The plan to conduct the audit was announced in 2005, at a time that the AP program was experiencing growing popularity among high school students and growing skepticism among some colleges. Students, who view AP courses as key to winning admission to elite colleges, are enrolling in the courses in greater numbers — and urging their high schools to offer more of them. Colleges have generally been appreciative of anything that makes the senior year of high school more rigorous, and generally applaud the AP program for engaging and challenging students. But many professors were expressing doubts that AP was truly college level. And others were questioning the fairness of using AP in admissions when low-income high schools typically offer far fewer AP courses.

Robert H. Tai, an associate professor of education at the University of Virginia, is among the scholars who have questioned the central claim of the AP program that it certifies college-level work. He was co-author of a study last year that found that in science courses at 63 four-year colleges and universities, students who had taken AP courses — including students who did well on them — did only marginally better than students who hadn’t taken AP. Other factors, such as the rigor of mathematics in high school, were found to have a much more significant impact on college performance.
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