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Just wanted to make a quick comment about this – Our school district in NC does go back in August, but we have 4/4 block scheduling. That means that AP Euro, AP Stats and many other year-long AP courses are taught during one semester. Before our state legislature bowed to the wishes of the tourism industry (don’t get me started), the second semester started at the beginning of January, so the entire AP course was taught from January 1st until the date of the exam. Now the second semester doesn’t start until late January, so the AP courses are mostly taught FIRST semester to allow sufficient time to cover the material during the semester. The students then have a different full schedule second semester on top of which they have to study the material they were taught first semester for the AP exam. So, yes, the southern school schedule might appear to give some advantage by having the students back in school in August, but I think the semester block schedule our district uses takes away that advantage. (yes, I realize that not all southern schools use this type of block scheduling)</p>