I moved to the US from Canada my high school sophomore year, and my counselor enrolled me in mostly On-Level (L) classes. At first, I wasn’t aware of what this would do to my GPA. (Honestly, I wasn’t ever concerned with it in Canada). Now I’m a junior, I’m a high-average-ish student, so now that I’ve learned the importance of GPA and class rank, I’m very worked up with trying to catch up. My counselor has recommended me take some AP exams in Spanish (I’m a native speaker) and in French (I’m fluent) although I’m not enrolled in the AP courses. My question is, will the admission officials at the colleges only see taking the course as beneficial? Or will it be equally ‘impressive’ if I only have the AP credit, and not have been enrolled in a class? I cannot take any more AP classes since my schedule is completely filled this year and next.
I would take the exams for Spanish and French if I were you. If you can score high on them, it will definitely benefit your application. However, yes, taking the course as well as the exam would be more impressive.
Both taking the course and taking the test are impressive. If you believe that you can do well on an AP test without taking its class, then I would say go for it.
Can the AP exams be beneficial? Yes. Will they be seen as impressive? No. If your goal is to impress colleges, this will not do it. AP foreign language exams are geared to users at the intermediate low end of the proficiency scale,and you are well beyond that level.
What would be more impressive? I can’t take the classes anymore, I already have high school credit for them, should I take the SAT subject tests then?