Three CB Students Score Perfect on AP Exam

Fiscal cliff? Faltering economy? Perhaps the policy makers in Washington should call on three former Central Bucks students.

Three graduates of the Central Bucks School District were among only 17 worldwide to earn perfect scores on the College Board’s Advanced Placement Macroeconomics exam last spring, their teachers announced Wednesday.

The high achievers include Robert Rolley, who graduated from CB East, and Shichao Wang and Dana Lapides, who graduated from CB West.

"Bobby is an incredible student who pays remarkable attention to detail," Rob Olson, Rolley's macroeconomics teacher at CB East, said in a statement. "More importantly, he’s a great person. Students like Bobby – and there are many in our school - make teaching Macroeconomics here at East a delight."

"Shichao and Dana exemplify the work ethic I ask of and receive from all of my students. They are both superb students, and I’m not surprised to hear of their outstanding achievement," said Kevin McDermott, AP Macroeconomics teacher at CB West.

Advanced Placement exams are ranked on a score of 1 to 5, where a 5 equals an "A" in the corresponding college course.

Lapides, Rolley and Wang all received a top score of 5, ranking them among just 15.5 percent of students in 2012, Olson said. Moreover, they were three of only 17 students in the world to earn a perfect 90 out of 90 on the the Macroeconomics Exam, answering every multiple-choice question correctly and earning full points on each of the essays in the free-response section of the exam. In total, 99,903 students took the AP Macroeconomics exam in 2012.

The tests are written and scored by college professors from around the world, and are typically designed to cover a full year of intensive, college-level knowledge.

Olson said it is very rare for a high school student to earn every point possible on an AP exam. In spring 2012, 2.1 million students took 3.7 million AP exams in subjects ranging from art history to calculus to physics. Only 88 students earned every point possible on an AP exam – a result characterized by the College Board’s AP Program as “an extraordinary academic achievement.”

"I think that the fact that 3 of 17 students who achieved perfect results globally come from CB is indicative of the kind of program we have here in Central Bucks," Olson added. 

All three CB students accomplished the feat after studying the subject for only one semester, their teachers said.