A Comparison of the College Outcomes of AP® and Dual Enrollment Students. Research Report 2015-3

Educators are increasingly focused on ensuring that students experience a rigorous curriculum in high school and graduate college and career ready. One way of introducing rigorous course work is to have students take college-level work, often in the form of either an AP® course and exam or a dual enrollment course. This study compared the outcomes of students who participated in either program and graduated high school in 2006. The outcomes investigated were four-year college enrollment, persistence at a four-year institution, graduation in four years, and graduation in six years, as well as first-year college grades. The results indicated that AP students who had obtained at least one score of 3 or higher on an AP Exam considerably outperformed on all examined outcomes except for four-year college enrollment, which was highest for students who had taken a dual enrollment course affiliated with a four-year college. AP students whose highest exam score was less than 3 performed as well or better than did students who took a dual enrollment course affiliated with a two year college for all outcomes. AP students whose highest exam score was lower than 3 outperformed students who took a dual enrollment course affiliated with a four-year college on some outcomes and underperformed on others. Tables are appended.