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Higher Education
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"I am truly impressed with the quality of the exam. From the development of the course content, to the design of questions, to the selection of Readers, to the development of final grading rubrics, to the checking of Reader consistency, to the selection of the final cut-off points for the AP grades, this whole operation is characterized by care and educational sophistication."
Clark Ross, Chief Reader
AP Economics Development Committee
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty
Johnston Professor of Economics
Davidson College
The AP Program and Colleges & Universities
For more than fifty years, higher education academic faculty have worked with secondary schools and the College Board in a unique partnership: the Advanced Placement Program® (AP®). Throughout its history, the AP Program has relied on the initiative, participation, and guidance of higher education institutions to fulfill the Program's goal of facilitating the transition of high schools students into a successful college experience.
In 2003, over one million students took AP Exams in 19 subject areas at over 14,000 high schools worldwide. Over 3,000 colleges and universities, including many international institutions, accepted qualifying AP Exam grades from those students for credit and/or placement. The remarkable growth of the Program over the past half-decade demonstrates that high school students have embraced the vision of AP and seized the opportunity to study and learn at a higher level. For those students, a challenging program of study carries benefits into the college years. In fact, a recent Department of Education study reports that a secondary school curriculum of high academic intensity and quality -- such as that found in AP courses -- has a more significant effect on bachelor's degree completion than more traditional academic measures, such as grade point average or class rank.1 This important study emphasizes the vital correlation between secondary and post-secondary curricula, and how AP works to successfully bridge the two.
This section provides information to help colleges and universities set their AP credit and placement policies. The development of the AP curricula and exams, the scoring process of the AP Exams, and research on AP student performance are all explained in detail to aid in policy-setting. Additionally, links to the "AP Credit Policy Info" search tool are provided, as well as information on how to get more involved in the AP Program.
The Origins of AP
1 Answers in the Toolbox: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor's Degree Attainment (1999). Clifford Adelman, Senior Research Analyst, U.S. Department of Education.
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