<p>okay i got a 3 on my AP US History and a 3 on my English Writing and Composition AP tests.
I'm applying to NYU, USC, and UNC. Should i just leave it off my application? I'm afriad that they would hurt me more than they would help..</p>
<p>helphelphelp</p>
<p>In all honesty, AP Test scores aren’t used for much other than determining if a student can receive college credits for taking the class. It’s fine to leave off mediocre scores.</p>
<p>from what i know self-reporting ap scores is optional, so you can leave it out. you only need to tell them if you get accepted. colleges say it won’t hurt you if you don’t self-report, but who knows. 
if you do self-report, they might compare your ap scores with your classes grades to see if they match up. but since it’s self-report, they won’t know if your ap scores are what you say they are until you send in your official ap report AFTER college apps, so they probably doesn’t matter that much in comparison to the rest of your application. </p>
<p>if you got B’s/C’s in those classes, then i would just self-report it. if you got A’s in them, then i probably wouldn’t unless there’s a specific statement from an adcom saying that it’s better to leave it in.</p>
<p>so if i had A’s in those classes it wouldn’t be a big deal if i left them out?</p>
<p>Absolutely not. Schools would much rather see the in an A in a year-long class than a 5 on a 3 hour test.</p>
<p>having an a in an ap class looks great, but getting a 3 might also tell the college that the class wasn’t very challenging. i would leave them off.</p>
<p>If you leave scores off, the school will assume you received a one, or were so unprepared you chose not to take the test. List scores of three.</p>
<p>^In his case, I would rather leave it to a school to guess rather than confirm the belief that his score was sub-par. After all, you should be just as dissatisfied with a 1 as you should be with a 3.</p>
<p>^ Hahaha! How lucky we are to have such a superior being among us…</p>
<p>^No, that really wasn’t any attempt at sounding condescending or pretentious. </p>
<p>The OP is going to be applying to several very exclusive Universities that would otherwise share the same sentiments found in my last post. He won’t be receiving any credit for a 3, and it will, after all, be indicative of a partial understanding of the AP curriculum. In these situations, it’s best to leave it unexplained as opposed to revealing a weakness in his application.</p>
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But you succeeded!</p>
<p>Again, leaving scores blank when you have taken AP classes leads to the assumption that you received a score of one and, despite what billabongboy9828 says, a ONE is TWO LESS than a THREE. If applicants prefer to have a school consider a score of one than a score of three then leaving the score blank will accomplish that. </p>
<p>USC prefers a complete and honest application. They also ask that you send all SAT scores and not use score choice.</p>
<p>So I guess it’s appropriate for you to be reciprocating in kind!</p>
<p>By no means does not submitting an AP score lead adcoms into thinking that you received a 1. Please, stop holding on this that flawed assertion and repeating it throughout these forums. </p>
<p>Obviously, withholding a score won’t be doing any good for the OP’s chances, but in this case, it would be in the OP’s best interest to omit the3; submitting it would just be demonstrating to colleges that he did very poorly on the exam. He should leave it to the schools to cross examine his transcript with his listed APs and make whatever assumption that they end up do making.</p>
<p>To reiterate, however, withholding a score does not mean that adcoms will assume you scored a 1. </p>
<p>And I’m glad that a USC education taught you that USC prefers honesty in their applications. I was under the impression that the opposite was true. Thanks for the tidbit on the lack of score choice, too; I honestly only knew one or two schools that refused to use it. Still, there is no pertinence here to the topic at hand.</p>
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You seem to have assumed I attended USC. You are incorrect. I attended a public university for my undergrad and a different (not USC) private university for my graduate work.</p>
<p>The pertinence of mentioning the score choice item is that USC has stated that they want complete information, and I believe that applies to simply reporting the scores you have received. I have personal knowledge of a student listing an AP score of one on her USC application and receiving the Presidential Scholarship along with her admission. Imagine if she had listed a THREE!</p>
<p>I am sorry you are so offended by someone more familiar with the college application process disagreeing with you. You are certainly free to fill out your application however you choose, and you are free to continue to offer your sage advice just as I am free to continue to offer my lame suggestions.</p>
<p>You win alamemom. Nice job, you beat a 17 year old in a college argument. Gotta love CC</p>
<p>^hahaha! You are EXACTLY right! But one must amuse one’s self somehow… :)</p>
<p>^Internet sarcasm is hard for some to pick up, right?</p>
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<p>There is no correlation between disallowing score choice and submitting AP scores. Wanting complete information is not semantically identical with requiring every AP score. In the case of the OP, to maximize his chances at a the schools that he listed, he should leave off weak test scores that will most likely be hurting his chances of admission. It’s as simple and clear-cut as that.</p>
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<p>Don’t you think that it’s a reasonable inference to make that this student must have had an extraordinary application? I’m “imageing” as hard as I can! But I don’t think the AP scores had much to do with it!</p>
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<p>I take absolutely no offense to any of the remarks you have made aside from this one. There is a very tangible difference between valuable experience and stagnant advice. The fact that you feel as if you need to flaunt your status as “someone familiar with the college application process” instead of just offering information that will demonstrate your wisdom is telling. </p>
<p>Besides, I assume that since you’re post is nothing but a random anecdote instead of a refutation of my assertions, that you are in line with my advice to the OP.</p>
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You are once again incorrect. The anecdote was not at all random, it was an example of a student providing AP scores that you would hide and being accepted at one of the schools to which the OP is applying.
I make no claim to wisdom whatsoever. My advice is simple common sense.
Yes indeedy, it sure seems to be… ;)</p>
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<p>No, what I’m saying is that just pointing out someone who’s succeeded while scoring and submitting a 1 is not related to the OP’s situation. For all we know, the reason why this student received the Presidential scholarship could be because he/she had a 2400 SAT, won the Intel Scholarship, was at TASP, etc. I doubt that the AP score itself had any bearing on the result.</p>
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<p>No, I would argue that your advice is not common sense. Common sense is telling the OP to hide a score that would damage his chances, when there are no repercussions behind doing so in the first place. The advice you offered is fallacious. Good-intentioned, but false.</p>
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I can clear this up for you: The student is a “she,” she did not have a 2400 SAT, she did not enter the Intel competition, she doesn’t know what TASP is…</p>
<p>Yes, she was a very well-qualified candidate, but for accuracy’s sake I double-checked the AP scores she submitted with her applications. She had the famous “1,” three “3s,” and a “5” by the end of junior year with four APs planned for senior year (which she ultimately earned 4, 4, 5, and 5 - but those were not part of her applications). She applied to and was accepted at 7 schools including USC, Berkeley, and UCLA.</p>
<p>What the OP can take away from this is that AP scores are not at all important for admission - the important thing is to have challenged yourself by taking the toughest courses available and done well in those classes. I firmly believe leaving “blanks” on the application brings up questions and doubts in the admissions rep’s minds that could easily be answered by a perfectly respectible score of 3.</p>
<p>(And - just to add a random factoid that billabongboy9828 will say has no relevance… And it is not relevant to the OP as he does not appear to be applying to these schools, but it does give an idea of how Universities view scores of 3. Students presenting scores of 3 to UCLA or Berkeley can be granted up to a full year of college credit. So it seems they are not quite as *dissatisfied *with 3s as billabongboy9828.)</p>