About the AP
The College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) program gives students the opportunity to take college-level courses while still in high-school. The program began in 1956 to help students better prepare for college. Today, about 2.8 million high-school students take AP courses every year.
Students can take AP courses in a range of subjects. Each course is roughly at the level of an introductory college course, and many U.S. colleges offer course credit for them, which means that students with sufficiently high AP scores do not need to repeat those classes in college. AP courses can also help with admissions, help students develop college skills, and allow them to try out different fields before settling on a specialization.











