Number of Minorities Taking A.P. Exams Continues To Go Up

By Meg Sommerfeld

Minority-student participation in the Advanced Placement program continues to grow at record rates, new figures from the College Board show.

Slightly more than 25 percent of all high school students who took A.P. tests last May were members of minority groups--an increase of 7 percentage points since 1988, the College Board, which administers the program, reported.

Approximately 414,000 students in 10,086 U.S. high schools--or 48 percent of the nation's total--took about 624,000 college-level A.P. examinations in May; of the total, nearly 106,000 test-takers were...