board, making sure we’re affording our students the opportunity to
take as many [AP courses] as they want.”
In another effort that promotes AP, the school holds an annual Gunderson Fair, in which
AP teachers run booths touting their classes. Educators also meet with parents and
students to encourage AP participation, targeting minority students.
“Although at our school ‘minority’ is a meaningless word, if we come across a [qualified]
transcript of a minority student, we pull them in and say, ‘Why aren’t you taking an AP
class? Why aren’t you going for this? You’re bright, you’re talented. You’re smart. You
can do this. You need to challenge yourself. You need to establish this kind of rigorous
program for yourself.’”
Gunderson teachers hold special study sessions for students evenings and weekends.
Teachers are also required to participate in summer training and refresher courses.
The school sends vertical teams, including teachers from lower grade levels, to College
Board training sessions so that they can anticipate the rigor of the AP Program and
challenge their students to become prepared.
Students at Gunderson are also strongly encouraged to take AP Exams. “Ideally,
everybody would take the exam and that’s what we shoot for,” Ferdig-Riley said. “Some
[students] are very reluctant to test…. But we encourage every single student to take
that exam. And that’s our goal.”

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Budding Scholars

Warren G. Harding High School

Bridgeport, Connecticut
The Advanced Placement Program is part of an overall school improvement plan at Warren G. Harding
High School.
“One of our goals is to dramatically increase our AP offerings,” said Principal Robert Durkin. “If we set
the goal of every youngster graduating with one AP class, then we can increase the academic rigor and
challenge of our program in the ninth and tenth grades to aim youngsters for those courses.”
The gate-opening course is AP Spanish at this urban school where Latinos represents 50 percent of
students in the school and 70 percent of AP examinees.
“You always want to maintain bilingualism,” Durkin said. “That’s why the big push is for students to take
AP Spanish.”
The course is important not only for personal and academic growth but for economic reasons in a
business world in dire need of Spanish speakers.
“You also want to celebrate the culture for self-esteem and confidence and validate a youngster’s
culture every chance you get.”
Every student in their AP courses takes the exam. Durkin is unafraid that higher participation rates lead
to lower average grades.
“We accept the fact that the scores aren’t going to be spectacular. Our feeling is that eventually the
numbers will go up,” he said. “It’s much more important that the youngster get a true college transition
class.”
The school also plans to expand outreach to educate low-income parents about the courses students
need in order to be college bound.
“It speaks to the heart of access and equity,” he said. “I’ve never heard an adult complain that as a
youngster they were put into a class that was too hard for them. It’s always that someone said that you
weren’t bright enough to take that class.”

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PSAT/NMSQT® and AP

Research shows a correlation between AP Examination grades and PSAT/NMSQT® scores in many
different subjects.
Below is the correlation for AP English Literature Exam grades and PSAT/NMSQT verbal scores.
The table shows, for example, that 16,063 students who took the AP English Literature Exam had
previously taken the PSAT/NMSQT and gained a verbal score of 41–45. Of those students, more than
39 percent achieved an AP score of 3 or better, and 7 percent achieved an AP score of 4 or better.
AP Potential Software is an innovative new product designed to promote access to challenging
coursework by identifying “diamond-in-the-rough” students. Studies have shown that performance
on the PSAT/NMSQT can be used to identify students who may be successful in AP courses. Using
such data, AP Potential Software provides schools and districts with a roster of potential AP
students by name and suggested AP course, giving principals and administrators useful information
for expanding AP programs, adding courses, or increasing enrollment in current AP offerings.

Note: Schools should use correlations to identify additional students for AP and honors courses.
These correlations should never be used as a means of denying students’ participation in challenging
courses.

AP English Literature
PSAT/NMSQT Verbal English Literature AP Grade
Score ≥3 ≥4 n
80–76 99.6 95.5 485
75–71 99.2 91.3 3652
70–66 97.9 82.5 7275
65–61 95.8 69.9 16211
60–56 90.6 52.9 17774
55–51 80.4 35.3 26880
50–46 62.2 17.7 25267
45–41 39.4 7.0 16063
40–36 20.2 2.1 8117
35–31 6.8 0.8 3060
30–26 3.8 0.6 888
25–20 2.6 0.3 400
Total — — 126072

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IV. Putting It Together:

Linkages and
Partnerships
Support System

Guilford County Schools

Greensboro, North Carolina
Number of high schools: 14
Number of middle schools: 18
High school enrollment: Approximately 16,000
Highlights: Teacher training blitz; significant districtwide AP growth since 2000
Best practices: Use PSAT/NMSQT data to identify and recruit students into advanced courses.

Imagine that education is a business (and indeed it is in some settings). The

superintendent of schools is like the CEO of a large organization. Administrators are
executive staff. Teachers are akin to a sales force who carry sample cases of learning.
The customers are students.
“When I first came to work here, I met with a group of high school kids to find out
what we should be doing that we weren’t,” said Superintendent Terry B. Grier. “The
first student talked about the bathroom and toilet tissue and we disposed of that,”
he recollected. “The next girl said that our courses should be more academically
challenging…that we should have more AP courses in our schools and [more] minority
students in our AP courses.”
Grier talked to the students about the problem of low expectations. He then called a
management meeting. He asked senior staff for data about minority representation in
challenging courses, but found that the data was not being compiled and analyzed.
“We understood quickly that it’s
very hard to determine where
you want to go if you don’t know
where you are,” Grier said.
The schools meticulously gathered
data, extracting it from master
schedules when necessary, Whitney
to come up with bench lines for Hopkins-Wilcox
each school and for the district. Weaver
Education
It was the first step on the road Center,
Guilford County
to college for many students in
Schools.
Guilford County. AP Studio Art

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The district added important data to its analyses: All ninth-, tenth-, and eleventh-graders
take the PSAT/NMSQT, funded by the school system, and these scores are used to
identify and advise students about potential success and enrollment in AP courses
(see sidebar, page 24).
By looking at PSAT/NMSQT scores that were high among students not in AP courses,
the district found 60 percent more students who might be channeled into AP.
“Armed with this new data, my next question was, ‘What are you going to do to increase
the number of children in AP courses?’” Grier asked his principals.
The answer came: “What you have to do in a school is create a culture where all
students are valued and where you have high expectations for all students,” said
Western Guilford High School Principal Colette Love. “We want to break cycles.”

Growth Opportunity
For the last few years, the school district has set out to recruit students for AP and
guide teachers to offer more AP courses. They abolished prerequisites, including grade
point average and teacher recommendations, although students take precedent courses
to AP. For example, Algebra I and II and Geometry precede AP Calculus.
“The biggest issue that we have faced is one of people’s beliefs and values,” Grier said
of parents, teachers, and administrators who worried that students couldn’t handle AP.
“I tell them that AP is for the prepared; it’s not for the elite.”
Grier simply authorized the principals to do what it takes to implement AP.
“I told them they were deputized, that they had the authority to do whatever they
needed to do to get these kids ready to be successful in their high schools.”
“It really starts before they get to me and that means looking at schedules even in the
middle schools,” Love said. “We have to make sure by seventh grade that kids…are not
being put in [low-level] courses.”
In terms of instructional planning, vertical team initiatives allow teachers in elementary,
middle, and high school feeder patterns to work together. A comprehensive curriculum
alignment plan reaches from pre-K to twelfth grade. It uses PSAT/NMSQT data to spot
curricular strengths and weaknesses.
Teachers at all grade levels are trained in curriculum and instructional differentiation—
approaches that provide educational growth for all students while opening the doors
of opportunity to them.
In another targeted professional development effort, eighth-grade Algebra I teachers
will receive extensive training. Guilford County Schools retrained 240 teachers in
summer institutes to prepare them for AP. The district also has partnerships with higher
education institutions, including the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, to offer
graduate teaching courses in core curriculum areas.

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As a result, AP has taken off.

In a memorable piece of data, 2,176 Guilford County students took AP Exams in 2001,
according to the College Board. In 2002, more than 6,000 students enrolled in AP
courses, according to Grier.
About one-third of high school students in the district are African American, and the
schools have boosted their AP participation to 17 percent. AP is also open to students
at the district’s alternative high schools, known as the Middle Colleges, and those in
technical programs.
The district’s policy is that all students who take AP courses are required to take the
exams. Grier has also set specific goals to increase AP course offerings in each high
school.
In another creative step, Guilford County Schools created an AP Diploma, an incentive
program in which business-funded scholarships encourage students to enroll in AP
and excel on examinations.

Things Great and Small

The district takes a multipronged approach with several other programs devoted to
preparing students academically. Academic All-Star Camps for high-achieving eighth
graders focus on PSAT/NMSQT preparation, leadership, and career interests. The
camps are summer camps, like sports camps for athletes, held on college campuses.
These events are organized around fun themes like the Survivor TV show, with tribes
of participants and teachers dressed in khakis and camouflage. At the end of summer
camp, each member of the team with the greatest test score improvement gets $1,000
in savings bonds courtesy of Bell South. In addition to corporate funders, the district is
supported by foundations and host institutions including North Carolina A&T University.
Guilford County students benefit from all levels of support, from large institutions and
organizations to the hands-on style of individual administrators.
Principals personally contact potential AP students and their parents to encourage
enrollment. In fact, parents are often surprised to pick up the phone and, instead of
a telemarketer, hear the voice of the superintendent of schools.
“I call and tell them that our test data indicates that the student can perform at a much
higher level, needs to be challenged and…can be successful in AP,” Grier said. I tell
them, ‘We care about her and we care about the quality of education here…we would
like to encourage you and your child to come in and sit down to talk to a counselor or
principal because we believe she has the ability and…can do well in these courses.’”
In this sense, quality and quantity go hand in hand as the district recruits more students
and teachers into a flourishing AP program.
“I run the district like a businessman,” Grier said. “I am not interested in excuses. I am
interested in what to do to get the results we need.”

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Florida Partnership: A Statewide Effort

Florida is the first state to adopt the College Board System of integrated products and services
to strengthen academic opportunity for a diverse pool of students. Known as One Florida, the
customized program is designed to help children from middle school through senior high
school improve their academic performance and prepare for a college education or a
rewarding career. The intense and focused support of the effort is in high-priority schools so
designated by the state.
The Florida Partnership concentrates on improving student assessment, curriculum, teacher
professional development, and guidance services at the high school level that meet individual
school and district needs. The primary goals are to improve performance on the SAT®, to
improve student achievement and college readiness, and to use data for program improve-
ment and accountability. For example, the state provides the PSAT/NMSQT for all tenth
graders and its Summary of Answers for all public schools and districts. In addition to spotting
curricular strengths and weaknesses, the data can help educators find potential AP students.
The state is also introducing Advanced Placement to schools without AP programs and
granting financial rewards to AP teachers. Teacher professional development activities include
Building Success and Vertical Teams workshops and AP Summer Institutes (see page 18).
The Florida Partnership also incorporates student and family outreach with materials, about
colleges and opportunities, in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.

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AP Exam Takers in Large

Urban Areas* and the Nation

Subject Urban Total U.S. Urban

Exams Exams Percentage

Biology 3,480 44,264 7.9%

Calculus AB 8,362 108,442 7.7%

English Literature 14,719 164,583 8.9%

Physics B 1,639 17,422 9.4%

U.S. History 1,579 13,949 11.3%

* Areas include 53 member districts of the Council of Great City Schools and 5 other large
urban districts. Together, these districts enroll 14.3% of the nation’s students.
Source: Advancing Excellence in Urban Schools: The Council of Great City Schools and the College
Board, March 2001.

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Continuum of Success

James A. Foshay Learning Center

Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles, California
Description: Urban
Enrollment: 3600; 650 in grades 9–12
AP since: 1995
AP courses offered: 10
Highlights: High school is 98 percent minority; nearly 70 percent Latino
Best practices: Open door to AP; K–12 coordination

Foshay Learning Center is a K–12, year-round school in south central Los Angeles that
started as a middle school and then branched out in both directions in 1994.
“We were concerned that even our top ninth-graders at the time, who we just knew
were college bound, left us and went on to high school someplace else,” says
Veroniqué Wills, principal. “We would see them years later and it was the total opposite.
What happened in those two years?” she wondered about students who deferred their
dreams of college.
“Part of the reason we expanded was to continue nurturing and protecting our kids,”
she explained. “We also wanted to provide quality education for the kids right in this
community. It really hurt us that they’d rather ride a bus for two hours in the morning
than come to the school a block away.”
The school grew to incorporate upper and lower grades, making Foshay a laboratory
of vertical teams of teachers who work to align the curriculum. For example, their
English Department meetings include sixth- through twelfth-grade instructors. This
communication ensures that teachers understand the progression of content through
the grades.
“The sixth-grade teacher hears what the reading list is like for the AP class or that,
in ninth grade, students have to read a certain amount of novels,” Wills said. “The
sixth-grade math teacher hears what the concerns are for the Calculus teacher and
the Algebra II teacher. So they start to think about which standards are enduring.”

Learning Communities
Foshay incorporates three small learning communities—academies in finance,
technology, and health careers. Students attend on a staggered schedule, on one of
three yearly cycles to accommodate about 200 elementary, 2700 middle school, and
650 high school students. For example, the high school operates from July through
October, with November and December off, then resumes through April. Teachers and
students are on the same schedules. (The administrators, custodians, and clerical staff
work all year.)

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The high school schedule works well for AP, since students finish in April and AP
Examinations take place in May.
“It’s a relief because they really have another week to study without worrying about
the other classes, so the schedule has worked to our advantage,” says Wills.
Perhaps most important, Foshay has a truly open-door AP policy.

“Our whole philosophy is that we’re not going to choose who goes to college and who doesn’t;
we’re going to give everybody that opportunity,” Wills said.

“We realized very early that it’s not the GPA that makes or breaks you in college, it’s
your exposure to that rigorous curriculum, i.e., AP classes. That’s the real determiner
of whether you’re going to be successful in college or not. So we try to offer as many
as we can.”
AP Examinations are open to all students, whether they are enrolled in AP courses
or not.
Of course, it takes some patience and extra work on the part of teachers to build
success. “We’re still not getting the fives that we want, but we’re competing against
kids that are in a different socioeconomic status, where their families or their schools
have been preparing them for AP classes since they were in fourth, fifth, or sixth grade.”
Foshay is working to give students the same leg up.
“The high school has changed our middle school curriculum….Our middle school
teachers understand that they’re the ones preparing the kids for the high school exit
exam, not high school teachers,” Wills said.
The system is working so well that people are now beating a path to Foshay’s door.
“On opening day there used to be a line out our door, down to the corner, of parents
who wanted permits out of the school,” Wills remembered. “Now it’s the other way
around. We have a waiting list, and I can’t accommodate all the kids who want to
go here.”
Finally, Wills related an unforgettable experience she had at Oakland Airport.
“I recognized a Foshay kid who goes to Berkeley and I said, ‘So did we prepare you?’
And he said, ‘Yes, it was those AP classes.’ He said that some of his peers were
struggling but not him. He named two teachers; one was his AP English Literature
teacher and the other his AP Chemistry teacher.”

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 E A : F U R T H E R R E A D I N G S

V. Further Readings
Answers in the Toolbox: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor’s Degree
Attainment. Clifford Adelman. U.S. Department of Education, 1999. To obtain copies of this report
call 877 4ED-PUBS.
Dispelling the Culture of Mediocrity: Expanding Advanced Placement. U.S. Department of Education,
2000. To obtain copies of this report call 877 4ED-PUBS.
Advanced Placement Students in College: An Investigation of their Course-Taking Patterns
and College Majors. ETS, 2000.
Advanced Placement Students in College: An Investigation of Course Grades at 20 Colleges.
ETS, 1998.
Advancing Excellence in Urban Schools: A Report on Advanced Placement Examinations in
the Great City Schools. Council of the Great City Schools, 2001.
The College Board Review: Minority Achievement. To obtain copies call 212 713-8265.
Visit: apcentral.collegeboard.com.
To obtain copies of any of the following, please call 800 323-7155:
Access to Excellence: A Report of the Commission on the Future of the Advanced
Placement Program. The College Board, 2001.
How Well Do Advanced Placement Students Perform on the TIMSS Advanced
Mathematics and Physics Test? Gonzalez, Eugenio J., O’Connor, K; Miles, J. , 2001.
Get With the Program (A bilingual introduction to the AP Program for minority
students and their families). The College Board.
Math Vertical Team Toolkit
AP Vertical Teams Guide for English
AP Yearbook

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E A : A P C O U R S E S A N D E X A M S

VI. AP Courses and Exams

Thirty-four AP courses and exams are offered
in 19 subject areas:

Art German
Art History
Studio Art (Drawing Portfolio) Government and Politics
Studio Art (2-D Design Portfolio) Comparative Government and Politics
Studio Art (3-D Design Portfolio) United States Government and Politics

Biology History
European History
Calculus United States History
Calculus AB World History
Calculus BC
Human Geography
Chemistry
Latin
Computer Science Latin Literature
Computer Science A Latin: Vergil
Computer Science AB
Music Theory
Economics
Macroeconomics Physics
Microeconomics Physics B
Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism
English Physics C: Mechanics
English Language and Composition
English Literature and Composition Psychology

Environmental Science Spanish

Spanish Language
French Spanish Literature
French Language Statistics
French Literature

3 3
College Board Regional Offices

Middle States
(Serving DE, DC, MD, NJ, NY, PA, PR, USVI)
2 Bala Plaza, Suite 900
Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004-1501
866 392-3019
E-mail: [email protected]

Midwestern
(Serving IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, WV, WI)
1560 Sherman Avenue, Suite 1001
Evanston, IL 60201-4805
866 392-4086
E-mail: [email protected]
New England
(Serving CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT)
470 Totten Pond Road
Waltham, MA 02451-1982
866 392-4089
E-mail: [email protected]

Southern
(Serving AL, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA)
3700 Crestwood Parkway, NW, Suite 700
Duluth, GA 30096-7155
866 392-4088
E-mail: [email protected]

Southwestern
(Serving AR, NM, OK, TX)
4330 South MoPac Expressway, Suite 200
Austin, TX 78735-6735
866 392-3017
E-mail: [email protected]

3 4
Western
(Serving AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY)
2099 Gateway Place, Suite 550
San Jose, CA 95110-1051
866 392-4078
E-mail: [email protected]

AP International
Serving all countries outside of the U.S. and Canada
45 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023-6992
212 373-8738
E-mail: [email protected]

AP Canada
George Ewonus
1708 Dolphin Avenue, Suite 406
Kelowna, B.C., Canada V1Y 9S4
250 861-9050
800 667-4548 in Canada only
E-mail: [email protected]

Pre-AP
45 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023-6992
212 373-8786
E-mail: [email protected]

3 5
Contacts

National Office
45 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023-6992
212 713-8066
E-mail: [email protected]

AP Services
609 771-7300
877 274-6474 (toll free in the U.S. and Canada)

Additional copies of this book, item number 040081384, may be ordered free of charge at
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/freepubs or from College Board Publications, 45 Columbus Avenue,
New York, NY 10023. For additional information call College Board Publications Customer Service at
212 713-8066 Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST.

3 6
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