Some Advanced Placement teachers might have noticed that a higher percentage of their students received passing scores on the program’s year-end exams in the last few years.
This year, 72 percent of students who took the AP U.S. History exam earned scores of 3, 4, or 5—scores that often allow exam takers to claim college credit—up from 48.3 percent in 2022. On the AP Macroeconomics exam, 62 percent of students this year earned passing grades, up from 51.8 percent two years earlier, according to College Board data.
It’s not that the exams that determine whether students can receive college credit have become easier, or that there was a sudden shift in how students prepared—or in how AP teachers taught. It’s more of a course correction in exam scoring, according to the College Board, the nonprofit organization that runs the AP program.
Between 2022 and this spring, the nonprofit adjusted how it scores AP subject exams using a new, data- and numbers-based approach aimed at eliminating some of the subjectivity and inconsistency that had previously been part of AP exam scoring. This “recalibration” resulted in a higher percentage of students getting the 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s that qualify them for college credit in nine subjects.
The move by the College Board comes at a time when researchers have documented accelerating grade inflation, in particular since the start of the pandemic, at both the K-12 and college levels. In addition, dual credit programs, in which students don’t rely on an exam score to earn college credit, are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to AP courses.
In that context, the College Board’s move led some educators and researchers to question whether AP exams have become easier, or whether the College Board purposefully sought to boost the percentage of students receiving passing scores to compete against dual credit programs.
But neither one of those scenarios is true, said Trevor Packer, the head of the AP program.
Instead, he said, the adjustments came about because the use of a new data-based approach to setting cutoff scores led the AP program to find more students have actually been demonstrating the proficiencies required for college credit.
“We don’t have an agenda for AP scores to be harder or easier. Our objective is to reflect what the evidence shows,” Packer said.
Though experts don’t see an immediate need for AP teachers to change how they teach as a result of the scoring changes, there are some key takeaways from this recalibration for teachers.
How the AP program determines what’s a passing score and what changed
Every five to 10 years, the College Board reviews how to determine cutoff scores for each exam.
AP exams are scored on a 5-point scale, and students who score a 3 or higher qualify for cost-saving college credit depending on the college or university they ultimately attend.
For years, the College Board relied on panels of 10 to 18 higher education faculty members for each AP subject to determine what a student had to do to earn a 3 instead of a 2, or a 5 instead of a 4. These panels also estimated what percentage of students should get each score.
It’s a standard approach and the best methodology the College Board had on hand, Packer said. Historically, these panels estimated that about 60 to 80 percent of students should score a 3 or higher on most AP exams. But in some subjects, especially in the humanities, the passing rate had recently been lower than 60 percent.
College Board officials wanted to make sure the lower passing rates in those subject areas were fair and accurately reflected students’ understanding of the course material, Packer said.
In 2013, new research emerged on a methodology known as evidence-based standard setting that relies on exam data to determine score cutoffs.
For instance, on a U.S. History AP exam, a student earns a certain number of points on an open-ended essay response that becomes part of a composite score that is then converted to a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. The College Board uses its standard-setting methodology to determine which composite scores become which exam grades.
The new methodology also involves a detailed rubric that outlines how many points a student should earn for meeting the requirements of the open response question.
For example, in responding to an essay question on the American Revolution, did a student meet all the requirements, including explaining four causes of the war, crafting a thesis statement, and providing appropriate context?
College Board officials began developing those detailed rubrics for all AP exams in 2019.
Due to delays tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, it wasn’t until 2022 that the College Board officially began using the new approach to assess data from AP exams across the country, Packer said.
As a result of the analysis and switch to the new scoring methodology, the College Board determined that the 60- to 80-percent passing rate in most subjects should stay the same. It also found that the passing rates in nine subjects needed to rise:
- AP World History
- AP English Literature
- AP Biology
- AP Macroeconomics
- AP Microeconomics
- AP Chemistry
- AP U.S. Government and Politics
- AP U.S. History
- AP European History
“The goal was not set up to say, ‘we’re going to set out to make AP scores better.’ Our goal was to use the largest evidence set possible to determine, are there reasons some of these subjects, the humanities subjects, should have lower success rates than the others?,” Packer said.
“When we did the evidence-based process, we didn’t find a reason for that. We found that they should have success rates very similar to the other APs.”
The College Board has been making these adjustments over the last three years and plans to rely on the new methodology, alongside college faculty expertise, moving forward.
What this means for teachers and school leaders
Some teachers have called for adjustments to passing rates in the past. Some felt, for instance, that students scoring a 2 should have qualified for a 3.
“These students were clearly outperforming students at the college level, and yet weren’t being given the credit of passing the exam,” said Noah Lipman, who teaches AP U.S. History, AP U.S. Government and Politics, and AP Macroeconomics at Highlands High School in San Antonio, Texas.
The College Board needed data to prove this hunch, he added, which the new methodology has provided.
As a result of the College Board’s adjustments this year, Lipman saw the passing rate for his AP U.S. History students rise from the typical rate of about 50 percent to about 70 percent this year.
He saw no change to the passing rate for his AP U.S. Government and Politics students.
Lipman, who consults for the College Board on history courses and is an AP exam grader, has changed nothing about how he teaches the courses nor has he noticed major changes to the rigor of the course curriculum. He hasn’t noticed a change on the student side, either, he added.
“All that’s changed is that more students are now passing the exam with a 3 or 4 than previously had,” he said.
An additional immediate benefit for some teachers—beyond the gratitude that more of their students are eligible for college credit—is potentially more pay.
Some districts pay bonuses to teachers with high AP exam passing rates, said John Moscatiello, founder and chief executive of Marco Learning, a consulting group that helps schools design AP programs.
Moving forward, Moscatiello recommends AP teachers and school leaders take the College Board’s new approach to scoring into account when analyzing their students’ performance.
For instance, if a school implemented a program in the 2023-24 school year to help raise students’ AP scores, and they saw a bump, how much of the growth can they attribute to their new program versus the scoring change?
And if the scoring for a subject changed, but the percent of students passing didn’t go up, what additional support can their school offer?
“This adjustment of AP scores, and more transparency, will give clarity to school leaders to make the right decisions about what’s working and what’s not for their AP programs,” Moscatiello said.
More students could be inspired to take AP courses
AP exams and dual-credit programs are two of the most popular pathways for students to earn college credit while in high school.
Now, given a statistically better chance of earning credit through an AP exam, Moscatiello and others say the College Board’s score adjustments could lead more students to choose AP courses.
On college applications, AP scores on a transcript are still one way students can distinguish themselves, said Christoph Guttentag, the dean of undergraduate admissions at Duke University, who is also a trustee of the College Board.
At Duke, individual university departments determine how much credit to award students for AP scores. It will take some time to see how these departments react to the AP adjustments, Guttentag said, though he suspects faculty may be encouraged by how the College Board relied on data to support these changes and set cutoff scores.
Guttentag also sees the potential for these changes to boost student participation in AP courses.
“If this change encourages more students to take AP courses, if it gives students the confidence that they can succeed in these courses, I think that’s a great thing,” Guttentag said. “I think that I worry more about not enough students taking APs than I do about too many students taking APs.”
