The number of High School students who have taken then Advanced Placement exam has risen by nearly 50% over the last three years.At the same time the number of qualifying scores has risen by 70%, and in some areas Dedham students are far outpacing the national average.
In the 2007-2008 school year there were 158 students who took AP exams, and this year there are 235 students enrolled in AP courses.If each of those students takes the exam this will represent a 49% increase in three years.
The exams are scored from one to five, and a score of three, four, or five will be accepted as course credit by many colleges.Even if they are not accepted as credit they may entitle a student to skip an introductory course.
The number of qualifying scores has also dramatically increased from the 2007-2008 to the 2008-2009 school year.In the earlier year there were 79 qualifying scores, or 50%.Last year 134 exams were graded at the qualifying level, for a total of 65%.
Principal Jake Santamaria also offered “some incredible stats” about the biology scores achieved by High School students.Nationally only 19% of students taking the exam socred a five, but at Dedham High 45.5% did.The national average for any qualifying score is 49% and locally it is 88%.
“The trends are just incredible,” Santamaria said.
Last year 93% of students received a qualifying score in calculus, 73% did in English literature, 83% in European history, 48% in psychology, 94% in statistics, and 89% did in United States history.
Only in English literature did the percentage of test takers receiving a qualifying score go down.Director of Guidance Jo-Anne McCormick attributes that to the near doubling of students who took the exam, going from 24 to 40.There are 16 students enrolled in the course this year.
The High School is in the first year of a MassInsight grant designed to increase the number of students taking the AP exam.Mort Orvol, president of the Massachusetts Math and Science Initiative, told the School Committee in April that the goal of the program was to increase both the offerings and number of students taking the exam, including those who are not traditionally considered for the courses.
“This isn’t a Casablanca program,” Orvol said, “where you round up the usual suspects.”
The High School currently offers 12 AP courses, including biology, chemistry and physics for the first time ever.They no longer offer an AP course in a foreign language, however some students who have taken five years of a language choose to take the exam anyway.
McCormick also presented the mean scores of all SAT exam takers.After a dip in the years 2006 and 2007, the math and critical reasoning scores have rebounded and are now above their 2004 levels.The writing portion of the exam, introduced in 2006, has steadily increased since then.
