The purpose of this study was to address the validity of grades of 3 on AP® Examinations and to compare AP students to other relevant student groups. While research has shown that students who earn grades of 3 or higher and place out of introductory courses do well in the subsequent courses, there are some college faculty members who think this is not always the case. In order to address this issue a number of different statistical techniques were employed to determine if finer gradations of the grade group of 3s might prove useful for course placement in college. More specifically, three different statistical techniques were used to identify "low" and "high" 3 score groups. These procedures provided insight to whether the "high" and "low" 3 groups are more similar to other 3-grade groups or the adjacent score groups (2s and 4s). The grade groups derived from the different statistical techniques were compared in terms of a number of college achievement variables such as grades in the subsequent course, number of college hours taken in the content area, and the grades earned in those courses. In addition, the performance of AP students who placed out of the first course in the sequence was compared to the performance of a matched non-AP group of students. AP students who took the introductory course prior to the subsequent course, and students who were concurrently enrolled in an equivalent college course while still in high school. The study was replicated for four different entering classes at a large university. Collectively, the findings of this study did not support finer gradations of the AP score category of 3. It was also found that AP students who earn credit by examination tend to make the same or higher grades in subsequent courses than do the other comparison groups. The following is appended: Results of the Eleven-Cluster Solutions.