Eligible Students Missing Out on AP

More tests being taken, but passing rate falls

In all but four states, more public school students in the class of 2011 took and passed at least one Advanced Placement exam—18.1 percent on average nationwide—up from 16.9 percent for graduates the year before, according to a report released last week.

Yet the 8th annual "AP Report to the Nation" shows that many students who had the academic potential to succeed in AP didn’t take exams, either by choice or because they attended a school that did not offer the subjects.

This year’s report by the College Board analyzes data from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and found that of the 771,000 students in the class of 2011 who scored well enough to be considered ready for AP, nearly 478,000 (62 percent) did not take an AP exam for...