The majority of Franklin County schools are seeing improvement on their Advanced Placement (AP) test scores, mirroring a statewide trend in which the number of Massachusetts public school students who earned a score of 3 or higher rose by 55% since 2021, according to recently released data from the College Board.
AP tests are scored on a 1-to-5 scale, with scores ranging from 3 to 5 necessary for the course to be counted toward college credits. However, despite improvement between the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years, fewer Franklin County students achieved a score of 3 or higher than the state average.
Massachusetts students took 131,220 AP exams last spring, and 75.7% of students scored at least a 3, allowing them to potentially earn college credit for their high school work. By comparison, across Franklin County schools, an average of 69.13% of students scored a 3 or higher on the 569 AP exams that were taken. Still, Franklin County schools began to close the gap, as 58.6% of Franklin County students scored a 3 or higher on the 553 AP exams taken in the 2023-2024 school year, which is 11.6% lower than the 70.2% of students statewide that scored a 3 or higher on the total 122,677 tests taken.
For privacy reasons, data is not released for schools where students take fewer than 10 AP tests. Only two tests were taken at Four Rivers Public Charter School in Greenfield.
Greenfield High School
In Greenfield, students taking the AP test saw improvements in all subjects between the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years, with the most drastic improvement seen in the percentage who scored a 3 or higher in English language comprehension.
While only 50% of students who took the English language comprehension exam in 2023-2024 scored a 3 or higher, that percentage jumped to 79% for the 2024-2025 school year, despite only three more students having taken the exam.
Across all AP subjects, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Stephen Sullivan explained that 12 more students scored in the 3-to-5 range, leading to an approximately 18% increase in high-scoring students from one year to the next.
“Our goal is to have more students taking advanced coursework — that would be AP, dual enrollment, early college, any one of those. I think students need to take these ‘stretch courses’ that kind of push them a little bit outside of their comfort zone,” Sullivan said. “When students feel confident that they’ve met that challenge and they can perform at that level, then the college or a higher-paying career path seems more reasonable to them. … When students are taking courses like AP or dual enrollment, we’re seeing them on a path where at the end of their high school career, their transcript reflects a higher level of academic intensity, and that’s what colleges and universities are looking for.”
Greenfield’s SAT performance stayed relatively consistent between the two years. The district saw slightly higher scores in reading and writing, and slightly lower scores in math.
According to the College Board, the average total SAT score — combining the scores for the reading and writing section with the scores from the math portion — is around 1,050, and a score of 1,350 or higher is considered to be in the top 10% of SAT test takers.
While Greenfield’s average math SAT score in the 2023-2024 school year was 562, it decreased slightly in 2024-2025 to an average of 553. Reading and writing scores, on the other hand, saw a slight jump from 593 to 598 between those same years.
Sullivan, noting that the SATs lost some of their importance in the college admissions process a few years ago, believes the test is beginning to regain some of the weight it once carried. He said a hike in the number of students taking the test remains a reflection of “the path and the focus that students have been on.”
“It feels like the pendulum is starting to swing back the other way a little, because SAT wasn’t as strong of an indicator over the past few years, especially during COVID, and in the immediate years post-COVID, because schools, colleges and universities weren’t using it in the same way, which meant students were kind of taking that more academically intense route in their schedule and coursework with AP and things like that,” Sullivan said. “There was less reliance on SAT at that point, but it does seem like it’s starting to swing back a little bit.”
Ralph C. Mahar Regional School
According to Danielle Boucher, director of curriculum for the Ralph C. Mahar Regional and Union 73 school districts, Mahar has “seen an improvement in [its] overall scores.”
In the 2023-2024 school year, 80% of Mahar students taking the AP Statistics exam scored 1 or 2, whereas 20% scored 3 to 5. However, in the 2024-2025 school year, 60% of students scored 1 or 2 and 40% notched scores of 3 to 5.
“We’re always happy with any improvement,” Boucher said.
She said Mahar offers several AP courses each year during its course enrollment period, which begins in January. In-person courses are run based on requests.
Virtual AP courses through Virtual High School are offered for students who want to take a course that Mahar cannot offer due to low enrollment. Boucher said enrollment in these courses varies from year to year.
As for SAT scores, she said Mahar has seen a decrease in the number of students taking the test over the years “because many colleges no longer require this assessment as part of their application and admissions process.”
According to a 2023-2024 SAT performance report filed with the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, tests taken by 15 students produced a 565 mean score in reading/writing and a 510 mean score in math.
Mohawk Trail Regional School
In Buckland, 64.8% of students scored a 3 or higher on their AP exams last spring, a modest 7.4% increase from the 2023-2024 school year.
Director of Curriculum & Instruction Sarah Jetzon said she was pleased to see that not only are scores improving, but more students are taking AP exams. In spring 2025, the school had 71 tests taken; the year before, just 54 tests were taken.
This, too, mirrors statewide trends. Overall, the number of Massachusetts public school students taking AP tests grew by 26% between 2021 and 2025, in part because the state expanded fee waivers available to help students afford the tests.
“There’s a couple of things I’m excited about — not only did our scores improve from last year, but we had more tests taken,” Jetzon said.
She explained that the district has been working to expand its AP and honors programs, and encourages students to take pre-college exams, such as the SAT and ACT. She said the district does not put students on “tracks” that limit them to certain levels of courses, and all students have the opportunity to enroll in AP and honors classes.
“It’s really important that any student who wants to take an AP can,” Jetzon said.
Jetzon added that she believes the growth in the scores is due to the work of teachers and the district’s efforts to build “strong foundations” in earlier grades.
“Our goal is just really ensuring students are engaging in rigorous coursework,” Jetzon said. “We have strong AP teachers who have a lot of experience with AP and ongoing professional development. … We’ve been focusing on college readiness as a school.”
She added that the district budgets for all students to take the Preliminary SAT (PSAT) exam, so they have a chance to see what the test is like.
“We paid for everybody to take the PSAT because we want to get it in their minds that they can do this,” Jetzon said.
Mohawk Trail students did the best on the AP Biology exam, with 91% of the 11 participating students scoring a 3 or higher. The majority who took the exam scored a 4 (four students) or a 5 (four students).
Jetzon said the district looks at SAT and AP scores in a similar way, and while fewer Mohawk Trail students took the SATs (19), students’ SAT scores have now surpassed the district’s pre-pandemic levels.
In the 2024-2025 school year, students scored 567 on reading and writing and 541 in math, on average. This is a decrease of 13 from the previous year’s average of 580 in reading and writing, and an increase of 13 from the previous year’s score of 528 in math.
“We are encouraging more students to take the test,” Jetzon said. “Colleges are starting to look at those scores again as a criterion for applications.”
Pioneer Valley Regional School
At Pioneer Valley Regional School, 63.6% of students who took an AP exam last spring scored a 3 or higher, representing a 38.2% increase from the 2023-2024 school year and a 6.5% increase from the 2018-2019 school year, indicating that students have now surpassed pre-pandemic achievement levels.
Principal Anne Scanlan-Emigh, who was hired in 2024, said the school has been committed to rigor and pushing students, and she believes the growth in scores is partially due to the school’s “re-embracing of hard work.”
“We’re really proud of our students for taking the exams and wanting to challenge themselves, and thankful to teachers for preparing them,” Scanlan-Emigh said.
She explained that during the pandemic, schools across the country eased up on students, but giving them challenging coursework is important.
“I think some of it is a natural progression,” Scanlan-Emigh said of the AP results. “There has been some course correction as we’ve gone back to realizing it is OK to ask kids to do hard stuff.”
Scanlan-Emigh added that growth can also be attributed to the efforts of teachers, who underwent more professional development last year and are doing the “boots on the ground” work of preparing students for the exams.
“We did send our teachers to AP Boot Camp, where they got professional development from the College Board,” which runs the AP exams, she said. “Also, we have a really strong guidance counselor who’s working to encourage kids so they want to take AP classes.”
Last school year, Scanlan-Emigh asked all AP teachers to hold mock AP exams so students could practice and learn the format. Similarly, the school holds an SAT day where all students have the chance to take the PSAT.
“So when they take the test, they will have taken it before and it’s not for the first time,” Scanlan-Emigh said. “Familiarity is really useful. … It’s hopefully less daunting.”
Last spring, students scored an average of 551 on the reading/writing portion of the SATs and 517 in math. This is an increase of 19 points in reading/writing and 38 points in math.
“One of the things we did last year was adopt a new math curriculum, and I’m hopeful we’ll continue to see growth as we get more familiar with that curriculum,” Scanlan-Emigh said.
Frontier Regional School
Students at Frontier Regional School who took AP exams last spring earned slightly higher scores compared to the 2023-2024 numbers, with 87.7% of them scoring a 3 or higher. The percentage marks a 2% increase from scores in 2024.
AP scores at Frontier have continued to rise since 2021, when 61.5% of test takers earned a score of 3 or higher.
According to Superintendent Darius Modestow, this rise “really comes down to the staff who hold high standards and strong supports for our students.” He added that with each year, teachers gain more experience in teaching the subjects and preparing students for the AP exams.
“AP instruction is demanding, and with experience, the teachers improve upon their teaching,” Modestow wrote in an email. “And I can’t remiss the fact that our students work hard and create a culture in those classrooms of learning.”
With 203 AP test takers at Frontier last spring, participation reached a new high. After an 18.7% drop in participation in 2022, the school climbed back up to 182 test takers in 2024. For the 2024-2025 school year, Frontier test takers surpassed that number by 21 students, an approximately 11.5% bump.
Modestow described growing participation as an “ongoing goal” at Frontier.
“We want every student who is planning to attend college to take at least one AP class while they are still enrolled in high school. This gives them the opportunity to experience a college-level course with the support of our faculty,” Modestow said. “AP courses are one way for students to challenge themselves, so in reality, we would actually like to see even more participation and more lower scores, as this would be an indication of more students stretching or challenging themselves.”
On the SATs, however, students earned an average of 620 on the reading and writing section and 606 on math. The average reading and writing score dropped by 10 points from the 2023-2024 school year and the average math score dropped by six points.
As a voluntary test that colleges have increasingly decided to no longer require, SAT results are “a challenging data point to interpret year over year,” Modestow said. He added that the PSAT, which Frontier requires, provides “a more consistent, schoolwide data point.”
“Unlike MCAS, the SAT is not a universal measure of our student population, and the results are therefore heavily influenced by who chooses to take the test in a given year,” Modestow said. “With that in mind, we were pleased with Frontier’s 2024-2025 results.”
Last spring, four fewer students completed the SATs compared to the 2023-2024 school year. The group of 49 test takers marks the lowest participation in the past four years.
Modestow attributed the slight drop to a smaller class size and a shift in Frontier students’ plans after high school, away from paths where the SATs are relevant.
He added that the school is not directing its efforts toward increasing SAT participation “for its own sake,” but continues to encourage students who are applying to four-year colleges where SAT scores are relevant to complete the test.
“Our priority is aligning assessments with student goals,” Modestow said.
Franklin County Technical School
AP scores at Franklin County Technical School improved during the 2024-2025 school year, with 51% of students scoring a 3 or higher in the 105 tests taken across the five subjects offered.
While performance data for the history and social science exam was not provided due to the low number of participating students, for the two English courses offered, 49% of students earned a 3 or higher, with the highest-scoring exam of the two being AP English literature, in which 53% of students scored at least a 3. The average for the two math and computer science courses saw 55% of students score a 3 or higher on the exams.
Amber Crochier, assistant principal and curriculum director at Franklin Tech, explained that while there isn’t one reason why students performed better this year, she said students have been able to enter the honors track earlier, which could be contributing to the increase in scores as students see the benefits of taking more rigorous courses earlier on. Students can enter the honors track starting in ninth grade.
“We’re starting to see an overall increase in kids hitting those marks,” Crochier said, adding that the teachers are also excited to see the progress their students are making.
For the SATs, there is a similar situation, Crochier said. Students and families are receiving information about the SATs earlier while taking more rigorous coursework overall, giving students both time and skills to better prepare for this exam.
For the 2024-2025 school year, the average score of the 34 tests taken was 564 on the reading and writing portion of the exam, and 513 on the math portion. In 2023-2024, those numbers were 514 for reading and writing, and 473 in math.
“The students know what they are signing up for, and they are doing better and seeing the results of that,” Crochier said.
Turners Falls High School
In the Gill-Montague Regional School District, AP exams saw a decline, with only 15% of students earning a 3 or higher in the 2024-2025 school year. However, because only 13 exams were taken by 11 students, specific data on how students performed in the categories of language arts, psychology and biology is not available.
By comparison, in the 2023-2024 school year, more exams were taken, and 62% of students earned a 3 or higher on the 26 exams taken. The only data provided for specific exams was for AP Literature, with 69% of students earning a 3 or higher.
On the other hand, SAT scores saw improvement, with a mean score of 548 for reading and writing, and 522 for math in the 2024-2025 school year. These are both up from 2023-2024, when the average scores were 534 in reading and writing, and 496 in math.
Turners Falls High School Principal Loren Messina could not be reached for comment.