<p>How prevalent is the practice of taking AP tests without having taken the class? To me it just seems like one more burden to put on a kid who is already taking A and honors classes and participating in extra-curriculums. Please advise!</p>
<p>Why are you asking! Around here, most kids take the AP exam if they take the course.</p>
<p>My understanding is that an AP exam can be taken without taking the class. When looking at posts by kids in other forums the number of AP classes they have, ie. 10-12 just seems so high that it’s hard to believe they actually took the classes. Our daughter goes to a very well respected college prep. private school and there is no way a student could complete that many AP’s by the time they apply for college. </p>
<p>My kids attended a very small high school. Even their school offered 10 AP courses that any student could schedule. </p>
<p>Our school offered 24 APs. No one took that many. I don’t think that in real life there are very many kids self-studying for APs that their schools don’t offer. I do think that there are some schools that have courses they refuse to label AP courses that cover enough of the curriculum that kids can fill in the gaps on their own. My personal opinion with no research to back it up at all is that 7 to 10 APs is probably plenty for most kids. (Something on the order of 2-3 science APs, 2 History APs, 1 Math AP, 1 English AP, one foreign language AP plus extras in the kid’s area of interest.) My kds skipped English APs in favor of things they liked better.</p>
<p>If you look on the AP forum section, it will appear that most of the self-studied AP tests are the ones generally considered easier (e.g. human geography, environmental science, statistics), and which are also less likely to be given useful subject credit or placement in college.</p>
<p>The other possibly common case would be native or heritage speakers of foreign languages using the AP test to show such proficiency in the absence of high school course work (that would be too elementary for them).</p>
<p>Probably less common would be students at academically elite high schools with rigorous courses that are not labeled as AP courses who take the AP tests anyway.</p>
<p>Thank you mathmom and ucbalumnus for your kind responses. Do you believe that honor classes are perceived by college as “rigorous” enough? I do know AP classes are taken for future college credits. For example our D1 will be taking world history AP, honors chem., and honors algebra II along with regular English, band, P.E./Religion, and Spanish 2.</p>
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<p>Of course, you have to remember that CC is certainly not representative of the general population of high school kids (even of the college-going high school kids). Just because it seems prevalent here (from the kids that do post that information–this could also be a skewed or inaccurate sample) does not mean it’s the norm among the general population.</p>
<p>And it’s also hard to compare across schools. Every school is different in terms of how many AP courses they offer and how they structure the schedule of when to take those classes. Every school has a different norm, which is why students are often compared to other students at their school for what is considered a rigorous schedule. Different schools have different amounts of flexibility for how you can schedule your classes and how many you can take. My high school had 6 periods in a day but you could add on two extra periods if there was enough interest in a class to offer that–other schools may not have that option, which would limit the amount of classes a student could take. Some schools let students take AP science courses without taking the regular class first, others don’t. In some schools, it’s the norm to take AP Calc AB and then take BC. In other schools, you go straight to BC. Some schools let freshmen take AP classes, while others don’t. Some schools have semester long classes for some AP subjects (like government, econ, etc), while others don’t.</p>
<p>It all just depends on so many different factors. I took 10 AP classes at a public high school, which was fairly typical for the AP/honors track, give or take 1 or 2 AP classes. I didn’t self-study any tests–the only students I knew in high school who ever did that was for the music theory test, and they were all kids who excelled in music and got help from the bad teacher. If I hadn’t been in band, I probably could have taken more. On the other hand, my sister went to a private school, where taking that many AP classes would have been unheard of and took far fewer. That doesn’t mean she was less competitive or less prepared for college. We just went to school in different environments.</p>
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<p>It depends on where “honors” fits into the offered choices at the high school. Obviously, some courses cannot be taken as AP (e.g. algebra, geometry, precalculus). While many high schools have a simple system of “regular” and “honors” (with AP courses being the “honors” courses at the appropriate level, such as for calculus), some have three or four levels for any given course (which is probably too many, but you may have to make do with what is offered). For any given course, choosing the most rigorous option that one can do well in is the preferred choice for preparing for both college admissions and college itself.</p>
<p>It’s not that prevalent, but certainly doable. </p>
<p>I only took ~4 AP classes but took 10+ tests (can no longer remember exact number). Passed all but one. Honestly, to me, AP classes were boring and we had MUCH more interesting honors classes at my HS. I took the AP tests because I wanted to graduate early but ended up doing a dual degree instead. Plus, all of the AP subjects I took were classes I was interested in and just felt I would have a better HS experience if I self-studied those and then took other classes that were of interest to me. </p>
<p>I would recommend that if your D self-studies, it’s because SHE wants to do it and not because it might look better to a college. </p>
<p>“10-12 just seems so high that it’s hard to believe they actually took the classes.”</p>
<p>Not sure why you don’t believe this. My daughter took 12 AP classes in high school. She could easily have taken 16 or more AP classes but she chose to focus more on her interests than rack up every possible AP class.</p>
<p>My HS didn’t offer AP classes, but I took AP English and AP Calculus tests after the corresponding honors classes. Got out of Freshman English comp that way, and a semester of calculus. I could have taken the AP Chem test also, but as a ChemE major I was not trying to test out of chem.</p>
<p>In our public school, the honors track for core subjects includes 2-3 years of AP in social studies, usually 1 year AP in foreign language, 2 years AP in English, 2 years AP in math, and 1-4 years AP in sciences. That’s not including elective/special interests like econ, psych, stats, music theory, studio art, etc. Add it up.</p>
<p>My daughter took several AP tests without the course, including AP English comp; APUSH, and AP Psych (kind of). She studied abroad during her first semester of 11th grade, and because of that she was unable to schedule many AP courses. She completed 11th grade English (“honors” but not AP) by arranging independent study with the honors teacher; she enrolled in AP Psych for the spring only, although it’s a year long course; and she took honors American History rather than the AP class because of scheduling issues - though she had the same teacher and the teacher knew she intended to take the AP exam. </p>
<p>It’s not a matter of being overburdened – I think she only took 4 AP tests total, maybe 5… Even if she had not gone abroad, she probably would have taken honors rather than AP English in 11th grade, because she preferred a literature course to a composition course. </p>
<p>I took AP English years ago without an AP course. (I also took an unconventional path through high school, graduating after 3 years). It’s an easy test. Anyone who is well read, writes well, and has a good command of English grammar should be able o pass it. I think my daughter probably could have passed that exam when she was in the 6th grade. She spent maybe an hour reading an AP study guide to prepare. The Psych exam was easy, too – she also purchased an AP study guide (which I read for myself – I thought it was very interesting and easy to pick up the info from the guide). US History is a different matter – the test is hard, but there’s just wasn’t all that much difference between the “honors” and AP course, except perhaps that there was more time spend on learning history and less on exam prep in the honors course, which probably was an advantage. </p>
<p>I’d add that those 3 courses represented 9 units of college credit added to my daughter’s transcript. She did take AP econ, so she entered college with a full semester’s worth of AP credit. She benefited in the end with a light schedule her final semester, allowing her to focus her energies in the final semester before graduation on her senior thesis, part-time jobs, and seeking post-college employment. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s all that common for kids to take AP tests without having taken the AP class, or at least a comparable honors class. I know of only a few kids in our school who did this; all of them were highly motivated STEM inclined students seeking more challenge than our school’s offerings and enrollment rules allowed them–taking the calc BC exam after taking the calc AB class, or taking the Physics C exam after taking the Physics B class. You can find students on this site who are determined to self-study a bunch of APs (they almost always want the “easy” ones) with the idea that this will impress colleges. I’d never heard of anyone doing this before I saw it on this site. It’s not what the top students in our school are doing.</p>
<p>My son took the AP government exam this spring without taking the class. He had had the teacher for APUSH and just could not stomach another class with her. One of his friends advised him not to take the class and he could do just as well self-studying. He got a 4, which is good enough for his college. One of his classmates took AP Lit this spring. Again, she did not like the way the teacher instructed (my son, on the other hand, loved her). She got a 4 or 5 (cannot remember) without the class. </p>
<p>If a school offers both an honors and AP version of the class then you are probably better off taking the AP if you want the GC to check off the “most rigorous” box on the schedule. Other times the regular or honors class will be the prep class for the AP - so for example in our school you take either honors or regular Chem before the AP Chem course. Older son went on to take the AP, younger son did not. </p>
<p>Theoretically in our school you could fit in 13 APs, assuming you’d been in the advance track in middle school, but I don’t know anyone who did. Your schedule would look like this:</p>
<p>Freshman year: some AP elective that doesn’t have a prerequisite (like older son doing AP Comp Sci)
Sophomore year: AP World, and AP Physics B (which is no longer being offered)
Junior year: AP Bio, AP Eng Comp, APUSH, maybe a second AP science
Senior Year AP Physics C or Chem, AP Calc BC, AP foreign language, AP Gov or Econ, AP Euro, one of the AP art or music courses</p>
<p>Op,
If your kid goes to a well respected private prep school, then your HS GCs would how your kid’s schedule is evaluated in terms of rigor within the HS and how that will generally result in the placement of the kids into college. The GCs may also tell you (if asked directly) how many honors and AP classes your kid needs to take at the school to get the “most rigorous schedule” checked off on their GC LOR. I would say that it’s more important in the game of college admissions to have the “most rigorous” box checked off than having a boatload of APs.</p>
<p>On CC, (which is not representative of the general population) most of the kids with a ton of APs self study the “easy” APs such as
AP Human Geography
AP Macroeconomics
AP Microeconomics
AP Psychology
Seriously, kids will brag that they self studied for maybe a few days and then scored a 5.</p>
<p>Adcoms know that these are the easy APs when they are reviewing college apps. They probably form some opinion on the kid that self studies these (maybe hard worker? maybe kiss ass?) If one self studied a ton of APs, then you could get national AP scholar (8 APs) by end of Jr yr, where one could show it as an award when one is applying to college.</p>
<p>But really, at a well respected private prep school with low GC to student ratios and great matriculation lists, your GC is the best person to talk to about all of this.</p>
<p>Self-studying for APs without taking courses and getting 4-5s was commonplace enough that it was only noteworthy if someone who self-studied was found out/admitted he/she scored less than a 4. </p>
<p>Most classmates who self-studied did so because they wanted to “stick it” to the school admins whose rules made it so only students with 90 averages overall and within the subject concerned in prior courses could take AP courses.</p>
<p>And the APs typically taken were courses like Calculus AB & BC, at least 1 AP in the lab sciences and oftentimes more, English, European history, USH, and Govt. </p>
<p>Incidentally, among all the APs, APUSH was considered one of the “lightweight” ones by most HS classmates when I attended. </p>
<p>The reason for AP exams is that not all AP courses, just like Honors courses, are taught equally. An example- two boys took AP Chemistry. In different years and states. Both had the same composite score in a GT Explore test (different years/ages). One was a studier, got an A in his class but a 3 on the AP exam. The other got a 5 with the test taken one month before the end of school- he slacked off and got a C in the class. </p>
<p>Know of another boy who got a 5 in AP US History spring of his freshman year before taking even the regular course- he obviously had learned the material on his own and was excused from that class in HS. btw- he has a July birthday so he was not one of the oldest (Sept 1st cutoff).</p>
<p>It is possible to have 9 or 10 AP credits without much difficulty. Sophomores generally could start with some AP courses in our district without any special effort. In son’s HS APUSH and AP Physics could be taken without the regular version being taken first while Chemistry always preceded the AP version. Some schools do not offer AP versions of every course because they prefer to teach some different subject matter. </p>
<p>AP credits verify that you learned the material whereas grades do not. They can also garner college credits at many schools. Who knows how rigorous an Honors class is, regardless of the school’s reputation?</p>