AP or not AP?

Can anybody comment either from personal experience or just common sense if it looks bad for admission purposes to take AP classes and not to take AP exams? Our situation is this: my daughter will take 4 AP classes by the end of the junior year (not sure if she’ll take anything senior year). She is mainly taking these AP classes to boost her GPA. She has severe test anxiety, so she does not want to take all of the AP exams this year. She’ll probably still end up taking AP Psychology, but she has not had the class yet, so this can still change. I don’t want to put her under more stress, but I don’t want it to look bad on her transcript either. If she does not report her score, will it be assumed that the score was low or is there a way to specify that she did not take the exam? None of the courses are relevant for her intended major, but a couple may be counted for general requirements. Cost is an issue too. We have to pay in the next few days and I can’t afford to pay for 3 exams if she ends up taking just one or none at all. Thank you in advance for any insights!

Is she trying for highly selective colleges? If so, she should prioritize exams possibly related to her major, and more difficult exams over easier ones. She doesn’t necessarily have to take all of them.

Have you looked at the exam schedule? Are her courses all going to be tested in a short period or are they spread out over the two weeks?

@Groundwork2022 No, she is not trying for anything too selective. UTD, Abilene Christian, Harding for now. Thank you for the suggestion to look at the dates. I have not thought about that. Turns out her exams would be three days in a row. I don’t see how she’ll be able to handle this.

A couple of things to consider.

  1. Depending on topic, the higher you go the more you may be judged on fewer exams.
  2. If she is likely to go to a school that is generous with AP credits. AP credits can be a great value.
  3. AP subjects outside your area can be a huge benefit to your GPA. Getting a 3 on AP Chem can save a History major from taking a lab science class. In college.
  4. If she is taking the classes to boost her GPA, many colleges is unweighted GPA for admissions.

While they may use unweighted GPA, they almost certainly also look at coursework rigor. These are effectively proxies for weighted GPA, so AP courses are quite beneficial.

I was told by one T20 senior admissions officer that their school doesn’t even look at AP scores for admissions. Others have said they put more weight on the year-long grade in the course more than the single 1-3 hour exam. Some have said It can balance out a sub-par Subject Test score. While a bunch of 5s can probably be a positive, I haven’t found AP scores to be a heavy influence in admissions.

Fwiw, my D had 20+ credits going in as a Freshman and it saved her zero in terms of required courses to take, time to graduate, etc. Outside of Engineering, where specific coursework is proscribed, it may be different.

Just another note, even if the AP credits can’t be used to graduate early, it can mean higher standing which can impact priority for course and housing registration.

It can also be good practice for exams in college which are much more high stakes than HS because there are so few of them.

Or they can allow skipping lower level requirements, freeing up schedule space for more electives or upper level courses.

You’re totally fine w/o taking the tests as others have mentioned, and anything to reduce anxiety in high school should be done.

“Outside of Engineering, where specific coursework is proscribed, it may be different.”

Are you saying that even if someone were able to get out of say the first year of Calculus, they could not use that to reduce their requirements or did the college have everyone start at Calc 1 regardless of high school experience?

@theloniusmonk

My D was able to skip Calc I and is ahead in physics as well, but it doesn’t change the number of semesters for graduation because of her course sequencing for her major. It just leaves room in her scheduled for different courses, a minor, a concentration, and/or a certification program.

Thank you everybody for your comments! Lots of great points on the value of AP exams, but in our particular situation AP exams in question are Environmental Science and Music Theory. I really don’t see how either of them would be beneficial in terms of getting college credit and getting ahead. Both are going to be counted as electives at best. And it sounds like it does not matter that much for admission either. Considering the stress level and scheduling, I think the decision is going to be just to do AP Psychology.