<p>Here’s an idea; if your school threatens to roll you back to “honors” if you don’t take the AP exam, just say “Fine, please send me that regulation on school letterhead so that I can forward it to my college”.</p>
<p>I wonder if OP- “bmwguy” is inherently frugal or just has a case of senioritis. </p>
<p>IMO the school is being pretty reasonable in letting him switch out to an ‘honors’ level.</p>
<p>My D’s school requires it but even if it didn’t, I would not allow my D to skip out of the exam.</p>
<p>If you’re a junior taking an AP class, and the school threatens to move you to an honors class, it could impact your weighted GPA. At our school, AP classes are weighted higher than honors classes.</p>
<p>At my kids’ private HS, when you enroll in an AP, you agree you WILL take the exam. As far as I know, no exceptions are allowed. My S even chose to self-study & take additional APs, even after he had maxed out the AP credits his U would accept. I was happy to pay for them, as it was something he wanted to do.</p>
<p>When it is a financial hardship, it is something worthwhile to discuss with the school. If the student and family don’t want to pay and don’t want student to take exam, that is a discussion that should happen before registration period ends. If you truly don’t want to take the AP exam, you should discuss the matter with the school to see why they want you to take it & see what you can all work out.</p>
<p>It does help show the rigor of the school when LOTS of their student body take APs & score well. They do list those stats in their profile when they inform Us about their school & student body. At some schools, most of the kids take APs (sometimes quite a few of them) and at some of those schools, most of the students score 4s & 5s (that was our kids’ HS). At other schools, few kids take APs and fewer get 3 or higher. This helps Us an additional yardstick to compare schools, in addition to comparing test score profiles, demographics, GPAs, NMFs, etc.</p>
<p>2 years ago in my S’s senior year, he had a friend who took the AP Comp. Sci. class. The teacher was new to our district that year and was not good (S had him for another computer course). His friend decided at the end of the year, the AP class had not prepared him for the exam, so there was no point taking the exam. The administration tried to insist that he take it, but his friend refused. (And we have to pay the full cost of the exams). The administration PUNISHED him by not allowing him to participate in all the senior events at the end of the year. Totally unfair.</p>
<p>The next year, it was printed in the catalog that if you take an AP course, you must take the AP exam. Fine, but that was not stated anywhere the year my son’s friend was involved.</p>
<p>This is the policy in our state as well. In order to receive the bump in your GPA for the course, you must take the exam. However, the state currently pays for the exam.</p>
<p>On the other hand, even kids who don’t want the credits, want to take the exams, at least at my kids’ high school, because they are competitive with each other and also generally want to do well for the teacher. (By far, the best teachers at our high school are the AP ones.)</p>
<p>But again, the state pays for them.</p>
<p>At my son’s school, you have to take the exam in order to get the bump up in GPA. The student pays unless there is hardship.</p>
<p>Last year, my son was accepted early action to a college that would only accept one of the four APs he took senior year. To his credit, my son studied and did his best on all four, because he knew that this was important to the teachers/school. </p>
<p>We qualified for the fee waiver. I was embarrassed to ask for it, but my son had no qualms because he said he was doing the school a favor (his words, not mine!).</p>
<p>In my senior year, (i think about when the matthew’s list started being published), a bunch of our AP teachers tried to force us to take the AP test (and pay for them) by threatening more assignments if we didn’t. Since that had never been a policy before, a bunch of parents complained and the policy was reversed. If you’re not going to take the credit, then each AP test you take is a waste of $90, which I’m sure could be better spent on college. I assume that there are a lot of families who may not qualify for free lunch, but with college coming up don’t have much extra money to give to ETS</p>
<p>Did you not know when you signed up for the AP classes that taking the exam was a requirement?</p>
<p>You took that risk - of signing up for the course and now you don’t need the test. Chances are the school has bought the tests already.
I say suck it up and take the tests.
Even if your college won’t take the scores - there are benefits. BTW - I would be interested to learn which college won’t accept ANY AP score.</p>
<p>What if your college doesn’t work out and you transfer? The college to which you transfer might take the credits and you would be ahead.
There is a benefit to the experience of sitting through an AP test. This is a great experience for any college bound student.</p>
<p>If you are not going to take the exam there is no point in taking an AP course. The whole purpose of the course is to prepare you to pass that test.</p>
<p>About AP English - right about there being a Lang exam and a Lit exam. Some high schools teach this as two different courses. Many including my kids’ AP Eng teachers teaches it as ONE course in the Senior year. The kids took two exams.</p>
<p>applicannot – You are of course correct. I was thinking of English LANGUAGE and Composition, which is a second English curriculum. Regardless, I am concerned from what I have seen of the proposed syllabus that our school’s version of AP English Lit and Comp will be inadequate preparation for the exam and I can’t see any justification for spending the money on it if my D is not adequately prepared to have a decent shot at a 4 or 5.</p>
<p>We have to pay for the exams but they are truly optional. (Under California state law, if the school district required them, the district would have to pay.) Of course, this this just kills our Gov teacher bcos the best kids in the class do not take the test since Stanford and a several other highly selectives do not award credit for AP Gov.)</p>
<p>The AP track in our high school has the best teachers. I just shelled out $390 (5 tests). Our school has an excellent record of 4’s and 5’s. My son is expecting to bring 40 credits to college-3’s and up count for credit. My past experience is not that the kids can graduate early but that they have the flexibility to possibly double major or certainly have the ability to explore more non-major classes. I don’t gripe when I write that check. I think it is worth it in our case.</p>
<p>So your college won’t give you college credit for your APs…but is there no benefit at all? At many colleges, having AP scores above a certain level gets you out of a prerequisite course & lets you skip ahead to a higher level, gets you out of taking a placement exam to determine your appropriate level in languages or math or writing courses, etc. I’d investigate that with your college before you abandon the idea of taking the AP tests.</p>
<p>I’ve got a junior and a senior with AP-heavy schedules. That was a BIG check to write this year!</p>
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<p>excellent point!</p>
<p>Our school district requires AP and IB exams in order to get weighted credit, but they pay for all exams. I don’t know how long that’s going to last with the current budget shortfalls…</p>
<p>For S, the maximum # of AP credits or credits he could take for college courses he took prior to starting at his private U was 32. He had many more credits from APs & also a college course he had taken. The 32 credits didn’t exempt him out of much but DID allow him to have higher priority in registering since he was “a year ahead” in credits all the time. Most of his classmates at the U were too, so those who weren’t were disadvantaged. This allows for better scheduling–preferred times & profs.</p>
<p>The credits in excess of the 32 don’t really “help” but he collected them all anyway. If he had attended another school, he would have started as a 2nd semester sophomore due to all his credits instead of a 1st semester sophomore. For his major, EE, he needs to take so many engineering courses at his U, he won’t graduate early anyway but can take a lighter courseload and a few more “fun” courses.</p>
<p>If you’re attending a public school, I am not sure that they can force you to pay for an AP exam. It may depend on the laws in effect in your state, and in particular, how your state’s constitution and laws interpret “free public education”. For example, in our state, public schools may assess fees, but students may not be prohibited from taking a class if they refuse or are unable to pay the fees. Additionally, schools may not assess fees that were not previously (before the end of the previous school year) approved by name and specific amount by the district’s board of education, and some kinds of fees (like textbook fees, or field trip bus fees) are explicitly prohibited by the legislature. Now there are a lot of violations of these rules – and I’ve certainly paid fees that seemed reasonable to me even if they didn’t meet the letter of the law, but if someone wants to get technical then the district doesn’t have much standing. But that’s in our state. Yours will have its own laws.</p>
<p>My view of whether this is “fair” comes down to fore knowledge–Were you informed the test was required when your child signed up for the class?
At my son’s school, I had to sign a statement stating that we would pay for IB test costs (over $1300) if he failed to take the exams. I had to return the signed agreement before the school would in order the IB tests. As long as he takes them, school picks up the whole tab.</p>
<p>At our school, it was NOT printed anywhere that if you took an AP course that you must take the exam. We did not have to sign anything for it either. The year after S’s friend refused to take the exam because the teacher had not prepared them and the friend was punished for not taking it, the school THEN put it in the catalog that the test was required.</p>
<p>Our school subsidizes the cost of AP tests for anyone who shows financial need. You agree to take the test when you sign up for the course. Keep in mind that while the school your son plans on attending may not accept his AP scores, if he should change his mind and transfer to another school, he might be happy to have those scores to use at a later date. I actually ended up getting credit for my AP courses in a round about way in grad school.</p>