<p>I just finished up my Junior year in High School. I'm planning on applying to some top schools this fall- Harvard, Princeton, and UChicago. Before this spring, I had no idea that homeschoolers could take APs. I'm really excited about getting to take APs, and I'm planning on doing 3 this fall. (My senior year). In order to call them APs on my transcript, I have to go through the AP Course Audit. Someone said that it wasn't worth it to self-study APs only Senior year, because then colleges have no way of knowing if you take the actual AP test. So my question is, Is it worth it to go through the AP Audit and everything to take APs next year? If not, I'll still study the topics, since I'm genuienly intrested in them. But I won't go through the Audit if it won't have any bearing on my college apps. Any tips? Thanks for reading this far, I really appreciate it. :)</p>
<p>Taking the AP classes is still a good idea. When you prepare your "Homeschool Transcript" as part of your applications, you will, of course, explain that you successfully survived the audit process, and you'll get some "Brownie Points" from admission officials for that alone. Sure, you'd get a lot more of 'em if you already had good scores on your AP exams to show them, too. But, even without test results, taking the AP classes should be challenging for you and will help prepare you for the college work ahead. Also, if you look even further down the road, it's possible that you might decide to take a gap year (e.g., especially if you don't get good news from your top-choice colleges next spring) or you might enroll somewhere and later decide to transfer. In both of those situations, your AP exam results may come in very handy, even if you can't get any mileage out of them this time around.</p>
<p>Great, thank you. :)</p>
<p>You're welcome. The other obvious point I forgot to mention is that, if you take AP exams before you head to college and do well on them, you will probably get credit at the college you select. Depending on how many credits you end up with, this may help you to accelerate and graduate early, if you so choose (good money-saver!), or your AP results might get you out of required classes and/or into more advanced ones.</p>