In 2011, the College Board developed the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark to assist educators and policymakers in their efforts to better evaluate the college readiness of their students. This benchmark was designed to identify the point on the SAT score scale that is indicative of students' having a high likelihood of success in…

The College Board offers fee reductions to students based on eligibility for free and reduced-price lunch in an attempt to introduce the benefits of AP® Exam participation to students most at risk in the education system. This report examined college outcomes of low-SES students with a focused investigation comparing students who took an AP Exam…

Historically, AP Potential™ has used PSAT/NMSQT® scores to identify students who are likely to earn a 3 or higher on a specific AP® Exam--based on research showing moderate to strong relationships between PSAT/NMSQT scores and AP Exam scores (Camara & Millsap, 1998; Ewing, Camara & Millsap, 2006; Zhang, Patel & Ewing, 2014a). For most…

The focus of this study is to explore college outcomes for students who come from traditionally lower-income backgrounds, reporting a household income of $30,000 or less, and who were awarded a fee reduction to take one or more Advanced Placement® (AP®) Exams, compared to students with a similar background and ability who did not participate in an…

Educators are increasingly focused on ensuring that students experience a rigorous curriculum in high school and graduate college and career ready. One way of introducing rigorous course work is to have students take college-level work, often in the form of either an AP® course and exam or a dual enrollment course. This study compared the outcomes…

A recent report by Wyatt and Mattern (2011) compared college outcomes for low-socioeconomic status (low-SES) students who received Advanced Placement® (AP®) fee reductions versus low-SES students who did not participate in the AP Program. The results indicated that AP Fee Reduction students had better college outcomes than students from low-SES…

Research has consistently shown that traditional admission measures--SAT® scores and high school grade point average (HSGPA)--are valid predictors of early college performance such as first-year grades; however, their usefulness to predict later college outcomes has been questioned, especially for the SAT. This study builds on previous research…

Academic intensity or academic rigor of students' high school curriculum is positively related to several college outcomes including the avoidance of remediation and graduation attainment. However, research on academic rigor has been limited possibly due to the difficulty in obtaining a quantitative measure applicable across schools and districts.…

A recurrent trend in higher education research has been to identify additional predictors of college success beyond the traditional measures of high school grade point average (HSGPA) and standardized test scores, given that a large percentage of unaccounted variance in college performance remains. A recent study by Wyatt, Wiley, Camara, and…