AP Scores and Admission

<p>My sister, NIAHDchick305, and I both got 2s on the AP BIO exam. Would this affect us negatively in anyway in the admissions process? Our grades in the class were about B/B+. Those were the lowest AP exam grades we recieved.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t report the 2’s.</p>

<p>^^I hate American high schools. Grade inflation.</p>

<p>My other scores (Lang and USH) are both 5s. Would that make a difference?</p>

<p>Honestly NO.</p>

<p>Despite what people may think, AP Scores aren’t that big of a deal.</p>

<p>I got a 2 in World History and a 3 in US History. But I got a 5 on pretty much everything else and oh, a 4 in another. I’m going to W&M. Some subjects are just hard to prepare for. Bio is probably one of the hardest AP exam. </p>

<p>Don’t worry about it. All your AP Score means is that you’ll have to take Bio in college. As long as all your AP Scores aren’t 1s and 2s with a few 3s tossed in, no one cares.</p>

<p>Your grades, SAT/ACT, Course load, extracurriculars, essays and other achievements are WAY more important.</p>

<p>The fact is: You challenged yourself by taking the AP Class but you came short. You won’t get punished for that. You’re already better than the people who took regular Bio. </p>

<p>Bottom line, don’t worry. Just study hard for future exams!</p>

<p>EDIT: Also, there is a part of the CommonApp for putting AP Scores. Don’t report this one. Don’t send your scores to college. In your senior year when you register for AP Exams, THEN send the score report to the college. This score report will have all your AP Exams. By the time the scores come out, you’ll be in wherever you decide to go.</p>

<p>For purposes of admission, W&M considers the courses you took and the grades you received. AP scores only come into play if we’re reviewing a student for a scholarship and even then, plenty of students receive scholarships who do not report or send us any AP exam scores.</p>

<p>AP exam scores are used primarily after a student enrolls for credit purposes.</p>

<p>Thanks W&M Admission!!!</p>

<p>AP scores don’t really matter much.</p>

<p>@ W&M Admission:</p>

<p>So AP scores aren’t ever used to validate or evaluate transcript grades? For example, if one were to receive a 5 on say, the AP English Language test but could only manage to get a “B” in the class, it wouldn’t demonstrate anything about the rigor of the course or teacher?</p>

<p>gutenstein, it would be a bit of a stretch to use AP scores to validate a course grade. A course grade reflects 9 months of work while an AP score reflects a four-hour exam. We realize that sometimes people just have off days or aren’t the greatest testers. We look at the course you took and the grade you received while evaluating your candidacy for admission. We see AP scores of reported or self reported but they are not making or breaking any decision we make or altering how we feel about the quality of your transcript.</p>

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<p>No. Indeed, an AP score most directly results from a four-hour exam, but you’re kidding yourself if you think that it doesn’t reflect on what was or wasn’t learned during those nine months. Sure, people have bad days; yet if there is a consistent disconnect between AP scores and class grades, shouldn’t that raise a red flag? Only one of the measures is, after all, objective and standardized.</p>

<p>Give it a rest, silverturtle. I suspect that an experienced admissions counselor knows more about this topic than you do.</p>

<p>All of my kids took lots of AP classes; they all received As and Bs in the classes and did well on some of the exams and not so well on others; they reported none of their scores; and all were accepted at either William and Mary or U-Va. AP scores are for college credit, not for admissions.</p>

<p>novaparent,</p>

<p>It is clear that you have fundamentally misinterpreted my post. Please reread.</p>

<p>the only credits I came to W&M with were from the AP gov test I took senior year… 2 years after I had taken a government course (that was preIB).</p>

<p>silverturtle, while there is no doubt that an AP or IB exam measures what was or was not learned in a class to an extent, there is no way to account of any extenuating circumstances (someone not feeling well or having a teacher who didn’t provide practice tests, etc). We tell students that one’s four-year record is high school is more telling and more important to us than one’s four-hour record on a Saturday morning (when comparing the transcript to the SAT/ACT). While the SAT/ACT are objective measures they are far from flawless in measuring aptitude and potential. Same with the AP scores. They have some merit but one’s four-hour record in an exam should not erase nine months of work in a course…at least that’s how we feel.</p>

<p>Thank you for the response.</p>

<p>I’m not arguing that the AP score should erase the class grades. I am saying that it should be used to provide objective context to those grades. Baselessly attributing subpar performances on the AP tests to extenuating circumstances establishes a poor precedent. Why consider SAT scores? The student might have missed all the questions only because of misbubbling. Why consider grades? The student may have accidently lost a homework assignment that led to a C instead of a B in the class.</p>

<p>My point is that there is the potential for non-aptitude-related confounding variables for all metrics. To assume that these are the cause for the score is to generalize the extreme and disregard an objective measure.</p>

<p>This standardized context is especially important today as grade inflation begins to become even more prevalent.</p>

<p>Silverturtle, there’s really nothing to debate here. Remember what “AP” stands for? Advanced Placement. Unlike the ACT or the SAT, AP exams are NOT designed for and were never intended to serve as a college admissions tool. </p>

<p>Beyond that, your argument is one-sided. There are plenty of students who get C’s in AP classes and 5s on the exams. Should college admissions officers discount the C then, or treat it as an A?</p>

<p>I do agree with silverturtle that grade inflation is rampant. It seems like colleges should at least look at AP scores as at least as relevant as the class grade, but not more so. After all, colleges are giving you a full 3 or sometimes 8 (for BC calculus) based on your score on one day. If it is not a true take on what you know from taking the course, why so much credit?</p>

<p>I thought the US education system was getting more and more focused on standardized testing, not less.</p>

<p>I believe silverturtle has the better of this exchange thus far. </p>

<p>Not only do class grades suffer from wide variability from school to school, but even from teacher to teacher within the same school. I’m sure that W&M and the other elite colleges and universities do the best they can to understand the varying rigor of the thousands (tens of thousands?) of secondary schools in the country, but can we really expect them to drill down to the level of individual teachers? How about international students? Homeschoolers? Seems to me that a degree of institutional modesty as to an admission’s office capability is called for (or, to quote Dirty Harry, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”</p>

<p>What hasn’t been addressed thus far in this thread (I don’t believe) are the SAT Subject tests, which appear to be an important part of the applicant’s profile. I would be interested in understanding the reason why a one hour standardized test of knowledge in a particular subject is used, whereas the 3 or 4 hour test standardized test of knowledge in a particular subject is not? Why is a 780 on the US History SAT subject test relevant to the admission committee but a 5 on the AP US test not?</p>

<p>Access to AP exams is greatly biased as well. In some places the students must pay for the tests themselves, and in other places the county pays for them. This kind of selection bias makes them pretty hard to use when comparing between students as well. I agree that they are useful for providing context, but supposedly that context is already provided by knowing about the rest of the school.</p>