<p>What is a good “passing percentage”? In other words, if 70% of kids get a 3 or above, is that good/bad/average? I would imagine if a school requires its kids to take the test that might deflate the numbers?</p>
<p>How would anyone know the school statistics? Do schools publish this?</p>
<p>I don’t know if there is a general consensus, but at my sons’ high school (private, Jesuit), the stated “goal” is to have 75 - 80% get a 3, 4, or 5 on each AP exam. It does require all students enrolled in an AP class to take the exam or lose the extra weighting in the GPA calcs.</p>
<p>That’s what I’m wondering. My school does, but I don’t have a sense of how good the passing percentage is.</p>
<p>The statistics on number of AP exams taken and grades received is part of our school’s “School Profile” that the guidance counselor sends in with college apps. The profile also lists what AP and honors courses are offered, average SAT/ACT scores for the last senior class, and GPA quintiles – all info that the colleges use to put an individual student’s performance in context.</p>
<p>I’m guessing schools only supply the info if they do well, which is why I’m wondering what the threshold is for “doing well.”</p>
<p>My daughters’ high school (private, college prep) has a passing rate (% 3, 4, 5) on all APs of 93% published in the school profile for 2007. Local public school data for California can be found on dataquest and for our area range from 56% to 80% with a district average of 70%. I would think a “good” passing rate might be evaluated as one that beats the national average (which can be found on the collegeboard site).</p>
<p>Our (small private) school publishes the # who took the exam, and the percentage who got 3 or higher. Students are expected to take the exam, but looking at the numbers reported, it isn’t required.</p>
<p>Our HS profile, which still reflects the class of 2007, says that “51 seniors took 87 AP exams,” and that “71% scored 3 or above.” (That would be 51 out of about 160 kids, btw.)</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly how to interpret that statement, since kids also take AP exams sophomore and junior year. It is not required that kids take the AP exam–and they don’t weight, so there is no punishment for not doing so–but some teachers recommend it more than others. The results from course to course vary also. For example, the AP Macroeconomics course is notoriously dismal, with few kids getting decent scores unless they do a lot of self-study, while the sophomore AP MEH class generally does very well. My son’s class achieved an average of about 4.5, and I believe that most kids took it.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s the whole issue of should the teachers be teaching to the test.</p>
<p>^^in the case of our school, the economics class really is not good, and the MEH teacher is fabulous. The kids do well and learn an enormous amount as a result of his enthusiasm and intellect, not because he limits himself to “teaching to the test”–although he does teach them how to do what they need to do to score well.</p>
<p>I wonder whether schools use the scores to evaluate teachers …</p>
<p>forgot to add, ours also reports something about the percentage of the class who took at least one exam. I don’t remember the exact wording, I’ll have to look it up. Ours is a private college prep school 100% going to 4 year colleges. The profile isn’t widely available, but I did pick one up at some meeting last year and have held onto it tightly since :)</p>
<p>One other useful comparison, besides by school (or to compare to a school if you get the data on it), might be to look at the regional stats. </p>
<p>For example, in the Canadian province in which I live, 82% of AP exam takers across all schools get 3 or above.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how useful it would be to compare your school to others without knowing who within the schools takes APs. e.g. Can anyone take AP courses, or are there grade, application or other pre-reqs which limit them to only the top, and most likely highest scoring, students?</p>
<p>Our school district puts together the numbers every year for the school board.
AP classes are open to any student, basically. There is some weeding out since all teachers give “summer” homework that is due on the first day of class.
The school district requires each student to take the test and they pay for it.
Each AP class is analyzed - the scores are broken down and they look at class rank of the student and how many AP tests each student takes. All AP Teachers are required to take a summer class on teaching their AP subject.</p>
<p>This is a relatively small high school - not “rich” - but suburban/rural. A pretty good economic mix and mostly white.</p>
<p>Some classes have very high pass rates - AP Psych, which is independent study, has a nearly 100% pass rate. AP English has about an 80% pass rate from what I recall. We do not have a good pass rate on AP physics C and AP Chem is very mixed.<br>
Kids who take 3 or more tests have lower pass rates than kids who take only 1 or two tests.</p>
<p>Comparing scores from school to school is like comparing apples to oranges. It is much better to see how one particular school does from year to year.</p>
<p>Our school publishes the number of kids taking each exam, and the number of kids at each level of awards (AP Scholar, Scholar with Distinction, National Scholar etc.), but they notably don’t tell you what the passing rate might be either overall or in the different subjects. However, n each of the classes that my kids have taken the teachers at Meet the Teacher Night have generally said something like “most kids get fours and fives”. So far my kids have gotten only 5s, so I’m inclined to believe the teachers. In our school the classes are not open to everyone, some have prerequisites, some you have to test or be recommended into. However if you beg to be in a class, they’ll generally let you try it out. At least one kid got into AP World History this way because parents insisted and switched out before the end of the first marking period because it was too hard. They were quite willing to let our oldest take AP Computer Science after a conversation with him about what he knew.</p>
<p>finally got a chance to look at our school profile. This is a independent day school class size around 60.</p>
<p>The 07-08 profile says “32% of the class of 2008 and 56% of the class of 2007 took a minimum of one AP exam” </p>
<p>There are applications to get into AP classes, they say they don’t allow many in who want to take more than two AP/honors classes, but I don’t know how strict they really are. Of the 11 exams listed on this profile, one Chinese was obviously self study with 100% in the “score of 3 or higher” category. Biology was the only other without a dedicated class, but there is a "Senior Honors Biology which states in the course guide “with some outside work, students may be prepared to take the AP exam.” The one student who took it also got a 3 or higher. Of the remaining 9, the lowest percentage was Calc AB 6 out of 10, Vergil 2 of 3, with five of the exams listing 100% at 3 or above.</p>
<p>Also does the school encourage students to take the AP class to extend themselves - e.g. our school has no entry requirements for AP US History (the class) AND all students who are still in the class in May can take the AP test for free - the school picks up the fees. This will tend to drive pass rates way down (and it does) but also drive the absolute number of students passing up. </p>
<p>BTW this is a public school in California - the board just wants to really encourage students to take the APs so they pay for the tests.</p>
<p>A passing rate that is extremely high can indicate that the school is not letting kids who MIGHT not pass attempt the course.</p>