<p>to the people who say 4's are bad:</p>
<p>in the past 3 years at my school every year there has been at least 1 person get into harvard.</p>
<p>everyone of those students have received at least 4 4's</p>
<p>4's arent that atrocious. </p>
<p>also, im not saying it because i have a bunch of 4's. i have all 5's</p>
<p>to the person on bio
ap bio is a relatively easy test, just read and memorize, simply as that kind of like history. its possible to self study and very possible to get a 5 with self study. as for online courses, i took the course as a self study so i wouldnt know. but if you take it at school, dont take it online</p>
<p>"to the people who say 4's are bad:</p>
<p>in the past 3 years at my school every year there has been at least 1 person get into harvard.</p>
<p>everyone of those students have received at least 4 4's</p>
<p>4's arent that atrocious. "</p>
<p>I can't believe Harvard would dilute their student body with such trash. :)</p>
<p>Honestly, four 4s might not be bad, but if someone took 12 classes and got four 4s it would look different than four classes with four 4s.</p>
<p>AP scores don't matter very much at all. I forgot to report my AP scores, no one cared when I applied, I slept through one of my AP tests as well, got a 2, no one cared, it's just a big waste of time and money. </p>
<p>If I could do it again I would not even have bothered taking the AP tests. </p>
<p>And the whole "Oooo! You get AP credit at college!" crap my school only counts like one of the AP scores, so it was a complete waste of time taking 6 AP tests, because they didn't even look at them.</p>
<p>1 or 2 will hurt
3 will neither help nor hurt
4 or 5 will help</p>
<p>what are you talking about? I got two 1's, four 2's, and two 3's (I went to a terrible high school). Nonetheless, I got accepted to 9 out of the 11 colleges I applied to. </p>
<p>I don't really think they mean that much.
And I don't really agree that they show how well you will do in college. </p>
<p>I have excellent abilities to do well, however, the level I was taught at was just not at a high enough level for AP tests. </p>
<p>I am very confident in my ability to do well in college, regardless of my AP scores. </p>
<p>And anyway, I can't believe there are people who say anything less than a 5 is bad. If you even pass(3+) an AP test at my school, people will think you're a genius. I find this different perspective very interesting.</p>
<p>And I think your abilities and motivation showed in that you took 8 APs despite going to a "terrible high school." The colleges may have given you the benefit of the doubt for those scores, esp if your are a URM, underprivilaged, or an athlete.</p>
<p>Also, I can see from your post history that you were saludatorian of your HS, which is probably way more important than what AP scores you get.</p>
<p>Yes, I find some of these perspectives very interesting as well. At my former high school, merely passing an AP test was an accomplishment. The AP courses did not prepare a student for the exam. If you wanted to do well, you pretty much had to reteach it all to yourself. </p>
<p>Great example: My school did not offer two AP courses I wanted to take. So, I designed the classes as independent studies, preparing curriculums myself and being my own teacher. I took both exams and scored a 5 on both.
On the other hand, I took 9 AP courses that were taught at my school and needless to say, the record was not so great (One 2, Four 3s, Four 4s). </p>
<p>Does anyone else go to high schools where AP scores are clearly not a priority, and teachers get really excited if they had any 4s, let alone a 5?
My school was a large public high school (2000 students) in NC. </p>
<p>HOWEVER, in going along with this threat, my lower AP scores did not hurt my admission or scholarship options at any of the 9 schools to which I applied. I received multiple nice merit scholarships and top 5 acceptances, with my modest AP profile. I mean, come on, that record still gave me AP Scholar with Honor. I think we beat ourselves up way too much about the level of expectations admissions offices have for such things. APs were designed to provide options for collegiate study on the high school level in various areas of interest. They have now inundated our schools and our 'competitive high school culture' with yet another way to try to get ahead. </p>
<p>As a college student, I have permission to say this now!! DON'T WORRY about little things such as making a couple of low AP scores. My university has a faculty that includes the chief readers and test writers for a good number of AP subjects. I talked to one (US History) before matriculating and she discussed her opinion of the AP tests, stating: 'They are exceptionally rigorous. Who should expect any teacher, anywhere to teach a college-level course in such a broad area such as american history, without more than the slightest idea of what will be on the exam.' THINK ABOUT THIS: We are trying to score perfectly on the maximum number of tests possible, where we have nothing more than the broadest generalization of what will be on any of them. And these are subject tests, not aptitude tests. Anyway, enough of my AP ranting!!</p>
<p>SO, my suggestion to everyone. Take the AP exams, do your best, but if you don't score, don't worry about it. Worry more about your interests, your extracurriculars, your academic passions, and it is a heckava lot easier to be a competitive candidate at a tier 1 school by focusing on that than it is to worry about whether you made a 3 or a 5 on a 2 hour test of a subject you may never study again!</p>
<p>at my school, its the opposite perspective.
if you got a 4 in BC Calc, ppl make fun of you the first day of school..</p>
<p>yea its the opposite here too. 70% of my bc calc class gets 5's every year, and getting a 2 is considered unacceptable unless youre one of those kids that just dont care about anything. I would say a 4 is the most common grade here.</p>
<p>Where does everyone go to school (just state)? I think location has a big influence. Let's take a look.</p>
<p>my BC calc class (my soph yr):</p>
<p>1st class pd --> around 20 ppl, all 5s
2nd class pd --> around 20 ppl, all 5s except for 3 fours
3rd class pd (all senior) --> around 20 ppl, all 5s except 2 fours</p>
<p>so about 90-95% of our BC students got 5s..
although the AB results were a disaster</p>
<p>I took my chemistry class online due to conflict with summer school, and I wanted to take AP Bio, so I needed chem. I went browsing around the site to see if APs were offered. There are 2 AP courses offered that help prepare for the AP exam, and your in luck, one of them is AP Bio. the website is <a href="http://www.ce.byu.edu/is/site%5B/url%5D">www.ce.byu.edu/is/site</a> </p>
<p>good luck and hope this helped!</p>
<p>i go to school on long island, NY- suburbs of NYC</p>
<p>AB grades being low might be a result of a lot of unqualified kids taking it? or is it because the teacher wasnt as good?</p>
<p>In my opinion, a couple scores help, if not just to add another test score, then to reinforce the fact that you are competitive, and that your teacher doesn't give out inflated grades.</p>
<p>Really though, I think it's most impressive if you show them a series of preferably 4s or 5s (I guess a 3 is ok). By a series I mean hopefully 5+, so they know it wasn't just a fluke.</p>
<p>Also, I notice a lot of people here take a progressively more AP-laden schedule, ie 1 sophomore year, 3 junior year, 5 senior year. The scores from your senior year don't count into admissions, and you're stuck with 4 scores, even though that's less than half and not representative of your whole high school AP career. Do you guys project scores or what?</p>
<p>Yea 75% of the kids in Calc BC at my school get a 5. But then, we have a VERY solid calculus program.</p>
<p>Yes, what do you do with scores from Senior year? Do they not count at all? Because just like Julyinoh said, many people take most of their AP's in senior year which counts as a big chunk of their AP careers. Also, as sophomore's and juniors many people are still getting used to long tests and may not be prepared enough which may result in lower scores. By senior year though, many people will probably become better AP test takers and most likely score very well of their last year of AP tests. How do senior scores factor in admissions ? By the looks of it, they don't even factor in at all which doesn't make very much sense to me.</p>
<p>I did not do very well on 2 AP exams and I wanted to delete the scores from the record and take the test again my senior year to hopefully score better, but apparently they do not play any roll in admissions as a senior. Colleges should either not look at AP scores at all, or look at all AP scores from ALL grades.</p>
<p>AP's taken by seniors count in that if someone does well enough, he/she can receive advanced credit or placement in college. Obviously, they have no effect on admissions because the scores are received too late, but you can fail all of your senior exams, theoretically, if you just don't care for the potential benefits and I doubt your admissions would be revoked or anything serious like that.</p>
<p>So, what would someone advise me to do. I want to retake the exams that I have failed so, but when I apply for colleges and do not report any score for them how will that look? I know I can pass the 2 that I failed if I study throughout the school year. Should I report no scores at all? Or just the ones that I have passed?</p>
<p>wow..i've been wondering the same stuff.. i've taken a few AP classes as well and i'm not too confident in what i might get in the score. i re-enrolled in an AP class to redeem myself and my name. can you even retake AP classes and take the AP exam again? i know you can take the class but you wont get credit for it because you already passed it.. but can you take the AP exam again? i asked apcentral but they weren't of much help. but i hope it works! wish me luck!:|</p>