Taking Advanced Placement exams as a high school student has a fairly small, but significant, effect on helping any given student go on to finish college in four years, according to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The paper also showed that AP exam scores have little effect on what colleges students attend. Furthermore, high school juniors who do well on AP exams are more likely to take additional AP exams in their senior year.
An AP exam score high enough to earn college credit increases the probability of a given student finishing a bachelor’s degree within four years by one to two percentage points per exam, according to the paper. The researchers controlled for various demographic factors in their analysis.
The paper was co-authored by Jonathan Smith, Michael Hurwitz and Christopher Avery. Smith and Hurwitz work with the College Board, which created the AP program. Avery is a professor of public policy and management at Harvard University.
The boost given by AP exams largely comes from the college credit earned and not from other factors. Researchers said the positive effect only came from earning or not earning the credit, and that performing much better or worse than the minimum did not increase the effect.
For example, if a score of three is the minimum required for college credit at a given university, students who scored three and those who scored five received an equal boost in probability of degree completion compared to students who scored two or one.
“Among students with AP exam scores just below credit-granting thresholds, approximately 60 percent complete BA degrees within four years of high school graduation, whereas more than 80 percent complete BA degrees within six years of high school graduation,” the authors wrote.
High school juniors who scored three or higher on an AP exam took more exams and scored better in their senior year. However, the effect was quite small. An increase of one point on an AP exam as a junior led to 0.1 additional exams taken as a senior.
Researchers also showed that students with higher AP scores later attended more selective four-year colleges, but said the exam scores themselves had little effect on college choices.
Researchers ruled out any suggestion that a higher AP score might give students a psychological boost, improving their academic performance in college.
Earning credit from one AP exam might save a student $889, assuming the student completes 30 credits per year and attends a four-year public college. According to the College Board website, each AP exam typically costs a student $91, so scoring high enough to earn college credit offers a substantial return on investment. Earning college credit from AP exams also helps students save money by helping them graduate college on time and enter the labor force sooner.
