The Adanced Placement program has experienced tremendous growth over the last two decades. While it is generally accepted that AP science and mathematics students do well in college, much recent work has begun to separate out the effect of self-selection by these capable students from the impact of taking a rigorous course while in high school. With the availability of several state and national longitudinal datasets, and our own 18,000 FICSS survey dataset, it is now possible to study the impact of AP coursework on both college science and math performance and persistence. The associated costs of new high school courses and professional development can also be analyzed for the economic benefit to students, parents, and the school continuum. We intend to convene a meeting of collaborators who conduct scholarly research on AP programs resulting in a volume of contributed papers in this domain. Characterizing the more effective strategies for teaching advanced courses in high school will help to alleviate the national struggle in stemming the potenial loss of US dominance in STEM fields.

For more information, please contact: Gerhard Sonnert, gsonnert@cfa (add .harvard.edu), (617)495-8248