Many schools, districts, and states administer the PreACT® and/or the ACT® test to measure readiness for college and careers. A recent study suggests that these test scores can also be used to help identify students who are academically prepared and may benefit from some of the more rigorous courses offered in high schools across the nation,…

Rural Mississippi schools often face challenges in providing equitable access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses, particularly in STEM fields. This lack of access limits opportunities for high-achieving students to pursue rigorous STEM coursework and related careers. The AP STEM program aims to improve access to AP STEM courses for high-achieving…

This study aims to explain the relationship between student performance in the International General Certificate Secondary Education (IGCSE) and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) as well as explore the predictors of the IBDP scores in languages, sciences, and mathematics. A purposive sample of 338 high school students was…

The purpose of this study was to analyze and determine the predictive power of individual and a combination of different indicators that are used to determine college readiness. For this study a logistic regression analysis was conducted due to the dichotomous nature of the dependent variable. The dependent variable for the study was the earning…

We examined how ACT® Aspire® (from grades 8 to 10), PreACT® (from grade 10), and ACT® test scores (from grades 10 and 11) relate to students' chances of scoring a 3 or higher as well as 4 or higher on selected Advanced Placement (AP) exams. Data for the study was available for 49,220 students from 318 high schools who had taken at least one AP…

The purpose of this sequential mixed methods study was to examine the relationship among student achievement factors, gifted and talented status and post-secondary readiness. The study included a review of archived data obtained from a large district in the southeastern region of Texas consisting of a purposeful sample of AP students' who took an…

We characterize the extent to which Black-White gaps for multiple educational outcomes are linked across school districts in the United States. Gaps in disciplinary action, grade-level retention, classification into special education and Gifted and Talented, and Advanced Placement course-taking are large in magnitude and correlated. Racial…

This study explored the impact of Advanced Placement and honors course enrollment and high school grade point average (GPA) on first-semester college GPA. Data were collected from 131 college freshmen enrolled at a minority-serving institution who graduated from a public school during the previous academic year. A four-step hierarchical multiple…

We characterize the extent to which Black-White gaps for multiple educational outcomes are linked across school districts in the United States. Gaps in disciplinary action, grade-level retention, classification into special education and Gifted and Talented, and Advanced Placement course-taking are large in magnitude and correlated. Racial…

This report examines the role of English learner (ELs) status in four-year college enrollment and bachelor's degree completion among Houston Independent School District (HISD) high school graduates. We divide students into four groups: students who are never classified as EL (hereafter referred to as "Never EL" students), ELs who are…

Completing Advanced Placement (AP) coursework is an important part of the selective college admissions process, and access to AP coursework can be viewed as a measure of equal opportunity. Relatively little research has fully examined how access to AP coursework is mediated by school characteristics. Rural schools are at a particular disadvantage…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of selected Advanced Placement (AP) programs on the academic performance and college readiness of high school students. Specifically, the researcher was concerned with ascertaining the effectiveness of social science, math, science, English, music/art and language AP programs on the…

The main goal of this study was to illustrate and provide some direction for dealing with the complexities of propensity score matching within different multilevel contexts. Special attention is given to how procedures typically applied in a non-hierarchical setting may be modified to properly reduce the expected bias in the estimated treatment…

The overarching purpose behind this evaluation was to gauge the impact of AP professional development (PD) on AP student outcomes in a state with a significant rate of PD implementation. The evaluation attempted to predict the level of student AP performance by the number of AP professional development events attended by teachers in that school in…

The overarching purpose behind this evaluation was to gauge the impact of AP® professional development (PD) on AP student outcomes in a state with a significant rate of PD implementation. The evaluation attempted to predict the level of student AP performance by the number of AP professional development events attended by teachers in that school…