<p>For admission to competitive colleges, how important are APs? Looking at college websites, it seems subject test are required - usually 3. Are APs just icing on the cake? If you do not care about getting college credit for the APs, are they just to impress? If SAT scores are high and you have other impressive transcript highlights, will the absence of APs cause your resume to be buried at the bottom of the pile? Thanks for any feedback ...</p>
<p>Taking AP courses is important. They show a rigorous schedule and inflate your GPA.
The exams are less important, but if you take the class, you might as well take the exams. It would look a little strange if you didn’t. The AP scores are self reported, and don’t mean all that much for admission, but they do help a little, particularly if you have many. </p>
<p>SAT Subjects are more important for admission in some cases, though many schools don’t really care to see subject tests at all. AP Exams are not too important, but taking AP courses is very important.</p>
<p>I don’t have any official confirmation, but from my understanding - it hurts you at the top colleges to not take AP classes, since most of the other applicants will be. Furthermore, it hurts to take an AP class and not take the test, or to take the test and get a low score (especially if you got a high grade in that class–colleges may wonder if your school may practice grade deflation then).
So basically, it’s more of an expectation than a help–but then again, if you don’t take APs, it doesn’t mean you’re out of the running if everything else is impressive. For example, if you donate tons of hours to volunteering afterschool or playing a sport, colleges will realize that you wouldn’t have been able to take on a full load of APs and still maintain a high GPA. Everything balances out.
Bottom line: APs count for course rigor, but the actual test scores don’t count for very much.</p>
<p>EDIT: I probably should’ve refreshed before posting, because I pretty much echoed Pancaked.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, SAT subject tests are more important for admissions, but AP tests are still important because you can get college credit for them. And just taking AP classes and doing well in them is probably more important than subject tests.</p>
<p>taking AP courses show colleges the level of difficulty for the classes you are taking. However, colleges dont see your AP exam scores until AFTER you get admitted into their school…so when applying to schools, your AP scores will be virtually unseen.
Subject tests (agreeing with pancaked here) are important for admissions at some schools but generally the SAT I is the main factor that will make or break you.</p>