The Impact of Participation in the Advanced Placement Program on Students' College Admissions Test Scores
Year: 2015
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The Advanced Placement (AP) program is an educational program that permits high school students to take introductory college-level courses and receive college credit by passing a standardized end-of-course exam. Data were obtained from a statewide database of 2 high school graduating cohorts (N = 90,044). We used a series of propensity score analyses and marginal mean weighting through stratification to examine the impact of the AP program on students' academic achievement as measured by ACT scores. Results indicate that merely enrolling in an AP course produces very little benefit for students. Students who take and pass the AP exam, however, obtain higher ACT scores, even after controlling for a wide variety of academic, socioeconomic, and demographic variables. The authors conclude the article by discussing aspects of the AP program that remain unanswered.
Institutions: Utah Valley University, University of Virginia
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2246900526