Racial representation in AP CS Exams*
Looking at AP CSA and CSP exams as an aggregate, the majority of AP CS exam takers are whites (45.8%) and Asians (27.1%). The graph above shows the racial decomposition of AP exam takers and exam passers in 2018, in comparison with the entire U.S. population. While young Hispanics constituted 22% of all AP exam takers, they were relatively underrepresented in AP CS exams. Blacks were underrepresented in both AP CS exams and AP exams in general. In terms of passing the exam, the pass rates of Asians and whites were consistently higher than that of Hispanics and blacks. Though 6% of all AP exam takers were Native Americans, less than 0.5% of all AP CS exam takers were Native American, and they constituted only a 0.1% of exam passers.
Exam Takers and Pass Rate by State
For all AP exams in 2018, the average pass rate was 58.4%. AP CSA had a pass rate of 67.4% and AP CSP 71.0%. Among the major racial groups, Asians had the highest pass rate and blacks the lowest, as shown in the table of pass rate below.
| AP Exam | All | Asian | White | Hispanic | Black |
| CSP | 71% | 82% | 78% | 54% | 40% |
| CSA | 67% | 76% | 69% | 46% | 37% |
| Biology | 61% | 74% | 69% | 38% | 31% |
| Calculus AB | 57% | 68% | 62% | 39% | 32% |
| US History | 52% | 66% | 60% | 33% | 27% |
| All APs | 58% | 71% | 64% | 44% | 31% |
Zooming in on the Minorities
As mentioned before, Hispanics and blacks are two major race groups underrepresented in AP CS exams. The interactive map below shows the number of exam takers and the pass rate by state in AP CSA 2018 for four groups respectively: blacks, black females, Hispanics, and Hispanic females.
To dive more into the data, you may access the data source here:https://www.dropbox.com/s/1xxykonu8wo5l81/DetailedStateInfoAP-CS-A-2006-2018.xlsx?dl=0 .
This analysis is visualized and written by Willa Hua, a data visualization enthusiast. It is meant to supplement the data and report from Barbara Ericson, assistant professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan who has been working with AP CS data since 2004.
*Data for the racial composition for the U.S. population comes from Kaiser Family Foundation estimates based on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2008-2017. Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race; all other racial/ethnic groups are non-Hispanic.