A couple of weeks ago, I had an extended conversation with the College Board’s vice president of Advanced Placement and instruction, Trevor Packer, about why some AP scores have shot up in recent years. Packer, who’s overseen the AP program for two decades, made his case for the changes to the scoring. Well, more than a few readers let me know they weren’t convinced. One of them is Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, columnist for Inside Higher Ed, and the author, most recently, of The Learning-Centered University. Mintz articulated concerns about what the College Board is doing and how it aggravates concerns about declining rigor in both high school and college. I thought he raised important points and that his note was worth sharing. Here’s what he had to say.
—Rick
Dear Rick,
In your recent interview with Trevor Packer, the senior vice president of the AP program at the College Board, Packer defended the sharp increase in high scores on the U.S. History and U.S. Government and Politics exams and claimed it reflects a more accurate picture of student mastery. I have serious doubts about this.
Across higher education, academic rigor is in decline. Rather than raising standards, our colleges, universities, and now the College Board seem focused on lowering them. In an effort to increase completion rates and make education more affordable, we are jeopardizing the very essence of a quality education.
A particularly troubling development, Packer’s assurances notwithstanding, is the recalibration of AP scores, especially in critical subjects like U.S. History and U.S. Government and Politics. This recalibration has led to a significant increase in the percentage of students earning 4s and 5s—the highest possible scores—on these exams. According to Education Next, the percentage of students earning a 4 or 5 on the AP U.S. Government and Politics exam doubled from 24.1 percent in 2023 to 49 percent in 2024. Similarly, in AP U.S. History, the proportion of students scoring 4 or 5 jumped from 25.4 percent in 2023 to 46 percent in 2024.
These dramatic increases raise important questions about the consistency and integrity of AP scoring and spark concerns that educational standards are being lowered in favor of boosting pass rates.
At the University of Texas at Austin, where I am a professor of history, we see the consequences of this trend firsthand. Students who pass the AP U.S. History exam receive credit only for the second half of our U.S. history survey course. To earn credit for the first half, they must pass a faculty-graded essay exam. A substantial majority of these students fail to demonstrate the content knowledge or writing skills that we expect from a university-level history student. This reality exposes the gap between what AP courses promise and what they actually deliver.
AP courses are marketed as college-equivalent, but they frequently fall short in terms of the depth and breadth of reading and writing they require. College courses, particularly in the humanities, demand that students engage deeply with dense monographs, primary sources, and scholarly articles—texts that require sustained critical thinking and analysis. AP courses, by contrast, often rely on brief passages that fail to challenge students or expose them to the same complexity of thought.
Moreover, AP teachers—through no fault of their own—often lack the time or interest in staying current with the latest research and historiography. History, like all academic disciplines, evolves. A teacher trained years ago might not be well-versed in the most recent scholarship, and many are not given the resources or time to engage with contemporary debates and methodologies. This lack of ongoing academic engagement makes it difficult for even the best high school teachers to prepare students for the kind of critical, in-depth inquiry that college courses demand.
The College Board, which administers the AP program—and which has lost 300,000 SAT test-takers since 2019—defends the rigor of its courses, the validity of its exams, and the much higher scores by saying the new pass rates are aligned with those in college classes. However, I remain skeptical. The truth is, a high school history class—even an accelerated one—cannot replicate the rigor of a college-level course. The expectations in terms of analysis, argumentation, and engagement with both primary and secondary sources differ significantly. The trend of inflating AP scores and expanding AP offerings threatens to dilute the quality of a college education.
If students can bypass the foundational courses as a result of inflated AP scores, they will miss out on the formative experience of grappling with difficult concepts, engaging with peers in deep discussions, and learning from professors who are active in their fields. By outsourcing general education to AP and early-college courses, we are reducing those classes to little more than a box-checking exercise.
Neither an AP nor an early-college or dual-degree class can replace the rich, challenging experience of a college course. College-level work demands more than the ability to answer test questions. It requires engaging with ideas, developing independent thought, and cultivating skills that cannot be measured by standardized tests alone.
We need to resist the erosion of standards and recommit to the principles that make a college education valuable: rigor, critical thinking, and the ability to engage deeply with challenging material in the company of a publishing scholar and genuine content-area specialist.
The recalibration of AP scores is just one symptom of a larger problem, but it is a clear indication that we are heading in the wrong direction. If we continue down this path, we risk losing what makes higher education a transformative experience—not just for students but for society as a whole.
