AP Test Excellence

Jesuit High School’s students and faculty had another outstanding year of Advanced Placement testing, establishing phenomenal new benchmarks across several key metrics.

The AP program at Jesuit set new school records in 2025 for most courses with a 90% or greater pass rate with 20, as well as most courses with a 100% pass rate, 12.

These new standards of excellence occurred as Jesuit’s AP program continued its growth trajectory. The school established new high marks for students enrolled in AP courses (518) and AP Exams administered (1,246), while equaling the mark for most AP courses offered (29).

“This is a tribute to the hard work and talent of our teachers and students,” said Debbie Pacheco, Jesuit’s assistant principal for academics. “Our students were able to achieve at this very high level despite the emotional stress and lost class time resulting from the hurricanes during the first semester. We are extremely proud of their dedication to achieving academic excellence, and their success in AP testing.”

Individually, 127 Jesuit juniors and seniors were recognized as AP Scholars with Distinction in 2025. To be recognized as a Scholar with Distinction, students must earn an average score of 3.5 or better on all AP Exams taken, and earn a 3 or better on at least five AP Exams. Click to view all 127 AP Scholars with Distinction.

Jesuit’s AP students also set a school record for highest average score per test administered (3.8), and Jesuit's 88.4% overall pass rate is the second-highest in school history and well above the state (68.5%) and global (72.1%) averages. For the second straight year, 95%+ of all Jesuit students who took an AP exam earned a 3 or better on one exam or more. NOTE: Jesuit requires all enrolled AP students to take the AP exam in that course in May; students cannot opt out, as many schools allow. This requirement maintains the integrity of Jesuit's AP program.

AP test scores are reported on a 5-point scale, with a 3 or better considered passing. American universities typically grant placement and course credit to students who obtain high scores.

Leading the way in 2025 at Jesuit are the 12 AP courses that achieved a perfect 100% pass rate:

• Chemistry (teacher Julie Hust)
• Computer Science A (Arrupe Virtual Learning Institute)
• English Language & Composition (Angela Hamrick/Greg Malafronte ’05)
• English Literature & Composition (Malafronte)
• European History (Ian Edwards ’05)
• Human Geography (Vindri Gajadhar)
• Latin (David Coffta)
• Music Theory (Nina Wegmann)
• Precalculus (Kevin Hughes/Matthew Vilardi)
• Research (Austin Freeman ’02)
• Seminar (Freeman)
• U.S. History (Chris Barrett).

It marks the 5th consecutive year with a perfect pass rate for both Chemistry (Hust) and Human Geography (Gajadhar). The all-freshman AP Human Geography course has never scored below a 97% pass rate in the 11 years it has been offered at Jesuit, all with Gajadhar teaching.

It was an exceptional year for the two AP English courses at Jesuit. In recent years, the pass rates for both have steadily climbed into the high 90s, and this year both achieved 100% under teachers Malafronte and Hamrick.

This was the second straight year of perfect pass rates for both European History (Edwards) and Precalculus (Hughes/Vilardi). Music Theory had a 100% pass rate in 2022 under Wegmann and did so again this year. Research and Seminar, the two courses that comprise the AP Capstone Program, have been extremely successful through the years. Seminar achieved 100% for the 9th straight year under Freeman, and Research has achieved 100% more often than not.

Among all Jesuit AP courses this year, the highest average score was a perfect 5.0 attained in two courses, Computer Science A and Music Theory, followed by 4.69 for Precalculus, 4.38 for Human Geography, 4.34 for English Language & Composition, 4.30 for U.S. History, and 4.29 for both English Literature & Composition and Spanish Language & Culture (Bert Roney). All totaled, 13 courses averaged higher than 4.0.

In addition to the 12 courses with 100% pass rates, another eight AP courses exceeded a 90% pass rate at Jesuit in 2025. They are:

• Statistics (96.2%, Ruston Broussard)
• Environmental Science (95.5%, Lauren Maguire)
• World History (95.1%, Nick Rivera ’14)
• Spanish Language & Culture (94.1%, Roney)
• Biology (93.3%, Barry Kayanan)
• U.S. Government & Politics (92.7%, Edwards)
• Psychology (91.7%, Bill Eggert ’77)
• Comparative Government & Politics (90.0%, Edwards, the third Social Studies AP course taught by Edwards that all achieved a 90% or better pass rate)

Eggert retired from the school at the close of the 2024-25 school year after a remarkable 36 years on the faculty. He taught AP Psychology all 11 years Jesuit has offered the course, and each year AP Psych produced a pass rate of 89% or better, including the 91.7% this year.

Twenty six Jesuit AP courses achieved a higher pass rate than both the state and national average in that course, with many exceeding by large margins. Latin, which earned a 100% pass rate under Dr. Coffta, had the largest percentage gap when compared with the state pass rate, which was 35.1% for Latin. Others with very large differentiations included Statistics (96.2% Jesuit, 44.2% state), Music Theory (100% Jesuit, 55.2% state), Computer Science A (100% Jesuit, 56% state), Computer Science Principles (89.4% Jesuit, 54.3% state), Human Geography (100% Jesuit, 65% state), World History (95.1% Jesuit, 63.8% state), Chemistry (100% Jesuit, 71.5 state), U.S. History (100% Jesuit, 71.6% state), and Environmental Science (95.5% Jesuit, 67.3% state).

In addition to the 20 courses above a 90% pass rate, there are an additional four Jesuit AP courses that yielded very strong results this year, exceeding an 84% pass rate: Computer Science Principles (89.4, Jason Lublin), Physics 1 (88.6%, Corey Perich), Spanish Literature & Culture (84.6%, Nayvi Hernandez), and Calculus BC (84.1%, Perich).

Congratulations to the students and teachers of Jesuit for their success in AP testing for the 2024-25 school year!