With Wayzata High School’s student body growing as each year passes, it’s no surprise that AP registration and classes have changed a lot since then. As the high school gets closer to celebrating three decades of history, the question of how AP registration has changed, and if the results reflect those changes, becomes more prevalent.

AP classes are known for being rigorous and difficult, but that doesn’t seem to stop more students from taking the exam. Since the COVID pandemic limited student access to classrooms in 2020, there has been a steady increase in the number of students taking the exam in Wayzata and across the United States.

In the past 5 years, Wayzata has seen an increase in the number of students taking at least 1 AP exam. During COVID, Wayzata saw the lowest number of students taking an AP exam, at 1000 students. By 2024, that number showed an increase of 700 students. The number of students taking at least one AP exam is expected to increase in the 2025-26 school year.

These increases also reflect AP trends across the country. According to the College Board, there has been a 2.9% increase in students taking AP classes over the past decade. Last year, 1.2 million students took more than 4.2 million different AP exams.

With more students taking the AP exams, that leads to more scores being entered, and the overall grades of Wayzata changing. But have those scores increased as more students take the exams, or have they decreased?

As more students take the AP exams, the overall grades of Wayzata’s AP exams have changed to represent the students taking the exams—they increased. “Five years ago, 83% of the students who took an AP exam scored a 3 or higher,” said Amy Swenson, the AP coordinator at Wayzata High School. “And last year, almost 90% of the students who took an AP exam scored a 3 or higher, earning college credit.”

These results also reflected on the newer AP classes. AP Human Geography, a social studies class introduced last year, is the most popular AP class for freshmen, with 300 students taking the class in 2024.  On the AP exam that May, 90% of freshmen passed, showing that freshmen who don’t have any previous AP experience still managed to succeed regardless of how many students are taking the class.

Yet the reasons why more students nationwide have been taking more AP exams have differed. The College Board attributed the increased number of students to a growing recognition of the financial benefits that passing an AP class can have when a student goes to college. Passing an AP course can save students hundreds if not thousands of dollars, although the amount saved varies wildly based on each college.

At Wayzata, the process of getting students involved in AP courses varies. Swenson, however, said that the process of “recruiting” students for AP classes doesn’t really exist at WHS. Instead, the school is willing to support students wanting to take a certain class. “If you’re passionate in an area, you’re interested in an area, you want to pursue that AP course. […] We’re saying go for it.”

Another reason more students are interested in AP classes is the amount of entry-level AP courses being offered by the college board. AP Precalculus, a math AP debuting in the fall of 2023, saw 150,000 US students take the exam with over 76% passing. The course was the College Board’s most popular launch course ever, showing that more students are willing to try harder classes.

More students taking AP exams means more classes, and that has certainly increased at Wayzata. This has the potential to cause stress for many AP teachers who have to deal with more students and classes.

For Colleen Regnier, an AP Language/Composition teacher, that’s not the case. “There have been more and more opportunities to connect with students,” she said, “[and] As a professional, I think that with the expanded nature of AP Lang we have more opportunities to learn from each other and a stronger understanding of each other school-wide and in our department, and hopefully for the students. Because of this, they realize that this is a very doable class.”

As for the students feeling stress, the trend remains mixed. “It can be challenging to balance multiple classes of varying difficulty,” Miles Beltaos, a junior who is taking AP Lang and AP US History, said. “Especially when trying to balance work and social life on top of that.” He did say that both classes, however, were very doable at the same time, showing that trying to balance school and work can be a double edged sword.

Wayzata’s AP future overall looks bright, especially as more students are gearing up to take the exams in May. Swenson offered some words of advice to WHS students on the fence about taking an AP test. “It’s important because it opens up the field in terms of aspirations. You might not think you want to go to college now, but if you have that college level experience in high school, you might change your mind.”

Overall, there are several factors that may discourage students from taking an AP test. The coursework is rigorous and the tests are hard. But in the end, Wayzata has proven that, as more students choose to test themselves by taking those classes, they are up to the challenge.