<p>I am a high school junior and debating whether to take the AP English Language & Comp exam this year or senior year. The pros for taking it next year: I plan on taking APUSH then, and I have heard that having taken APUSH is helpful for AP English Language. Also, my school doesn’t offer an AP English course, so I am contemplating whether an extra year of English would prepare me even better. The pros for taking it this year: I’m a strong writer already, and the score will show up on my college application.</p>
<p>I guess my basic question is, what use does AP English have at Brown? Obviously it looks good on a college application, but if I do not take the exam until senior year, then that is irrelevant. I have looked at Brown’s AP policy, and Brown does not give any credit or placement to high scores on the AP English exams. However, I know that one of the requirements for graduating from Brown is “demonstrated proficiency in writing.” Would a high score on an AP English exam contribute to that at all?</p>
<p>The demonstrated proficiency in writing occurs in that in at least one of the courses you take, at some point at Brown, you will be writing some papers. At that point, the professor can “sign off” that you have proficiency in writing, or they can flag you as needing help in writing. Also the writing section of the SAT serves as another place (as well as your essays) where someone may flag that you need help, and then you will be recommended to take a writing type of course (usually freshman year). That happens only fairly rarely. (We used to call it the football/basketball players course. Sorry guys). As far as I know the AP exam does not count for that. And it is true that most AP credits are of little use at Brown. My student, once accepted at Brown dropped taking the AP test for most of those courses and just enjoyed the end of senior year that bit more!
For you there might be an advantage to taking the AP English exam this year, only in that it might add to Brown’s confidence in your English language skills, coming from China, if English is not your first language.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m American actually. I have grown up in Shanghai because my parents work here, but English is my first language. =) Thanks for your advice! I’ll take it into consideration and decide based on how well my test prep goes.</p>
<p>The only way in which it helped for me is that my advisor saw it (and my SAT writing score) at our first meeting and marked me as a proficient writer.</p>