Advanced Placement Tests : Getting a Head Start on College

Advanced Placement exams, which allow high school students to earn college credit, have grown steadily in popularity in Southern California and across the country.

Last spring, 639,385 AP tests were administered nationwide--a fourfold increase since 1980, when 160,214 exams were taken by 119,918 students. (Students can take more than one AP exam.) Currently, 29 types of exams are offered in 16 subjects, ranging from macroeconomics to studio art to Latin literature.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, 4,950 AP exams were given on San Fernando Valley campuses. The number constitutes 43% of all the AP tests--11,582--taken in the district, even though Valley students last year made up only about 37% of the secondary enrollment in the mammoth school system.

AP exams are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, with a score of 3 or higher considered passing. The number of exams and the percentage of passing marks achieved have increased at many Valley-area schools in recent years.

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Antelope Valley Union High School District

Exams % of exams taken passed Antelope Valley 1991 Unavailable Unavailable 1993 Unavailable Unavailable Highland 1991 NA* 1993 94 59.6 Littlerock 1991 NA* 1993 14 21.4 Palmdale 1991 132 20.5 1993 114 33.3 Quartz Hill 1991 90 63 1993 103 61

*School recently opened. Had no juniors or seniors that year.

Burbank Unified School District

Exams % of exams taken passed Burbank 1991 100 63.0 1993 266 45.1 Burroughs 1991 Unavailable Unavailable 1993 175 50

Glendale Unified School District

Exams % of exams taken passed Crescenta Valley 1991 219 72.1 1993 185 69.1 Glendale 1991 180 53.8 1993 229 70.3 Hoover 1991 223 46.6 1993 280 68.5

Las Virgenes Unified School District

Exams % of exams taken passed Agoura 1991 112 83.9 1993 154 70.8 Calabasas 1991 165 72.1 1993 197 71.6

Los Angeles Unified School District

Exams % of exams taken passed Birmingham 1991 303 64.4 1993 411 57.4 Canoga Park 1991 115 48.7 1993 109 57.8 Chatsworth 1991 371 69.5 1993 410 67.6 El Camino Real 1991 275 79.6 1993 503 73.4 Francis Polytechnic 1991 103 41.7 1993 116 60.3 Granada Hills 1991 524 53.1 1993 407 55.0 Grant 1991 501 57.9 1993 496 57.5 Kennedy 1991 147 64.6 1993 141 46.8 Monroe 1991 111 45.0 1993 166 63.3 North Hollywood 1991 264 76.1 1993 535 74.8 Reseda 1991 173 56.1 1993 177 54.2 San Fernando 1991 190 76.8 1993 211 54.0 Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies 1991 54 53.7 1993 112 48.2 Sylmar 1991 72 52.8 1993 58 56.9 Taft 1991 354 79.4 1993 347 72.3 Valley Alternative 1991 0 0.0 1993 2 100.0 Van Nuys 1991 697 71.0 1993 625 74.9 Verdugo Hills 1991 26 42.3 1993 84 26.2

William S. Hart Union High School District

Exams % of exams taken passed Canyon 1991 112 74.1 1993 143 66.4 Hart High 1991 289 79.5 1993 356 76.7 Saugus High 1991 93 83.4 1993 100 91.0

District Leaders

With its three magnet programs that attract students from throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District, Van Nuys High School last spring administered 625 AP exams, the most of any school in the district, and also offered the most subject areas, 21. North Hollywood High School ranked third in the number of tests given with 535. The passage rate on both campuses was an impressive 75%, outranked among high schools only by University High on the Westside.

Of note also is Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, one of only two junior high schools in the district to administer AP exams. Forty AP tests were taken at Reed; students earned passing marks on 35 of the exams for a passage rate of 87.5%

Sources: Schools districts; Research by HENRY CHU, DOUG ALGER, ED BOND and PHIL SCHNEIDERMAN