The number of high school students taking Advanced Placement exams increased 95% over the past decade, but many still do not have the necessary support to succeed, UCLA faculty said.

The UCLA Center X AP Readiness Program has, for at least 20 years, helped thousands of students in the Los Angeles and Compton Unified School Districts succeed in AP classes – which are meant to be as rigorous as college-level coursework, said James Keipp, the program’s director. The initiative is a partnership with Center X in the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies, which aims to build more equitable learning environments in public schools, according to Center X’s website .

Keipp said the program provides students with supplemental AP instruction on Zoom and on UCLA’s campus. The goal, he added, is to give students the skills they need to be successful in college-level classes, as well as prepare them for the rigor and demands of AP courses, according to Center X’s website.

“We exist to transform public schooling by supporting educators and their ability to provide high-level instruction to all students,” he said.

Students who attend Center X classes have seen increases in the AP exam scores, Keipp said. Students who attended four or more AP Readiness sessions earned a qualifying score rate of 63% during the 2024-25 academic year, compared to an overall rate of 49% across LAUSD, according to the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies.

The number of students from low-income families taking AP exams has nearly quadrupled in the last decade according to the College Board, which administers the exams.

Lynn Kim-John, the executive director of Center X, said the program is unique because it allows students who attend sessions on-campus to have a first-hand experience of college life. Students gain new perspectives as they learn from teachers from across LA who teach sessions, she added.

The program also has hosted sessions to inform parents about post-secondary opportunities for high school students – including community colleges and out-of-state universities, Keipp said. He added that the program is working on connecting students with mentors in the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies for hands-on research guidance and exposure to academic research.

“For students, just a sense of empowerment, even before becoming a college student, to really take on that identity of ‘I can be a college student’ – I think is really powerful,” Kim-John said.

More than 5,000 LAUSD students and 300 educators have attended at least one Center X AP Readiness session in the 2025-26 academic year, according to the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies.

Aditi Mehta Doshi, a teacher at Van Nuys High School who has both attended and taught AP Readiness classes, said she was one of the few instructors to teach AP African American Studies – a course that the College Board piloted in 2022 – for the AP Readiness Program. She added that the subject is part of a larger effort to preserve history and advance justice.

“As a non-Black educator, being able to be a steward of this course and champion it and shepherd it and support it in any way that I can,” she said. “It’s an enormous privilege.”

Doshi said the Center X initiative helped her students gain additional practice with document-based essays and short answer questions that often appear on AP exams.

“There should be no barriers,” she said. “Every student should be able to access an AP course.”

Kim-John said the program has had a positive “ripple effect” on teaching throughout LA schools, with teachers observing mentor AP instructors during their sessions on Saturday. Teachers take those new ideas and educational strategies back to their own schools, leading to better instruction and student engagement across the region, she added.

“We believe that all students are fully capable of learning and succeeding in our arena, which is Advanced Placement, but in all arenas – and we’re there to provide whatever support we can to help them get there,” Keipp said.