Overview

Educators not only need to know which students have the potential to enroll in advanced coursework, but also if they have previously enrolled and mastered the advanced course content. Completion of advanced courses, such as Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, has been proven to outweigh grade point average, class rank, and SAT scores among factors that contribute to a student’s completion of a college degree.

Although getting to college is a critical interim goal, the long-term outcome that matters for most students is college completion, and a high school curriculum of high academic intensity has significant impact on that. The Advanced Course Enrollment Metrics are useful to ensure that campuses and districts encourage all students to consider AP classes.

Most students who enroll in AP coursework will take the AP exam. Monitoring exam results for advanced courses is critical in predicting college and career success. AP Students who earned credit by exam consistently outperformed non-AP students in all college outcome measures, including credit hours and GPA. In particular, an AP exam score of three or above is highly predictive of a student’s likelihood to persist in college and attain a degree.

Further, colleges are increasingly taking students' advanced course- and exam-taking into account in their admissions decisions because of the evidence it offers on a student's ability to complete college-level coursework.

Advanced Course Enrollment and Completion Metrics