<p>Do you think colleges are more impressed with multiple 5's on 6+ exams or over 300+ hours of community service? For example:</p>
<p>Person 1 took 8 AP exams total before his senior year. His scores are:
APUSH-5
Bio-5
Chem-5
Euro-4
Psych-5
Human Geo-5
Stat-5
Calc BC-5
However he has only 10 hours of community service.</p>
<p>Person 2 has over 300+ hours of volunteer service, but she has only taken the APUSH exam and got a 4.</p>
<p>Would colleges prefer Person 1 or Person 2?</p>
<p>I believe community service hours hold more importance over ap scores since community service counts as an EC.</p>
<p>Well assuming that the numerous AP scores correlates with a rigorous transcript, the former would be much more impressive.</p>
<p>@Jersey13, I don’t believe that the OP was assuming that, however. </p>
<p>AP Exams, to my knowledge, hold no weight on admission to colleges except a scarce few. I believe Cornell might be one of them and Oxford as well. </p>
<p>Volunteering is definitely more important than scoring high on AP exams in terms of getting into college, but college credit is definitely a bonus.</p>
<p>^ But why would Person #2 only take one exam?</p>
<p>For schools in the UK and to a significantly lesser extent Canada the scores matter.</p>
<p>^^ I think it’s a safe assumption to make. Self-studying those 8 exams would be a pretty difficult task.</p>
<p>@Jersey13, you’re missing my point. The OP was asking if AP scores ALONE mattered more than volunteer hours. You could get an A+ in a class and perform poorly on the exam if the class was a joke. Think before you post next time.</p>
<p>So my point still stands, AP Scores don’t matter as much as volunteer hours in terms of admission to colleges. Scores in AP classes, on the other hand, as Jersey13 mentioned, do matter.</p>
<p>^ Nowhere in OP’s post does it specifically state that we should consider the AP exam scores alone. His/her main question is
</p>
<p>I suggest you follow your own advice.</p>
<p>Ha, the first question the OP poses is:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He doesn’t mention GPA at all, so I don’t think we’re meant to assume anything. Plus, under both student 1/2, the OP only lists AP Exam scores, no GPAs. </p>
<p>Do I win?</p>
<p>^Maybe, but you know what they say about winning a debate on the internet…</p>
<p>Yawn.
The OP actually left it vague. Neither what I believe nor what you believe is explicitly stated. With that in mind, in order to accurately answer the OP’s main question, you would have to make the assumption that I did.</p>
<p>
Repeating yourself doesn’t make your argument any stronger, only redundant.</p>
<p>AP scores >>>> community service hours in terms of college admissions.</p>
<p>Volunteering is nice but unless those 300+ hours are on some project that might be a “hook” in itself the AP student wins every time. It’s hard for adcoms to know what exactly was done in those hours: sitting at an empty homeless shelter while studying for APUSH doesn’t really count imo. CS might get you more scholarships but that’s it.</p>
<p>Adcoms are looking for students who can step in on day one and fit in with the best and the brightest. There might be a few exceptions, but not many. The AP scores themselves might not matter, but the fact they took 8 definitely does.</p>
<p>what do these community service hours show, exactly?</p>
<p>That you would rather spend time doing other things besides studying for AP</p>
<p>This is a way too simplistic question. Really, the only way to ask these sort of questions are - two very similar applications, but one has 300 hours of volunteer work and the other has 10, who is going to look better?</p>
<p>Every part of your application is going to be looked at to get an idea who you are. One line item will only make a small difference.</p>
<p>BTW, I have had several adcoms say that if your volunteer hours appear to be there just because your high school requires them, they will carry almost no weight. I have also heard that only hours over 100 and somehow show your passion will actually help.</p>
<p>Person 1 because Volunteer hours aren’t reported right? You just list wat you do. </p>
<p>However a mix of person 1 and person two would definately be best bet.</p>
<p>“That you would rather spend time doing other things besides studying for AP”</p>
<p>That’s a good one :-)</p>
<p>My point is that adcoms aren’t stupid enough to believe that every kid with hundreds of community service hours is doing it to “give back to the community.” To expect every college applicant to “give back to the community” is simply inviting thousands of kids to disingenuously say that they are. </p>
<p>I had around 350 hours of community service. I didn’t amass that much because i wanted to “give back.” I amassed that much because I enjoyed doing things which happened to qualify, and I kept track of them in hope of getting some sort of scholarship money for it (didn’t work out). I don’t think it matters that it’s “community service,” or that you have hundreds of hours. What matters is if you have something that you enjoy doing that’s meaningful and that you stick with it.</p>
<p>Personally, I find the AP scores more impressive, however. It means that the person knows their sh1t in a whole bunch of different areas.</p>