Hi guys,
So I got my AP scores back today, and most of them aren’t quite what I wanted. How intensely do schools like Penn look at AP scores? Should I be concerned??
It’s pretty hard to say. On one hand, I think the conventional wisdom is that AP exam scores are not a huge factor for admissions. But with that being said, being a high AP scorer is a fairly good proxy for being able to cut it academically at (insert top school). The student that can get consistent 5s signals that he or she is sufficiently diligent to do well in introductory college courses. (Penn gives ample AP credit, so they implicitly grant this equivalence between AP and freshman courses.) The student that gets consistent 3s does not signal this, so he or she would have to do so via some other medium. But that’s why standardized tests are important—they’re standardized!
All in all, everyone’s gonna end up speculating. More importantly, you should be concerned in general because nobody is guaranteed admission to a top university. I was plenty concerned when I applied to Penn. That’s just the nature of the beast, my friend. Send in your application and see how it goes. Instead of dwelling on this, focus on things you can control, like your essays.
I understand. I got a 5 in BC Calc, a 4 in lang, and 3’s in Mech and APUSH, so I was all over the place. I appreciate your response!