Test scores unveiled Tuesday by East Hampton School District administrators show that in 2023, students in the Advanced Placement program made up for, and even surpassed, the decline in performance that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, posting results that on average also surpassed their peers across the U.S. and the world.
Advanced Placement classes are college-level courses that are regarded as the most rigorous that East Hampton High School has to offer. Most students go on to receive college credits when they pass the exams.
“Our A.P. program is really robust, and is really humming. . . . Our kids do quite well,” said Tim Fromm, East Hampton’s assistant superintendent. His own daughter, Leah, has taken 12 of the 23 A.P. classes that the high school offers and was named the senior class salutatorian in January.
In 2023, about 84 percent of the 289 students taking at least one A.P. class passed the exams with a score of 3 or better (on a scale of 1 to 5). In 2022, 292 students took the tests and 78 percent of them scored 3 or better; in 2021, 258 students took the tests, and 76 percent passed.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 — A.P. exams are given in May, when that year the virus was still running rampant around the world — 284 students took at least one A.P. test, and 81.7 percent passed.
The 2023 results showed slight improvement over pre-pandemic numbers. In 2019, the A.P. program enrolled 307 students, with 78 percent of them passing the exams.
“Not only does that rebound, but we are at our highest to date, in terms of percentage of students who are scoring 3 or higher on those exams,” Sara Smith, the high school’s principal, said. She said it “speaks to the resiliency of our students — they came back so strong — and to the integrity of our program.”
To give specific examples, Ms. Smith cited two English classes, a math class, and a science class; she did not identify the specific subjects, to protect the privacy of students and teachers.
In 2023, students in English Course A posted an average score of 3.77, compared to 3.13 in New York State and 3.34 globally, and students in English Course B scored an average of 3.29, compared to 2.97 in New York and 3.23 globally. In Science Course A, East Hampton’s average score was 3.26, whereas the average score in New York was 2.76 and the global score was 2.89. In Math Course A, the average East Hampton score was 3.24, while the New York and global averages were both 2.85.
“Getting a 3 or higher on the exam speaks to the students’ work ethic and their desire to learn and challenge themselves, which I continue to be impressed with,” Ms. Smith said.
The school also produced A.P. scholars, defined as students who score 3 or better on at least three exams, in increasing numbers over the last three years. In 2023, there were 132 A.P. scholars, up from 100 in 2022 and 96 in 2021.
Of note, Mr. Fromm and Ms. Smith said, is that the high school has an open-enrollment policy for A.P. classes. They said this promotes equal access for students of all skill levels and academic backgrounds, removing barriers such as previous performance in prerequisite classes.
East Hampton offers 23 different A.P. course subjects, including A.P. seminar and A.P. research, which are “capstone” programs that can earn a student a special designation on his or her diploma. This year the school offered A.P. psychology and A.P. precalculus, and Ms. Smith said she hopes to expand the program in the future by adding A.P. art history, Latin, human geography, and African-American studies.
Students in East Hampton’s A.P. classes have gone on to such universities as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Duke, and Georgetown.
“Anecdotally, scores are wonderful. I think they’re great,” Ms. Smith said, “but to me, what’s more important is the college-level experiences and exposure these courses are giving our students.”