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A few years ago, education experts noticed that scores were climbing upwards on a number of Advanced Placement tests. The increases, measured on some of the program鈥檚 most popular assessments, were as significant as they were unexpected.

In AP Chemistry, the share of students scoring a 3, 4 or 5 (generally interpreted as a passing grade on , which are scored on a 1-5 scale) increased from 54% in 2022 to 75.1% in 2023. In AP United States Government and Politics, that proportion grew even more, from 49.2% to 73% from year to year. By , roughly 100,000 more students hit the passing threshold on AP U.S. History in 2024 than in 2023.

The change came 鈥� the nonprofit education organization that owns and administers both AP and the SAT 鈥� to adopt a new scoring methodology intended to tamp down volatility in results. The organization鈥檚 leadership said the new procedures brought their standards into better alignment with those of universities themselves, making the AP a more reliable indicator of students鈥� readiness for college-level work. Since scores of 3 or above are generally accepted for college credit, there needs to be a close equivalency between high ratings on the 42 AP subject tests and what is expected by postsecondary institutions.

Yet some critics say the surge in higher marks shows that the tests have simply been made easier to pass. The most prominent, Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, pointedly accused the College Board of 鈥渄umbing down鈥� its hallmark products in a recent of published by the journal Education Next.聽

Peterson said the shift might be seen as a reflection of grade inflation at the college level, adding that, after a long period , it could be seen as 鈥渁ppropriate鈥� for a test taker to now earn a 4 with a performance that previously would have merited a 3. 

On the other hand, he faulted the College Board for stirring confusion over what American students actually know 鈥� and for not being more forthcoming about changes in their methods.

The AP tests are defying what every other test is telling us.

Tom Loveless, education researcher

鈥淭he College Board wants to say, 鈥榃e haven’t changed our standards, and we’re the one reliable benchmark out there that everyone should pay attention to,鈥� 鈥� Peterson told 社区黑料. 鈥淏ut at the same time, they’ve modified the way they score the material.鈥�

Trevor Packer, the College Board鈥檚 senior vice president for AP and instruction, rejected that characterization. Passing rates have risen precipitously because the old grading process, reliant on small panels of college instructors, dramatically understated high schoolers鈥� actual readiness for college, he said.

Prior panels had established artificially stringent standards that produced pass rates well below the historical AP standard.

Trevor Packer, College Board

For a number of tests, Packer wrote in an email, 鈥減rior panels had established artificially stringent standards that produced pass rates well below the historical AP standard.鈥� 

Much could depend on whether states and colleges accept that explanation. Dozens of states to sit for the exams, and about the same number for passing scores. What鈥檚 more, governors and local education leaders and participation rates as in their states.

Tom Loveless, a veteran K鈥�12 researcher who formerly headed the Brookings Institution鈥檚 Brown Center on Education Policy, said the upsurge in AP grading is particularly incongruous with the results of virtually all other standardized testing from the last half-decade, which have shown significant drops in academic achievement coinciding with the emergence of COVID-19 and subsequent closure of schools to in-person learning. 

鈥淭hey started this [change in scoring] during the pandemic, and no one in their right mind thinks the scores went up during the pandemic,鈥� Loveless said. 鈥淵et the AP tests are defying what every other test is telling us.鈥� 

The 鈥楪reat Recalibration鈥�

Peterson鈥檚 analysis, based on the College Board鈥檚 scores on each subject test, shows that the phenomenon produced startling effects immediately.

Student grades across a selection of AP鈥檚 鈥� Biology, Chemistry, English Language and Composition, English Literature and Composition, Human Geography, U.S. Government and Politics, U.S. History, World History and Psychology 鈥� leapt at both the middle and top of the distribution.聽

The College Board wants to say, 'We haven't changed our standards, and we're the one reliable benchmark out there that everyone should pay attention to. But at the same time, they've modified the way they score the material.

Paul Peterson, Harvard University

The fraction of students rated 3 or higher in those subjects rose from 52% in 2021 to 71% in 2025, while those scoring a 4 or a 5 ( as as either 鈥渨ell-qualified鈥� or 鈥渆xtremely well-qualified鈥� for college coursework) increased from 28% to 45%. The progress was not obviously the consequence of a more selective pool of participants; in fact, the total number of test takers grew by over 10% during those four years.

The sharp ascent accompanied called 鈥渆vidence-based standard setting,鈥� which incorporate input from hundreds of college faculty members about the performance expectations for their undergraduate courses. In the aftermath of that changeover, far more high schoolers were deemed capable of passing such courses than in years prior.

Packer, who has led AP for over 20 years, vigorously defends what critics call as a necessary step to smooth out inconsistencies in scoring that had plagued the program. In , he said the boost to scores under EBSS was actually much smaller than the annual changes generated by the earlier system 鈥� citing as an example a group of biology teachers whose 2013 update 鈥渟ubjectively reduced鈥� the number of students earning 5s by approximately three-quarters.

That example comes with a caveat, however: Far from a sudden jolt, the 2013 compression in biology grades followed an overhaul to the course curriculum that was previewed . At the time, that university professors considered the new exam 鈥渢he gold standard of college-level Biology.鈥�

In an email, College Board spokeswoman Sara Sympson said that the biology panel had erred in aligning their cut scores (the minimum score to attain a given mark, such as a 3) with the course鈥檚 new content and expectations.

鈥淭he redesigned course was excellent; the standard-setting was not,鈥� Sympson wrote.

Perhaps more pressing is the fact that little of the College Board鈥檚 recent data support claims of wild swings in student performance from one year to the next. Of the nine tests that were initially converted to the EBSS rubric, most had seen only modest scoring increases or decreases in the two decades before the pandemic. 

Between 2002 and 2019, the biggest year-over-year change in the share of students earning a passing grade on any of those tests was 12.3 percentage points (in AP Biology, after the 2013 redesign). By comparison, in the first year after EBSS鈥檚 adoption, the proportion of students who scored a 3 or above grew by an average of 17.4 points across all of the nine subjects. In virtually every case, the new system quickly lifted the number of passing grades to their highest level in recent memory. 

One noticeable example of scoring inconsistency occurred in 2022, when the pass rate for AP English Literature and Composition number skyrocketed by 34 points over the previous year. In an email, the College Board listed that explosion as an impetus to move away from its existing scoring process. 

Its description was somewhat ambiguous, however, specifying that the increase did not result from 鈥渢he full EBSS methodology.鈥� 

When publicizing the increase four years ago, to both the efforts of AP teachers and 鈥渁n accumulation of powerful data from colleges鈥� 鈥� wording that strongly echoes of the EBSS process, which it says 鈥渃ollects input from hundreds of experts and assembles fine-grained student performance data for analysis.鈥� This suggests the evolution toward new criteria may have already been underway that year, at least in part. 

A question of rigor

Packer has repeatedly explained the changes in a number of venues 鈥� including by authoring in which he dismissed as 鈥渆ntirely false鈥� the notion that the rigor of AP exams has been diluted.

In doing so, he addressed a secondary question that is decidedly murkier than the issue of cut scores. Over the last decade, some students and educators have questioned whether alterations to content and formatting may also be driving the growth in high scores. 

Most prominent among them is John Moscatiello, a career teacher and tutor who founded his own . In with Peterson in May, he said that the English Literature and Composition test now features shorter, simpler literary passages for student response than were common in the early 2000s. A of the items鈥� textual complexity reveals a substantial deterioration in difficulty over the last two decades, Moscatiello has argued. 

They just gave up on pretending AP exams are 鈥渃ollege level work鈥�

— John Moscatiello (@HookedonJohnics)

Tweaks at the margins may subtly impact how high schoolers experience the assessments. The College Board (a slight deduction in points for wrong answers, as opposed to leaving a question blank) in 2010, added in the U.S. History exam鈥檚 analytical reasoning section and recently in its virtual testing platforms.

Still, the cumulative effect of these shifts is difficult to know with any precision. 

Two years ago, when the AP history exams lowered the citation quota for their document-based questions (i.e., the number of sources that students are asked to reference in response to an essay prompt) from six to four, Steve Heimler that the decision would make a high score 鈥渕uch easier鈥� to achieve. 

The Georgia-based tutor, who once specialized in homeschool instruction, on YouTube and TikTok during the COVID era by dispensing tips to nudge his viewers鈥� point total upward. Many of his almost 1.3 million subscribers laud Heimler for guiding them to a better score, but notwithstanding the occasional adjustment from the College Board, Heimler believes that AP鈥檚 materials have lost little of their academic challenge.

In an email, he said he found it unlikely that the organization would deliberately water down their own assessments.

鈥淚 suppose it’s possible that they have modified their equations to result in higher scores, but I’m skeptical of that explanation since colleges rely on certain standards of rigor in AP exams in order to award credit,鈥� Heimler wrote. 鈥淚 assume they’d soon dissolve their partnerships with the College Board if it was clear that the scores were artificially inflated.鈥�

Calls for greater transparency

Some colleges already curtail students鈥� ability to substitute their AP scores for credit.

A from the Progressive Policy Institute found that, among the 153 most competitive postsecondary institutions in the United States, half restrict the amount of AP credits students can receive. Over 80% limit the applicability of AP credits in at least one subject area, and 10 schools 鈥� among them Dartmouth, Brown and CalTech 鈥� do not accept AP credit at all.

But those are fairly exceptional cases, and across the country, the vast majority of colleges honor AP scores of 3 or above. In part, this is because they are made to: Thirty-seven states actually require their public universities to award AP credits. 

Many of the same states for economically disadvantaged students to sit for the tests, which come with a $99 fee. Their investment in the program therefore imposes multiple demands on local taxpayers 鈥� both of which could become more tenuous if lawmakers and education leaders come to believe that the academic value of the exams and courses have been debased.

Richard P. Phelps, a longtime observer of K鈥�12 policy and the founder of the , has previously criticized the College Board鈥檚 financial and organizational structure. But in an email, he was sparing in his criticism of the so-called Great Recalibration, which he called a reasonable effort to make sure that AP coursework did not hold high school juniors to a loftier standard than college freshmen. 

Where Phelps did critique the Advanced Placement program was in its aggressive approach to public affairs. The College Board鈥檚 , he wrote, has 鈥渟uccessfully constrained many public colleges鈥� freedom to adjust their course credit policies.鈥� 

鈥淭hey must award course credit for certain AP exam scores even if they no longer believe those scores merit it,鈥� Phelps lamented. 

The prestige of AP clearly maintains a hold on the public, as evidenced by the growing numbers of students enrolling in its courses. Over 1.3 million pupils took at least one AP test in 2025, and about 80% of public high schoolers attend a school in which five or more AP courses are available. And political leaders in states like and have recently hailed 鈥渞ecord-high鈥� AP scores and course participation rates.聽

But calls for transparency will likely grow. One early sign of skepticism emerged in February, when the boards overseeing admissions and academic policy throughout the University of California noted several concerns about AP scoring in to the system鈥檚 academic senate. The authors recommended that UC faculty carefully study 鈥渟pecific parameters 鈥� within EBSS that may be responsible for a sharp increase in pass rates鈥� and, if needed, reconsider their criteria for admissions, course placement and course credit.

They must award course credit for certain AP exam scores even if they no longer believe those scores merit it.

Richard Phelps, Nonpartisan Education Review

To date, the College Board has only released addressing the controversy. More technical reports, including psychometric analyses from EBSS鈥檚 originators and historical scoring data from different AP iterations, haven鈥檛 been made public.

Loveless said that the College Board likely had defensible reasons for rolling out the policies that began in 2022. But what he called the absence of clarity in the organization鈥檚 actions 鈥渞aised suspicion,鈥� he continued.

鈥淭hey probably have data to justify a lot of what’s going on. The problem is they just haven’t released it,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey need to do a lot more explaining of what they did.鈥�

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