Record Number Of Students At San Jose High School Ace AP Exam

SAN JOSE (KCBS) – A private school in the South Bay saw a record number of students earn perfect scores on last spring's Advanced Placement exam.

The Harker School in San Jose had 10 students ace the AP microeconomics exam, with one of those students also earning a perfect score on the macroeconomics exam. Economics teacher Sam Lepler said he was as astonished as anyone else when he heard the news.

"I was really excited to know that there was even one of them," Lepler said. "And then another one did, and another, and then it kind of just snowballed from there. It was really exciting."

It's an amazing feat for one school because out of the more than 67,000 students who took the microeconomics AP test in May, only 33 received perfect scores.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, one of those students, Ashvin Swaminathan, was also one of only 12 students worldwide to ace the AP macroeconomics exam. He was also one of four students in the world to earn two perfect scores. Swaminathan is now a freshman at Harvard University.

Lepler gives credit to his "incredible students."

"If you make class fun, they will go as far as you can take them and beyond," he said.

Lepler's class is a yearlong elective, featuring half macroeconomics and half microeconomics.