Effect of AP CSP Exam on CS majors in the U.S. 2016-2019, by gender & ethnicity

The Computer Science Principles (CSP) Exam is an Advanced Placement (AP) exam that began being offered to U.S. high school students in 2017. Typically those who take the exam participate in a AP Computer Science class at their high school. The students who had the option to take the CSP exam in high school were three times more likely to declare a major in computer science at their four-year University than those who did not have the option to take a CSP exam during high school. For example, 16.9 percent of all who had the option to take the CSP exam in 2019 majored in computer science, while only 5.2 percent majored in computer science in 2016, before the exam was offered at the high school level. Highlighting the impact that the AP computer science high school classes had on the students.
Additionally, this figure also highlights the variation between gender and ethnicity groups. Female students who had the option to take the CSP exam were five times as likely to major in computer science then those who did not have the option to take the CSP exam in 2016. However, the rate at which female students in general are becoming computer science majors is significantly less than their male counterparts.