AP Data for the United States 1998-2015

The following file is a spreadsheet with all the data for the number of CS AP A exam taken in each state from 1998 to 2015. The data was complied from the data available at http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ap/data. This data was originally gathered by the CSTA board, but Barb Ericson of Georgia Tech keeps adding to it each year.

APCSAStatePop-98-2015.xlsx

For detailed race and gender information on the AP CS A exam see Detailed Race and Gender Information 2015

In the United States 46,344 students took the AP CS A exam in 2015. This was a big increase (24.2%) from the 37,327 students who took it in 2014. However, it wasn't as big of an increase as the year before (26.3%). Still the number of exams more than doubled from 2011 to 2015.

The number of institutions that passed the audit to offer AP CS A was 2,892 versus 2,525 the previous year.

year	total	% increase
2010	19,390	20.7%
2011	21,139	9.02%
2012	24,782	17.2%
2013	29,555	19.3%
2014	37.327	26.3%
2015	46,344	24.2%

The number of female exam takers was 10,142 up from 7,458 the year before.
The percentage female was 22% which was an increase from the previous year of 20%.
The number of Black exam takers was 1,784 versus 1,469 the year before.
The overall pass rate was 64% which was up from 61% the year before.
The female pass rate was 61% which was up from 57% the year before.
The black pass rate was 38% which was up from 33.4% the year before.

The top 10 states in terms of the number of exams taken were in 2015 were:

pos 2015	state	2015	2014	pos 2014
1	California	8688	6676	1
2	Texas	5172	4551	2
3	New York	3126	2734	3
4	Florida	2528	2111	4
5	New Jersey	2468	1986	6
6	Illinois	2395	1955	7
7	Virginia	2377	2069	5
8	Maryland	1825	1639	8
9	Massachusetts	1784	1486	10
10	Washington	1770	1048	12

4 more states had over 1,000 people take the exam in 2015.

pos 2015	state	num exams
11	Georgia	1658
12	Pennsylvania	1559
13	North Carolina	1198
15	Ohio	1018

As you can see from the table above California had big growth in the number of exam takers. New Jersey moved up from 6th the previous year to 5th. Illinois moved up from 7th to 6th. Virginia fell from 5th to 7th. Massachusetts moved up from 10th to 9th. Washington moved up from 12th to 10th. Georgia Dropped to 11th.

Maryland was still #1 for the number of exams per 100,000 of population.

pos	state	# exams per 100,000 of population
1	Maryland	31
2	Virginia	29
3	New Jersey	28
4	Massachusetts	27
5	Washington	26
7	Wash D.C.	25
8	California	23
9	Texas	20
10	Illinois	19
11	Connecticut	18
12	Georgia	17
13	New York	16
14	Delaware	15
15	Hawaii	13

Not all states saw huge growth. Montana had nobody take the exam in 2015 after having 4 take it last year. Wyoming had 3 students take the exam which is good since they had 0 take it in 2014. Mississippi had 5 students take the exam up from 4 the previous year.

Nine states had a decrease in the number of exams taken.

pos	state	2015	2014	diff	%change
1	Nevada	61	39	-22	-56%
2	Rhode Island	89	72	-17	-24%
3	Idaho	58	47	-11	-23%
4	South Carolina	326	280	-46	-16%
5	New Mexico	61	54	-7	-13%
6	Vermont	71	63	-8	-13%
7	Nebraska	71	65	-6	-9%
8	Alabama	197	189	-8	-4%
9	Montana	4	0	-4	0%

Thirteen states had less than 100 exams. Three states had less than 10 exams.

pos	state	# exams
1	Montana	0
2	Wyoming	3
3	Mississippi	5
4	North Dakota	27
5	Alaska	32
6	Nevada	39
7	South Dakota	40
8	Idaho	47
9	Kansas	48
10	New Mexico	54
11	Vermont	63
12	Nebraska	65
13	Rhode Island	72

Ten states had more than 100, but less than 200 exams.

state	# exams
West Virginia	119
Utah	123
Wash D. C.	138
New Hampshire	144
Delaware	156
Louisiana	164
Maine	166
Iowa	169
Hawaii	183
Alabama	189

Last modified 2 November 2015 at 4:45 pm by ericson