AP Test Results Continue to Show Advanced STEM Access Program Benefits

Schools participating in the Global Teaching Project’s Advanced STEM Access Program continue to report results from the May 2026 AP exams.
As with scores reported earlier, the more recent data affirm the program’s premise—there are promising students in every community who, if provided quality instruction and extensive supports, are capable of excelling.

Our initial report on AP scores noted exceptional achievements by students in some of Mississippi’s most impoverished school districts, and in each of the four advanced STEM courses offered through GTP—AP Biology, AP Computer Science Principles, AP Physics 1, and AP Statistics.

More recent data also present examples of outstanding performances by our students in public schools across the state:

• For the second year in a row, AP Physics 1 students at a small (376 students) high school in a Delta district with a poverty rate nearly double the statewide rate and triple the national rate, earned qualifying scores—that is, the AP score required to earn college credit at most universities across the nation—a feat achieved by just 161 AP Physics 1 public and private school students statewide.
• AP Computer Science Principles students in a small school district in northeast Mississippi with just 0.63 percent of the state’s public high school students earned qualifying scores at double the statewide rate, accounting for 2.9 percent of such scores statewide.
• At a small (274 students) high school in central Mississippi, in a school district whose poverty rate substantially exceeds the rate for Mississippi as a whole, three students earned the highest possible score in AP Computer Science Principles; only 29 students did so statewide.  Their teacher, who is again leading the class in 2026-2027, offered unsolicited praise: “Once again, GTP is the best.  Sooo thankful for you guys….GTP did a wonderful job helping my students last year to be successful on the AP CSP exam.”

As noted earlier, we do not claim that all our students have such remarkable results.  Many of our students have limited substantive foundations and are only beginning to develop strong study skills.  Such students tend to struggle in what is often their first encounter with advanced subject matter.  Yet every student who puts in the required effort makes progress.  The extent of that progress may not be fully evident for years, but our students have repeatedly demonstrated how they benefit when they advance to college, and beyond.