Giving College Credit Where It Is Due: Advanced Placement Exam Scores and College Outcomes

We implement a regression discontinuity design using the continuous raw Advanced Placement (AP) exam scores, which are mapped into the observed 1-5 integer scores, for over 4.5 million students. Earning higher AP integer scores positively affects college completion and subsequent exam-taking. Specifically, attaining credit-granting integer scores increases the probability that a student will receive a bachelor's degree within 4 years by 1-2 percentage points per exam. We also find that receiving a score of 3 over a 2 on junior year AP exams causes students to take between 0.06 and 0.14 more AP exams senior year.