Saint Michael’s University School recently received some truly outstanding news from the College Board: it has been ranked the number-one school in Canada for “equity and excellence” in the Advanced Placement® (AP) program.
Compared to nearly 600 Canadian schools, SMUS scores highest in the country for student access to the AP program combined with the exam results they achieve. Worldwide, SMUS ranks in the top 60 of 18,000 schools that offer the Advanced Placement program, which offers high school students college-level courses and the chance to earn university credits.
“The success of our students in the AP program is a tribute to their talent and hard work.”
“We are extraordinarily proud of the ‘equity and excellence’ ranking not only because it reflects another impressive performance by our students, but also because it shows we are achieving our goal of encouraging as many students as possible participate in the AP program,” says our Head of School Bob Snowden. “Every year more than 200 of our students challenge themselves with AP courses and exams. That is phenomenal for a school our size and this ranking confirms that SMUS is by far the leading AP program among Canadian schools.”
SMUS is the second largest AP school in Canada in terms of the number of exams taken. In the last school year, 133 out of 136 students in the graduating class took at least one AP exam. In addition, 98 SMUS students achieved “AP Scholar” status including 24 National AP Scholars, the most prestigious title awarded by the College Board to Canadian students. SMUS offers 27 Advanced Placement courses, including Human Geography, Psychology, Microeconomics/Macroeconomics, Calculus and Chemistry.
“SMUS pioneered AP in Canada as the first Canadian school to offer the program in 1978,” says Mr. Snowden. “It offers students flexibility and choice in creating a program of study that reflects their passions, and it’s widely accepted in colleges and universities across North America as well as internationally. Because we expect all of our students to apply to universities both within and outside of Canada, we have made it an academic priority to have a strong AP program.”