Indiana high schoolers raise AP scores, but many are still short of passing

Indiana high schoolers increased their Advanced Placement scores to pre-pandemic norms in 2022, but many are still short of passing, according to preliminary data released by the College Board.

Advanced Placement, or AP, classes allow students to take college-level coursework and earn college credits while in high school—as long as they pass the end-of-year exams with a score of three, four or five. One is the lowest score a student can earn, while a five is the highest.

Overall, about 56% of Indiana 11th and 12th graders who took an AP exam earned a three or higher in 2022. The remainder of student test takers did not earn a high enough score on their exams to qualify for college credit, however.

But, Indiana is improving. In the past 10 years, the state has seen an overall uptick in the number of students who pass AP exams, growing from roughly 45% passing in 2012.

In 2019—the last time AP tests were proctored before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—52% of students earned a passing score.

Equity gaps still persist. Black students’ median score in 2022 was 2.0—up from 1.9 in 2021 and 1.8 in 2012—while white students’ median was 2.8, up from 2.6 in 2021. Asian students earned a median score of 3.3, up from 3.1 in 2021.

Nationally, the median score earned in 2022 was a 2.9 across all student backgrounds. That’s up from 2.7 the year before, and slightly higher than the national average of 2.8 before the pandemic.

How Hoosier students scored

About 17% of all Hoosiers in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades—44,129 students—took an AP exam in 2022, according to the new data.

That percentage has mostly remained unchanged since 2017, but is slightly higher than in 2012, when 15% of Indiana students took an exam. Black students were least likely to take an exam—only 8% did so in 2022. That’s slightly below the national average, too, which showed that 10% of Black students across the U.S. took at least one exam last year.

Nationally, 18% of all 10th-12th graders took an AP test in 2022.

Although Indiana saw a 1% downtick in the number of students who took an AP exam from 2021 to 2022, the state’s overall percentage of participating students has increased by 20% since 2012, when just 36,821 students took a test.

Students can take more than one test each year. In 2022, a total of 83,492 Indiana exams were turned in.

Across the state, 435 schools administered AP tests in 2022—six more than in 2021. Of those that proctored tests last year, 361 were public schools and 74 were private.

When students take an AP test, they’re given the option to send those scores to certain colleges and universities of their choosing. Oftentimes, students choose schools they’ve applied to or have an interest in attending.

Of the top 100 universities in the nation to receive students’ AP scores, three are in Indiana.

Purdue University got 15,340 exam scores from 5,629 students across the country—ranking the school seventh for scores received. Indiana University followed in 23rd, recording 9,750 scores from 3,976 students. The University of Notre Dame also made the list—in 77th—after getting 4,233 exam scores from 1,347 students in 2022.

Farther down the list, IUPUI received 1,896 scores from 936 students, and Ball State University got 1,598 scores from 880 students.

The push for more early college credits

Early college credits include any type of college credit earned while in high school, like through dual credit and AP.

Dual credit courses are taught at a high school by high school faculty through a formal agreement between the high school and a participating college or university, such as Indiana University or Ivy Tech Community College.

The state provides funding for certain courses in English, math, science, history and world languages, as well as technical classes in areas like construction trades, health sciences, information technology and manufacturing.

Education officials emphasize that students who pass AP exams have better academic outcomes later on. They’re also more likely to have higher GPAs in college, graduate on time and complete their degrees.

The Indiana Commission for Higher Education’s most recent College Readiness report showed that 62% of 2020 high school graduates had some form of early college credit, such as dual credit or Advanced Placement.

Now, the commission is focusing on increasing dual credit opportunities for high schoolers statewide and quadrupling the number of high school seniors that earn the Indiana College Core by 2028.

The Indiana College Core, a block of 30 general education credits that can be transferred to and accepted at colleges across the state, is one way for students to seamlessly transfer. Through dual credit, roughly 1,800 high schoolers earn the Indiana College Core annually.

CHE maintains that students who earn dual credit or are successful in AP classes are more likely to go to college and succeed while there, too. In 2021, 86.7% of Indiana high school graduates who had taken and passed an AP exam enrolled in college, according to CHE. Those students earned an average of about 28 freshman credits before they even graduated high school.

Students who excel in AP courses are additionally predicted to outperform their peers who did not take or have not had success in these courses. The most recent Indiana data shows that passing an AP exam is predictive of greater college success.

Indiana public college data indicates that students who took and passed at least one AP exam 3.2 grade point average their freshman year. Students who did not take and pass a test averaged a 2.4 GPA.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.