My daughter has already been accepted and put her deposit down at her college of choice in our home state. She is taking AP English 4/Literature and consistently been earning B’s. However, she does not feel that she will be prepared for the exam in May. The university she will be attending next year does not give credit for anything lower than a 4 on the exam. She has a lot of anxiety about the exam it and does not want to take it. My question is 1) do colleges know if a new student coming in has taken the exam and 2) if they do know, does it matter to a college if a student doesn’t take an AP exam. Would it be better for her to attempt it even if she knows she will not get above a 3 on it and will not receive credit?
Thank you for any input.
Doesn’t sound like it would matter one way or the other. At my daughter’s school, grades for AP classes only get weighted IF the student takes the AP exam. Otherwise it is an unweighted grade. So in our case, the only way a college would know is if that unweighted grade had a significant impact on GPA, which would be rather unlikely at the end of senior year. Seems as though different high schools do it different ways. Further, you have to pay College Board to send AP test scores, and there would be no reason for you to if she doesn’t score high enough to get credit for it. From that the school has no way of knowing one way or the other if you took the test, just that you didn’t send them a score for one. Hope that makes sense.
Thank you @NorthernMom61. Your explanation makes total sense!! I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question.
No, the only time you would probably even report AP scores was if it was a college that accepts them for college credit, otherwise why even report them? In our school if you sign up for an AP class the AP test IS the final exam grade and is factored into the final class grade: a 1 is an A, a 2 is a B, a 3 is a C etc. if you don’t take the test you get a big fat zero for the exam… but even then that is reflected on the profile…it does not say “The AP test score is the final exam grade” and the class is treated the same as the other non-branded rigorous classes at our high school and if it is a college that accepts AP scores for credit you still have to submit the AP score to the college. Obviously others report often on this forum that the AP test is “optional.” But our high school does not offer a plethora of AP branded classes and are simply included in a list (on the high school profile) of the “most rigorous classes.”
If your daughter took the AP course as a junior, the colleges she applied to would notice that she did not report an AP test score. So they would assume that she either didn’t take the test or did poorly on it.
But she’s a senior. She’s already admitted. Unless her high school requires students to take the AP test (or strongly twists their arms to do so), there’s no reason why she would need to take it if she doesn’t want to. And if she does take it, she doesn’t need to report the score unless she wants to.
Colleges don’t know, and likely will not care. However, if I were her, and there were potential for credit, I would take the test, and not send it if the score were not high enough. Or send it 
While you have to pay to send scores after the AP exam, one can indicate the college on the answer sheet at the AP exam, and the score is sent for “free” (It’s probably buried in the price of the exam). The scores go to the registrar’s office, not admissions. But the reality is, she’s already in; they won’t rescind even for a 1.
@momofthreeboys While your grading scale would make a lot of kids happy, I think you meant 5=A, 4=B…
Yes sorry that I reversed!
@NorthernMom61 Our high doesn’t weight grades, but I was under the assumption that schools that do weight grades do so because AP and honors courses are much more challenging, thus for class rank a kid taking AP and honors courses and getting all As would rank ahead of a kid taking regular classes and getting all As. So I’m curious what your school’s reasoning is behind not weighting the grade unless you take the test? Does the weight depend on your score? The student took the class, did all the work required, and got some grade…seems to me requiring them to take the exam for the grade to be weighted is essentially asking them to pay for the weight, unless the weighted grade is some how linked to a score on the exam.
@Mark1965 I wish I could answer your question, but to be truthful I don’t know. How one does on the exam has no result on the weighting. My guess is that the school wants to make sure students have the incentive to go through with taking the exams. Also,honors classes are not weighted either. I didn’t realize how varied high schools are on how they weight things until I joined CC.
You could look at it the other way…what is the downside to taking the AP? So she gets a 3? What is the downside an their may be an upside.
Our high school requires students to take the exam. I think the reasoning is that it both makes sure the teachers stay on track and that students (especially seniors) don’t slack off at the end of the year. I also think many high school students make the “logical” choice not to take AP exams because they think “I’m going to a college that doesn’t accept them” or “I need to retake the course anyway” or “I don’t think I’m going to do well enough.”
If my younger son had listened to his AP World teacher he’d have gotten a 2 on the exam - instead he was one of the few kids in the class to get a 5. Kids transfer from colleges. They get sick or get less credit for time abroad than they hoped and suddenly AP credits they didn’t think they needed are very useful. The $100 or so that they cost is far less than another semester in college.
Our high school requires that students take the test. I’m not sure how they enforce that for seniors, because they are done with classes before the tests in most cases. Even graduation is before all of the tests (our school year starts and ends early).
Our seniors were “required” to take the tests too. However, school for seniors had ended before the tests and for most of the students whose scores did not matter, they either doodled on the test or just sat there and stared into space. A total waste of my money. Again, this is just another indication of how different high school experiences can be. Even as the parent, at this point I was beyond caring. After 13 years of tippy top school performance, stress, over achieving and angst, I just wanted my D to be a laid back carefree student for a whopping 2-3 weeks of her whole school career. Does this work for everyone, no way. Please don’t waste your time telling me our way was wrong and I am not advocating it for anyone else (though it is truly the norm at her former hs). She turned out fine.
I took 2 AP classes as a senior back in the dark ages. My high school didn’t require the test. I knew I was going to a school that used them only for placement so I didn’t take either one. If I had been made to take them I might not have been terribly motivated at that point.
I would only take the AP test if the HS required it as part of the AP class.
For those of you whose high schools require you to take tests, are the tests paid for by the school?
Even those few hundred dollars can be a substantial burden to families.
My kid’s school puts the AP test scores on the transcript. If we had known that ahead of time, my kid would not have taken a particular AP test.
You can always request to have it removed. They may say no, but it never hurts to ask.
I did and they did say no. I mentioned it so the OP could check with her kid’s school to see if they do this. I would not encourage my kid to take an AP test they feel they won’t do well on if the score will go on the transcript and can’t or won’t be removed.
In the long run, it didn’t matter for my kid - happy at the chosen school and it didn’t seem to make a difference to them.