AP Studio Art is a series of Advanced Placement Courses divided into three different categories: AP Studio Art Drawing, AP Studio Art 2D, and AP Studio Art 3D.
AP Studio Art 2D
AP Studio Art 2D is an advanced placement course that is similar to AP Studio Art Drawing. It deals with two-dimensional applications such as graphic design, photography, weaving, and collage. As a contrary to AP Studio Art Drawing, focus is applied on the design itself instead of the composition of the artwork.
Portfolio
Section I: Quality: A student submits 5 actual artwork that represents the student's quality of designing pieces in 2D.
Section II: Concentration: A student submits 12 different slides that demonstrate the student's ability to make a variety of pieces in 2D that relate to 1 idea. These are arranged in a special order on slide coverings from College Board. Starting 2009, an online application replaced the use of physical slides and associated documents.
Section III: Breadth: A student submits 12 additional and different slides that demonstrate the student's ability to incorporate 2D Design principles that include unity/variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm, repetition, proportion/scale, and figure-ground relationship. These are arranged similar to Section II. Starting 2009, an online application replaced the use of physical slides and associated documents.
Grade distribution
In the 2007 administration 13,410 students took the exam from 2,683 schools. The mean score was a 3.06.
| 5 | 11.1% |
| 4 | 21.3% |
| 3 | 34.8% |
| 2 | 27.4% |
| 1 | 5.3% |
AP Studio Art 3D
AP Studio Art 3D is a three-dimensional Advanced Placement Studio Art course that holds many similarities to the AP Studio Art 2D course. The course deals with three-dimensional artistic applications such as metal working, sculpture, model, and ceramics. Like AP Studio Art 2D, the focus on the design of the artwork itself as opposed to its composition.
Portfolio
Section I: Quality: The actual work for this exam is three-dimensional and not flat, so transporting it directly to The College Board could cause damage to the artwork and the pieces would most likely not fit in portfolios. Because of this, five pieces of artwork are shown in ten slides to showcase the quality of the student's three-dimensional pieces.
Section II: Concentration: 12 different slides are submitted to demonstrate the student's ability to produce a variety of pieces in 3D that relate to a single idea. The slides are arranged in slide coverings in an order designated by The College Board. Starting 2009, an online application replaced the use of physical slides and associated documents.
Section III: Breadth: Eight different works are shown in 16 slides which are meant to demonstrate the student's ability to incorporate a variety of different 3D Design principles, including unity/variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm, repetition, proportion/scale, and figure/ground relationship. Similar to Section II, this section's slides are also arranged in an order designated by The College Board. Starting 2009, an online application replaced the use of physical slides and associated documents.
Grade distribution
In the 2007 administration 2,320 students took the exam from 848 schools. The mean score was a 3.06.
| 5 | 9.6% |
| 4 | 14.0% |
| 3 | 40.3% |
| 2 | 28.7% |
| 1 | 7.5% |
2009 Exam
In 2009, College Board instituted an online submission process for the exam as opposed to the manual mail-in exam. The exam was to be taken on a designated website at a designated time by all AP Studio Art students nationwide. The AP Studio Art Exam website experienced connectivity errors due to the incredibly high amount of traffic (thousands of students in each time zone uploading images), and approximately one hour after the East Coast's exam began, the server ultimately crashed as students in the Central Time zone began to log on. As a result, many students were unable to complete the exam, preparing entire portfolios for naught. It is unclear as to what the problem was exactly, or how College Board will handle the issue.