So I have to admit: I really dropped the ball on this one and did something I think I shouldn’t have.
I’m a high school senior, and have taken 3 AP exams. 2 of them I did rather well on (a 4 and a 5), but the third I didn’t do great on and would rather not report to colleges. I was about to cancel my not-great score, but saw that it was well past the deadline to cancel, so I just sucked it up and decided to send my AP score report anyway.
Immediately after, I panicked and tried to cancel, but requests to send scores cannot be cancelled and are non-refundable. I then saw that many colleges actually prefer to not receive score reports from the College Board and would rather that yous self-report, and only send in scores after committing.
My question is, would my score reports hurt my chances at admission?
No.
Additionally, at many, if not most, colleges, the score report does not even go to admissions - it goes to the registrar’s office for credit/placement processing. So in all likelihood, admissions will never see it and the report will just sit until/if you matriculate.
Even if admissions does see it, AP scores carry little weight in the admissions process, IMO.
@skieurope Why do you think that admissions do not look at the AP Scores? (Note I am not disagreeing, truly interested.)
My son is a freshman in high school and the level of teaching in two of the AP courses is not very good and he has learned very little to date. The fear is he will do fantastic in the class but not have learned nearly enough to do well on the AP exam, so he is supplementing what they do in class. I am sure there are many high schools where the AP classes are quite difficult - my point being it seems that from a college admissions point of view it is not possible to compare the courses.
I know that performance in school courses has been shown to be a better indicator of college performance than standardized tests but it still seems colleges would want to consider the AP performance. It is not terribly expensive to supplement what is being taught in the classroom so I do not think it is a socioeconomic issue?
@yearstogo
It kinda is, IMO. Refer to the movie Stand and Deliver as an example. Or look at Bill de Blasio’s “AP for All” initiative in NYC. On the flip side of the SES spectrum, look at the number of elite schools that have eliminated AP classes for pedagogical reasons (i.e. they can design classes better than the College Board). There is just no level playing field in terms of HSs and AP offerings and colleges are not going to give brownie points to those applicants lucky enough to have AP courses.
Obviously taking AP classes where offered is important to colleges as it shows rigor. And if multiple applicants from the same HS, one can assume that college will compare transcripts.
Prepscholar has a good article that explains my thoughts further. Unfortunately, College Confidential will not allow the link, but Google is your friend.
In addition to the above, to quote MIT (who seems to be more transparent than many colleges on many topics):
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/on_aps_1