Advanced Placement Human Geography: The First Five Years

Abstract

Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) has grown steadily from 3,272 tests at the first test administration in 2001 to 14,139 tests in 2005. This paper examines the dynamics of growth throughout the United States through numbers of students and numbers of high schools involved in the program. APHG is discussed relative to the establishment of college-level standards for human geography and performance of APHG students using those standards as performance criteria for the AP examination. This paper suggests that geography education in the United States has benefited from AP Human Geography, and the geography community has an opportunity to encourage AP Human Geography students to build on their Advanced Placement (AP) experience in higher-level college geography courses and geography careers.