Student Opportunities Explorer

College-level and advanced coursework can expand what students are able to accomplish before graduation. This explorer compares Advanced Placement and concurrent enrollment activity reported by Minnesota districts, including the career and technical education portion of concurrent enrollment.

Important comparison note: These programs use different counting methods. AP students are student counts, AP exams are exam counts, and concurrent enrollment is a duplicated course-enrollment count. A student taking three concurrent-enrollment courses is counted three times. Use the Display as control to switch between reported totals and measures normalized to grades 9-12 enrollment. Activity counts are shown per 100 high-school students rather than mislabeled as percentages of unique students.

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Methodology and source

The peer comparison uses the Minnesota Department of Education's 2027 Rigorous Course Taking Report to the Legislature, which reports FY2025 / 2024-25 participation and expenditure data. Appendix B provides AP district/school data and Appendix E provides concurrent-enrollment participation, credits and state aid by district/school.

The normalized view uses 2024-25 grades 9-12 enrollment from the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data (CCD). The denominator includes students in grades 9-12 across district schools, not only the primary high school.

AP student counts represent students, so AP participation can be displayed as a percentage of grades 9-12 enrollment. AP exams, concurrent-enrollment course enrollments, and concurrent-enrollment credits are activity counts. Those measures are normalized as activity per 100 high-school students or credits per high-school student; they are not presented as percentages of unique students.

AP student and exam data are sourced from the College Board through MDE. Concurrent-enrollment course counts are duplicated enrollment counts. MDE reports that FY2025 concurrent enrollment included 38,318 students from 333 districts and charter schools generating 89,627 course enrollments statewide.

Review the FY2025 rigorous course taking source report | Review NCES Common Core of Data

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