<p>Take for example AP Environmental Science vs. AP Bio. I think everyone can admit that the latter is more difficult. Will colleges take this into account with AP scores and GPA consideration?</p>
<p>Yes, I think it is fair to say that if “everyone can admit” something that the college admissions staff is also aware of it. </p>
<p>That I know, I was just wondering if it’s a significant factor :)</p>
<p>I think they just look at how many you take in proportion to how many are offered at your school. So I don’t think they really consider difficulty as much as how well you do on the tests and classes. After all, there are some APs which can be considered hard for some people but easier for others. Like maybe someone might think AP Spanish is easier than AP French and vice versa. So no the difficulty shouldn’t be a significant factor, at least I don’t think it is. </p>
<p>And frankly I think they also consider what you want to do. A friend’s son took AP Enviro, never took AP Bio and is at a top 10 school…studying environmental engineering. He tied in his interest in eng and the environment and taking AP Enviro made perfect sense in that context.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2 relevant point, but AP Bio is actually quite relevant to AP Enviro as well, so it goes either way I suppose.</p>
<p>Even the same AP subject/s level of difficulty/grading from school to school vary so much; that sure affects GPA! So, I hope the AP exam score is taken into account since its a common measure to all students.
It’s not fair that GPA is given so much weight-age when there is such difference in grading from Teacher to teacher and school to school and cheating is so rampant in some schools.</p>