How many aps should I take to have a shot at Tulane ? I’ve only had the opportunity to take 5 so far (I’ve taken 4, APUSH AP BIO APHUG AP LANG) but next year I will have more options and I want to have a really strong chance for admission bc Tulane is my top choice school.
I took about 9 APs, but it’s about that old adage, “quality, not quantity.” Don’t take too many APs to the point where you’re pulling your hair out or to the point where you’ll failing. Take the ones you genuinely want to take or know you need for college. I think you have a good number right now, but taking more is fine, as long as you’re not doing it in subjects that don’t make sense with what you’re interested in/your preferred major(s). That said, it’s best to do well because TU takes your AP credit as college credit if you get 4s and 5s (I think 3s, for a select few more difficult subjects). Out of my 9 APs, only 5 or 6 actually counted for any credit because I didn’t pass the other 3-4 with a high enough score (and I HATED the subjects).
@iamanxioushelp Take as many as you can handle successfully. My oldest son took 12 AP’s and only received one B. It made sense for him to take them. He got 4’s and 5’s on the AP exams. But, we pushed our daughter this year to take four AP’s as a junior and it has totally overwhelmed her. She has all B’s in her AP’s and has had to work really hard to get those B’s. She only feels comfortable attempting 3 of the 4 upcoming AP exams. We wonder now if she would have been better off not taking so many AP’s in terms of the affect on her admissions application next year. We have never really worried so much about the college credit aspect of the AP’s because we figured schools like Tulane graduate most of their students in four years anyways.
Just to throw my two cents in here, our daughter took only 4 APs(Global History, Statistics, Calc BC and Latin) in a large public high school in which many more were offered. She has a very busy extra curricular schedule and although she had always been a fairly disciplined student, we didn’t want to see her unecessarily stressed out(warnings from her GC) or have her GPA suffer too much. A well balanced existence is very important in our house. At another college information session with an admissions director, we were told that if a school offers 30 APs and you only choose to take 5, you most likely will not be an attractive candidate. We never had that impression regarding Tulane, although from reading the admitted students’ posts this Spring, I have been surprised by the academic rigor of many of the applicants’ histories.
D applied ED this year and was admitted for Fall 2018 with merit aid. We are thrilled for her not only in that we feel she ended up in a great place, but that she didn’t sacrifice her mental health to get there.
Tulane will be fine with 4-6 total (8 if you want to push yourself).
I took 1 AP my senior year and got accepted with $30k a year