<p>So, I have AP exams this upcoming week, and I heard there is a section that asks you if you want your scores to automatically be sent prior to your seeing them, or if you want to wait and send them on your own. Now, I know automatic is free, and if you wait it costs $10 each. My question is, if our AP scores won’t benefit us anyway (aren’t used for placement in our selected courses), can we choose not to send them at all?</p>
<p>My son’s question is, if AP scores won’t benefit him, why take the tests to begin with?</p>
<p>OP: Lot of schools offer AP courses but dont force them to take the test. So if you took AP classes but your school is not rigorous, how does the college know your A in the class is hard to get? The only way to judge is if you have taken the test everyone else took so there is a comparable score, no different than SAT or ACT. Whether you send them without knowing the score or after is upto you. </p>
<p>bedford - Most schools give you credit for AP scores. So why does your son think it won’t benefit him?</p>
<p>if you’re taking the test, why WOULDN"T you send them? It’s free, if you do well, you could place out of intro courses if you want. No one is going to force you to skip intro classes if you didn’t want to. Basically, I see ZERO downside to sending them if you’re taking them.</p>
<p>The answer is yes, though. You are never forced to send your scores.</p>
<p>Daughter did not send any AP scores. She took them with the same seriousness, but she just decided not to send them. Her school would not have given her credit for the class if she did not take the test.</p>
<p>texaspg, Brown is not most schools. … Son will take Spanish AP this week (for placement purposes, though I know there is also a placement test offered, which he could have taken instead), but not the AP Gov test next week, I don’t think (he took the class last semester, it’s not his area of interest, plus Brown does not give credit for it). As for Music Theory – which is an area of strong interest – Brown also does not give credit for that, though he may take the test for his own satisfaction.</p>
<p>Bedford - Is he in at Brown already? If so, he does nt have to take any tests. Who cares about APs once you are in right?</p>
<p>What? Don’t you just self report?</p>
<p>I will be sending in my scores to brown. I took the ap chemistry test and this will be looked at for placement. If i decide to take french at brown, my score for french ap will be observed. Ive read that if a statistics or psychology course were to be to easy because of ap experience, i could opt out if i get a 4/5. My ap government and english lit will have no credit awarded i believe.</p>
<p>Sending scores are only beneficial i think. Not required to send scores But i would consider sending scores for ap science, calculus, and any language for example …or materials you have already mastered may be retaught to you unnecessarily. I got a 4 on calc bc (brown’s math 100) but 3 on both the ab subscore and the original calc ab (math 90); with a 4 on bc im allowed to choose from the next 3 levels of math. My ab and bc score as well as the fact that i took the test last year will help me decide which i feel ready for when i select my math course
Its all to help see where you should belong.</p>
<p>mordred,</p>
<p>self report will probably work for most departments, but if you’re using AP scores to place out of any grad school (including med school) requirements you need something official</p>
<p>“self report will probably work for most departments, but if you’re using AP scores to place out of any grad school (including med school) requirements you need something official”</p>
<p>Ill say this very quickly, because even though its possible to place out of pre-med and other grad school reqs, it is unadvisable. Schools use pre-reqs are ways to determine potential. Testing out of classes makes your life easier at the undergrad level, but can be a headache if you want to move on. </p>
<p>I’ll give you an example. I tested out of all math at the college level. I made it all the way through undergraduate school without taking a single course (except business stats, but thats not important). When I went to apply for my first MS, which was tailored into my post-bac experience, I was told before I could attend 6 out of 7 schools, I would need to take basic stats (which I had already tested out of). On top of that, as a grad student, I was told in order to apply to competitive medical and public health schools, I had to have taken AT LEAST calculus as an undergrad or grad.</p>
<p>Now, this seems silly; I had placed out of everything. However, the caliber of high school education (really, regardless of what you score on your AP tests) can vary. Schools won’t take the chance on someone who MIGHT be good enough, when there are plenty of people who are CLEARLY good enough to attend. </p>
<p>Another example, in order to complete even an Master’s in Public Health, you have to take five core classes at the school you are attending, regardless of whether or not you’ve taken them before. Finishing my MS, I had taken the majority of the core classes I needed to finish my MPH; however, I have to retake those classes in order to graduate from Brown (or any other graduate school) to show I can compete at this level. To the best of my knowledge, this is how most graduate and medical schools operate. </p>
<p>Graduate school is a whole different world than undergraduate. If you are interested in going further in your education, you really have to plan for these things from day one.</p>
<p>^This discussion is often moot in the Brown context, because Brown has no requirements.</p>
<p>Perhaps for undergrad, but like every other grad and medical school even Brown has required courses. It has to to be accredited under the various degrees. Also Brown may not require core undergrad courses but that does not exempt its students from requirements as posted by their respective grad programs. Just because Brown doesn’t make you take doesn’t mean you don’t have to if you plan on going further.</p>
<p>Dont get me wrong, I fully support OC, but students need to know there are increased expectations of responsibility in it as well. Its very easy and costly to overlook these types of things.</p>
<p>^I was just referring to the specific point you were making, which is that people sometimes ill-advisedly make the choice to use AP credits get out of undergraduate requirements only to find out that they are later required as pre-reqs for grad programs. The example that you gave is that you tested out of a math requirement in college only to find that you needed math for grad programs. That point generally doesn’t apply to people at Brown, because of the curriculum.</p>
<p>It is undoubtedly true that people should be sensitive to grad school requirements as they progress through their undergraduate program. I was just responding to the specific point about the choice to use AP credits.</p>
<p>I can assure everyone that A LOT of kids applying to med school will have placed out of some if not all calculus, CH10, and BI20, all of which are still counted towards your Pre-med requirements (i.e. appear on AMCAS transcript). I never heard of anyone at Brown having issues with using AP credit instead of taking the course.</p>