AP Stress--in September!

Just because AP Exams are in May doesn't mean students shouldn't be worried in September.

Reading books and gaining knowledge is, surprisingly, not always the way to succeed on a knowledge-based exam. Photo by Romina BM on Unsplash

Advanced Placement® Courses are the high school classes with the most academic rigor at many high schools across the nation. AP® Exams are also routine parts of school life for most high schoolers. And that about sums up the problem with the AP Program. If you’re starting an AP Course right now and bewildered, it’s understandable.

3,079,134 students at 23,722 schools took 5,744,259 Advanced Placement Exams in 2024. If that statement makes you wonder about 2025 test-takers, the College Board has not released that information. We only have individual test-score distribution percentages by test for 2025. AP Test-Takers have gone up over the years, but not by incredibly huge margins year-over-year. Just work with the idea that a little more than 3 million students take not quite 6 million AP exams at just under 25,000 high schools.

In other words, an a…