AP Program Facts

Overview of the AP Program

Since 1955, the AP Program has enabled millions of students to take college-level courses and exams, and to earn college credit or placement while still in high school.

• The AP Program offers 37 courses and exams.
• More than 17,000 schools worldwide participate in the AP Program.
• Twenty-five percent of U.S. public high school students in the class of 2008 took an AP Exam at some point in high school. In 2008, nearly 1.6 million students worldwide took more than 2.7 million AP Exams.
• More than 90 percent of the nation's four-year colleges and universities, and institutions in more than 45 countries, have an AP policy that grants incoming students credit, placement or both for qualifying AP Exam grades. In 2008, more than 3,600 colleges and universities accepted qualifying AP Exam grades for credit and/or placement.
• Each AP Exam, with the exception of AP Studio Art, consists of dozens of multiple-choice questions that are scored by machine, as well as free-response questions (essays, translations, problems, oral responses) that are scored at the annual AP Reading by approximately 10,000 college faculty and AP teachers using scoring standards and rubrics developed by college and university faculty who teach the corresponding college courses.
• The composite score for each AP Exam is converted to a grade of 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1. An AP Exam grade of 5 is equivalent to an A in the corresponding college course; a grade of 4 is equivalent to grades of A-, B+ and B; and a grade of 3 is equivalent to grades of B-, C+ and C.