A question came up that colleges can rescind your acceptance if you do not take your AP exams for any senior year AP classes. Have you ever seen this done? For example, a senior takes 4 AP classes senior year, and has been accepted to her state public flagship, however since her AP Calc AB class will not give her college credit for a 3 or lower AP exam score, she decides not to take the AP exam in May 2020. In this scenario, the high school class grade is not dependent on the results of the AP exam.
Can this university rescind their offer to this senior?
Can they? Sure they can rescind for any number of reasons. Will they? No.
Has it ever happened? Not that I have ever ever heard of.
I have heard (apocryphally) of colleges who stated that they expect students to take the exams as listed on their applications. My response has always been that if the college wants to credit the tuition bill the $94 exam fee, I will gladly sit in the exam room and doodle for 3 hours. I will also tell you that when I called my college to ask if there was an issue with not taking the exams, the woman laughed at me.
If the university wants you to take the AP exams, they almost certainly would have stated that in the acceptance letter they sent to you. I’ve also never heard of that being a requirement.
And even then, one is entitled to change one’s mind, particularly if “her state public flagship” uses the Common App, where 10 different schools have 10 different AP credit policies. I suppose one can avoid this hypothetical by simply not listing planned testing dates.
^Some colleges have honor codes and they expect you to live by the codes even before enrollment. I’d check with the admission office if you’ve indicated on the application that you would take the exam(s) but have since changed your mind.
Seems rather hypothetical if you are in California (as your username suggests), since the UCs and CSUs do give credit units for a 3 or higher on AP calculus AB. Subject credit and advanced placement does vary between campuses, divisions, and majors, but a score of 3 getting subject credit is not out of the question (however, it would be advisable for the student to try the college’s old final exams of calculus 1 before deciding whether to take advanced placement, particularly with a score of 3).
Is the hypothetical student confident that s/he will not score higher than a 3 on the AP calculus AB exam?
OK, now we’re totally getting into the apocryphal “I saw it on Reddit so it must be true” scenario. Yes, most, if not all, colleges will have a moral behavior clause in their offer, but it is beyond a stretch to equate not taking an AP exam with violating honor code. Yes, certainly tell the college that you will not take the exam, but expect no ramifications for failing to not take. I will say though, in agreement with @ucbalumnus , unless the HS has had a history of having the majority of students score a 2, it’s way too early to presume that a student could not score a 3 in the OP’s example. Anyway, at this point, I’m out I’ve expressed my opinion and don;t want to violate ToS by belaboring.
At top colleges do they ask you on the application if you are taking any future AP exams and when? If so, why would they ask this if they ultimately don’t care if you took the exams senior year or not.
Another poster said that MIT and Princeton told her child that she could be subject to a rescinded offer if she did not take the AP exams? I’m just confused as I have seen conflicting reports and now that the College Board is making you sign up for AP exams early by November 15th, maybe colleges want to see that you are planning take these exams senior year?
I guess if one is so terribly worried, just take the exam.
Just another anecdote, but D1 never submitted one of her senior scores that directly related to her major, but was uselessly low.
We talk all the time on CC about not submitting a soph or junior AP score that is low, with the app. Many colleges dont require you to report AP scores, right?
Rather than hearsay, I’d say look for what the college says, in writing.
It’s the Common App that asks for test dates. Not top colleges.
What top colleges are we talking about? The Common App does not specifically ask " if you are taking any future AP exams and when?" The AP score reporting section is entirely optional.
Goes back to my comments about apocryphal stories. And I don’t recall the OP coming back to say that the admissions offer was in fact rescinded.
For any highly selective school, an admitted student has to mess up pretty badly to get an offer rescinded. The college went through the exercise and clearly wants the kid. I’m unsure how worrying about outcomes in August in a clearly hypothetical situation is productive. But your initial question was:
If you know by 11/15 that you will or will not be taking the AP exam (because you will have signed up or not), then that is before college applications are due, where you can note whether or not you intend to take the exam if such a question is asked.
You are dealing with 2 separate issues: one is the AP exam issue and the other is The AP classroom issue. Many schools have in their AP course syllabi that if you are in the class, you take the exam.
If you don’t take the exam the classroom teacher can and most likely will lower your grade (possibly failing you because sitting for the exam is big). This would be what gets your admission rescinded, not your grade on the exam.
Now, this I have have seen done first hand, and as the school, administratively, we do not intervene (by requesting that the teacher must change their grade if it negatively impacts the student), because students and families are told the rules of being in an AP class before they apply and are programmed for the course. Parent and student must sign the AP contract, that states student and parent understands that student must remain in the class for the academic year (if a full year course) or the term (for a semester course) and you must take the exam). This must be done before your fall program is finalized; no signed contract, no class.
Get a copy of the class syllabus. Make sure that you and your daughter fully understand the terms of being in the AP class.
@skieurope thanks for your replies. I’m asking because D20 who will be taking 4 AP classes senior year stated that she might only take 2 of the exams next spring and I wanted to get some clarification if upon acceptance to college(s) there is any stated policy in the acceptance letter that says anything about taking the AP exams?
@lookingforward for reference, I did review UCLA’s website as you suggested and there is absolutlely no mention of rescinding an offer if the applicant chooses not to take the AP exam and we don’t have an offer of acceptance in hand to read the actual language in the acceptance letter to get clarification.
I am asking the question here because I thought CC had a lot of experience and knowledge in college acceptance practices and might know the answer?
@sybbie719 D20’s high school does not require students to sit for the AP exam but if they do some teachers will give them one letter grade higher in the class if they score 5.
My question relates to colleges recinding an offer if a student does not sit for the AP exam for which they are taking the class senior year.
I have never had a student’s admission rescinded for not taking the AP. As I have stated, I have seen a student’s grade lowered/failing for not taking the exam. As long as your school gives no penalty if a student does not sit, then you are good.
It must be in the syllabus that the AP exam score is part of the grade and is applied equally to all students otherwise it is against our city’s academic policy to raise/change a grade based on getting a 5 on the exam.
If the grade is part of the exam it must be in the syllabus and must effect all students equally; if you are getting raised for a 5, you get lowered for getting under 3 because the exam score is a percentage of everyone’s grade.
Rescission is very rare and the cause is generally not due to a failure to take an AP exam. However, there’re situations under which a college may need AP exam scores to validate a student’s performance in some AP classes, or a student may have indicated in her/his application that s/he would take the exams to alleviate potential concerns about her/his weakness in certain areas. Under those circumstances, I’d advise to take the exams, or at least contact the admission to make sure it wouldn’t be an issue not to take the exams.
We’re confusing class requirements to take the exam, adcoms reading existing AP scores you choose to send, for an admit, what happens when you send the final grades to your admitted college, and college credits for classes.
All I see for UCLA is: “If you passed any Advanced Placement (AP) or higher level International Baccalaureate (IB) exams you must have official results sent to UCLA by the testing agency to receive credit.”
See how that’s focused on credit? Don’t most AP results come after final grades are sent?
The college’s offer of admission will almost certainly have conditions. UCLA (and all UCs) have a separate acceptance contract attached to the acceptance. Assuming that the acceptance contract does not specifically state that the student needs to take all her AP exams, the academic issues that needs to be communicated are:
Given that the HS does not require the AP exam to be taken, and that not taking the exam does not impact either the grade or the course name, there should be no issue. That said, if she gets accepted and decides to attend, there really is nothing to lose (assuming she’s not pre-med, which is an entirely separate conversation) by taking the exam for any course that the college will potentially give credit, which IIRC for UCLA is every subject other than Capstone. Now if she ends up attending a college that only gives credit for 5’s in some subjects,my advice would probably be different, although some users advise to take any AP exam in case the student ultimately transfers. But then you’re really getting into case-by-case analysis.
