The point about pressure to take AP courses and exams that students aren't prepared to is rather interesting. One can see this effect by looking at the US News

The point about pressure to take AP courses and exams that students aren't prepared to is rather interesting. One can see this effect by looking at the US News and World Report high school ranking: http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/12/09/americas-best-high-schools-gold-medal-list.html http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/1... The ranking is not necessary a great resource, but IMO the statistics within each school's stats are telling. Let's take the example of my former high school, Thomas Jefferson, versus another highly-ranked one (IIRC they were second last year): Thomas Jefferson High School (Alexandria, VA): Exams Per Test Taker 7.1 Exam Passing Rate (3 or above): 98.1% Oxford Academy (Orange County, CA): Exams Per Test Taker 6.6 Exam Passing Rate (3 or above): 76.5% Some schools seem to get away with enormous numbers of AP exams per student--and still reliably get high scores. Others, despite being top-ranked, don't do nearly as well. Is it because the students are better to begin with? A selective school will clearly get better average scores than a less selective one. Is it because the courses are better-taught? Does any of this count for what is effectively a factor-of-10 gap (in terms of number of failing students)? Another is perhaps even more telling: The School for the Talented and Gifted (Dallas, TX): Exams Per Test Taker 13.2 Exam Passing Rate (3 or above): 60.9% This one's a magnet school just like TJ, but the number of APs they take is utterly ridiculous: and their pass rate suffers. I suspect that there is a certain number of APs per student that is optimal, and beyond that the pass rate collapses.