<p>My legacy son received three "5s" on his 3 Junior-year AP exams. Does the admissions office take that into consideration? Will that help tip the balance for an "on the bubble" application (1340SAT, top 7 or 8%, great ECs/awards)?</p>
<p>I was admitted as a transfer with a 1 on the AP Spanish exam. I think your son has a great shot b/c he's a legacy.</p>
<p>Transfer is a different bag though (btw, I had a 450 on the SATII Spanish with Listening, so I feel you). ND will look at the AP scores but I do not believe that they are all that big of a factor. What they really do is help explain other factors. 5's on AP exams will show that your son is getting a great education and also really knows his stuff in those classes. Depending on what his grades were in those classes, they could make his rank look stronger because it could show that those are just very competitive classes, you know?</p>
<p>That being said, I still think the big factors are going to be the SAT and the class rank. Given that your son is a legacy, I think he has a great chance with those stats. While that may be the case, the best advice I can give is have him really focus on the rank and also take the SAT again. I think he can get in either way, but since he is below ND's average on both, it wouldn't hurt to keep working and to try again on the SAT or ACT just to see if he can do better, you know? </p>
<p>Just keep your son motivated but I don't think he is as "on the bubble" as you may think. Regardless, however, you may as well plan ahead as if he is firmly on the bubble and have him work on the rank and the SAT. I just think with those stats the legacy will give him enough of an advantage to get him there. Good luck to your son and I hope this post made sense, I know it is a bit jumbled.</p>
<p>Legacies are admitted at about a 50% rate, so if you are a legacy and have credentials in the normally accepted range you are in good shape. Your son's scores are slightly below the average at ND, so I agree with the advice to take the SAT once more -- another 40-60 points will be a big plus. A class rate in the top 5% - 10% is also good. One question to think about is the competitiveness of the high school. If the top 5% of the school are going to Ivies and the equivalent, then rank slightly below that looks better. If that's the case then that is something that the school will normally address in its profile that it sends with the transcript, to give the college a sense of the competitiveness of the school.</p>
<p>in general, ap's are taken into consideration along with the conditions of the school. if he is offerered many ap's and takes few, it looks bad. if he takes what is offered and it's few, its neutral. i had 2 ap's, one 4 and one 3. my school doesnt use ap's at all. i got in.</p>