AP scores were released this morning. The college board has score distribution here:
I also like this link that collates the comments from the head of AP exams, Trevor Packer. These comments include number of students with perfect scores (ie 22 students of 251,000 students in AP CALC AB) and which sections were easiest (i.e. ecology on the AP bio exam).
https://www.totalregistration.net/AP-Exam-Registration-Service/AP-Exam-Score-Distributions.php
I need to understand what is good for T-10 colleges. I want to do Physics major. I have 5s from 9 APs I have taken but physics I have 4/4. 
Interesting AP score analysis by Jon Boeckenstedt, suggesting a recalibration of AP tests has happened:
Jon’s analysis based on these tweets by Marco Learning:
Does College Board notify you if you got a perfect score?
Yes. In September
This graph is a little misleading due to what I mentioned in the other thread.
5s didn’t change much which I don’t understand why/how.
US History
5: 11% to 13%
4: 15% to 33%
3: 22% to 26%
Euro
5: 13 to 13
4: 21 to 34
3: 25 to 25
It’s like they perfectly made it as to maximize college credit while allowing top students to distinguish themselves.
The article says that they are changing them to match COLLEGE grading. I guess I have no problem with that. Why should high school students be expected to score higher than a college student in order to get credit for that same course?
This does make me question the validity of a college degree though. Is the college degree worth as much as it was 25 years ago? Probably not, unfortunately.
Because in many cases, the AP course is not truly the equivalent of a college course. In some cases the material is totally different (my D took both AP stats and college Intro to Stats - two VERY different classes in her experience with the latter much more challenging and covering different material). In some cases, there is greater rigor and higher standards for the college course (I taught college writing and the requirements and expectations were significantly higher than for AP lang and lit). So I do think the AP tests should be graded more, not less, stringently. They are already getting off “easy,” in my opinion. Taking APUSH or whatever is really not the equivalent experience as taking a college-level history class, so why should they get an easy pass on the test and be exempted from the college-level class? I think a small minority - only the tippy top scores by students who have clearly mastered all material and then some - should get the pass. That is just my opinion. And, in fact, my daughter took no AP tests, in part for this reason.
Two pieces I’d add to this puzzle:
I think that’s why most colleges don’t count 3’s anymore. All of the AP classes my daughter has taken were harder than the equivalent class I took in college. So I think this is school dependent.
Calculus and perhaps foreign languages would be significant exceptions to this notion, since many students with 5 on AP calculus are quite ready for the next math course in college, and repeating calculus 1 would be a waste of time and tuition for them. College foreign language departments also do not want students with some knowledge of the language in the beginner courses.
Yes, that makes sense. Although a high test score that is truly earned (rather than inflated for an easy pass) would still be necessary to ensure that they have truly mastered the needed material to advance to the next level.
25 years ago, a smaller percentage of adults had college degrees, so having one was more distinctive in the labor market.
Technological improvements since 25 years ago are likely the main cause of reduced time spent on college academics, but that does not necessarily mean that the students are learning less now. Indeed, with computers that are many orders of magnitude more powerful than back then, computer science students are likely learning more with less effort than they were 25 years ago. The computers and networks also mean that students looking up sources for their research papers can look in the library’s catalog from their dorm rooms rather than dig through the card catalogs in the library.
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