Richard Phelps:

A less publicized goal of the recentering synchronized the verbal and math score distributions. Over time, the SAT’s math and verbal scales had developed quite different shapes, and College Board worried that that lack of symmetry threatened the SAT’s face validity among its vast non-technical customer base. Despite these explanations, however, critics accused College Board of score inflation and watering down the content of the SAT.

Now, College Board is “recalibrating” some Advanced Placement (AP) exam scales and eliciting similar reactions from critics. College Board invokes a desire to make score distributions similar across AP exams, just as they crafted similar distributions for the verbal and math SAT subtests in 1995-96.

In all, three changes currently transpire. Standards for all AP exams are being set by a new “evidence-based standard setting” (EBSS) method. Score distributions across all AP exams will have similar shapes. And score distributions for a minority of AP exams have been or soon will be adjusted—all upwards thus far.

Does the recalibration really matter for AP exam users—students, schools, teachers, and colleges? To counteract AP exam score inflation, all a college need do is raise the threshold at which it awards course credit. That’s not hard.

Not hard for independent, private colleges, that is. Indeed, some of them no longer award course credit for exam scores of three, four, or five. Public colleges, however, may not be so flexible. According to College Board,