<p>Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have received mixed views on this one. How favorably do colleges look towards taking AP classes and AP exams?</p>
<p>First of all, I know that APs count toward gaining exemption from certain freshmen courses in college. That is not my question in this thread. My question solely regards the value of AP in the college admission process.</p>
<p>Some people have told me that colleges love it if you take challenging classes. Others say that taking APs and not doing well in them is not appreciated at all by colleges. Still, others say that the exam is what counts whereas the class is simply a tool for taking the exam. The divergency of these responses I receive demand something better...</p>
<ul>
<li>Do they place emphasis on AP over SAT?</li>
<li>Do they discredit AP classes if you did not do well on the AP exam?</li>
<li>Do they even look at the AP exam score in the admission process? If yes, how important are these exams?</li>
<li>Do they look at whether your school actually offered the class in those cases where you did not take the class?</li>
<li>Do they look at whether you home-schooled the AP?</li>
<li>Do they value some APs over others?</li>
<li>For the Language APs, do they look at whether or not you were a native speaker of that language?</li>
</ul>
<p>These are questions many of you may have and these are also questions many of you may want answered...</p>
<p>If anybody can answer part or all of these questions, please do so... We (myself included) would all greatly appreciate your counsel on this tendentious subject.</p>
<ul>
<li>Do they place emphasis on AP over SAT?
No way. your effort in AP will be reflected on your weighted GPA; if you did not do well in AP classes, then it’s not impressive at all. (Ok, it shows you are daring to take challenging curriculum, but doing bad in it shows you don’t have the capability to do it).</li>
<li>Do they discredit AP classes if you did not do well on the AP exam?
Well…scoring a lot of 2s and 3s don’t look good, that’s for sure.</li>
<li>Do they even look at the AP exam score in the admission process? If yes, how important are these exams?
I don’t think it’s crucial, but may be a tie breaker.</li>
<li>Do they look at whether your school actually offered the class in those cases where you did not take the class?
Yes, if you school only offer three, and you take all of them and maybe self-studied one, it’s defintely a lot better than a school providing 20+ AP classes and you only take 5.</li>
<li>Do they look at whether you home-schooled the AP?
It’s more of a important factor for home school student, since it demonstrates your capability of handling college level material. </li>
<li>Do they value some APs over others?
I doubt it. But AP Calc AB is for sure less impressive than BC.</li>
<li>For the Language APs, do they look at whether or not you were a native speaker of that language?
Yes…Chinese taking AP chinese and Hispanic/Latino taking Spanish AP are just like you taking these languages on the SAT2…won’t help much.</li>
</ul>
<p>Yes, yes, yes yes yes. The only exception for this is probably a CC or a low-tier state school. Take as many APs as you can without hurting your GPA or extracurriculars. Do well in them. Obviously, don’t take APs just for the sake of taking them; make sure you get something out of the material (a good portion of my grade doesn’t remember a thing from APUSH, which they took last year). </p>
<p>(answering your questions as you ordered them)</p>
<p>-I’ve heard that most admissions place emphasis on SAT/ACT and GPA, followed by rigorousness of your high school courses and APs taken, along with ECs and all that. </p>
<p>-All the applications I filled out those many months ago all required you to self-report your scores. They will probably compare your AP score against your class grade to see if there is a correlation (in my school the AP Physics C and BC are ridiculously difficult courses, but most students score 5s). </p>
<p>-As I said, the scores are self-reported. You’ll send in your AP scores transcript in June or July to the college you’ll go to. Getting a high score does boost your chances but is not a decision-changing factor. They are important in the fact that you are taking a college-level class and you can get college credit for them. It shows you are ready (assuming you do well) for the college academic environment.</p>
<p>-I dunno about that, but you should take as many as your school offers. You can probably write about the lack of APs offered in your application.</p>
<p>-Self-studying for an AP has no effect. They won’t know, but if you score high, good for you!</p>
They’re used differently; APs are indicative of a rigorous courseload, and SATs are a measure of standardized testing.
They’ll discredit the AP more for doing poorly in the class than doing poorly on the AP test. Doing well on both is best.
I doubt they’re heavily considered, although a transcript full of "A"s in AP classes and 2s on the exams will be a red flag about grade inflation.
Yes, colleges expect you to make the most of the opportunities available to you. Where there is no opportunity, there should not be an unrealistic expectation.
If you mean self-studied the AP, meaning it won’t show on your transcript, I doubt there is much admissions benefit.
Sure. Calc AB and BC, Physics B and C, Bio, Chem, and Euro are prized; Enviro, Psych, and Human Geo are less impresive.
<p>Taking the course and doing well in the course is immensely more important than your score on the exam. Exam scores are not officially reported. You don’t even have to report scores if you perform poorly on the test.</p>
<p>Because of this, self-studying an AP is of little value in terms of admission, unless you’re self-studying a language or self-studying NUMEROUS exams (which are both noteworthy). But still, they may not be given much weight, so don’t do these things for the purpose of enhancing your profile.</p>
<p>Certain APs are definitely valued over others. While taking APs in any capacity is going to look good, taking AP Calc is going to look better than taking AP Statistics. In general, they have an understanding of which APs are pretty cheesy (Psych, Environmental Science, Human Geography), which ones are decent (most of them), and which are higher caliber (Physics C, Calc BC, Chem, languages). Still, by no means does it look bad to take the cheese APs, as you’re still taking a rigorous course.</p>
<p>From what I heard by emailing admissions offices, this is pretty true, even for Calc BC (though they were top tech schools). I presume that this goes for Physics C as well (which is why I pretty much have to take a calc-based physics class next year, even if I do get 5s by self-studying Physics C).</p>
<p>In conclusion, don’t bother self-studying the “legit” APs (unless it’s like adding Calc BC to a Calc AB class or Physics C to a Physics B class).</p>
<p>“Some people have told me that colleges love it if you take challenging classes. Others say that taking APs and not doing well in them is not appreciated at all by colleges.”</p>
<p>Very selective colleges will slay you if you eschewed a tough class load. Why? Because there are tons of other applicants who take the toughest classes and do well. Your avoidance of these indicates to them that you will avoid the best that they have to offer as well. A 4.0GPA with a marshmallow transcript will get killed by a 3.8GPA most rigorous schedule every time when it comes to selective college admissions.</p>
<p>The real key is to take the APs and do exceedingly well at them.</p>
<ul>
<li>Do they place emphasis on AP over SAT?
SAT is looked at more heavily.<br></li>
<li>Do they discredit AP classes if you did not do well on the AP exam?
No, they look at how challenging the classes are and also how far you pushed yourself.</li>
<li>Do they even look at the AP exam score in the admission process? If yes, how important are these exams?
They will only see the scores if you request the CollegeBoard to send the scores to that college. I’m pretty sure they won’t care about your scores because they will make more money if you don’t pass the AP exams since you will have to retake the class in college.</li>
<li>Do they look at whether your school actually offered the class in those cases where you did not take the class?
Not sure, but some students do independent study in order to prepare for the AP exams that don’t have classes.</li>
<li>Do they look at whether you home-schooled the AP?
N/A</li>
<li>Do they value some APs over others?
Yes. Highly-valued (Physics, Chemistry, Calculus, Biology, and Literature) Average or insignificant (Psychology, History in general, Foreign Language)</li>
<li>For the Language APs, do they look at whether or not you were a native speaker of that language?
N/A</li>
</ul>
<p>Here is what I learned from the college admissions process. Race/Ethnicity plays a huge role in the admissions process. An African-American student who had a 2.5-3.0 GPA ( Only took 2-3 insignificant AP classes) and 1500-1600 SAT score was accepted into a renown state university over an Asian-American student who had taken eight AP classes (AP Bio, AP Physics, Calc 1 and 2, AP Lit, AP Psych, AP Lang, AP World History, AP Gov’t) and had a 3.5-3.7 GPA , 1900-2000 SAT score. Also, the Asian student had more ECs than the Black student. I’m not ranting I’m just stating the facts.</p>
<p>@Pancaked How is my last statement irrelevant when the OP is asking about what colleges favor. He/she specifically asked if colleges favor AP classes and I answered most of his/her questions. The last statement provides information about what colleges favor even more than AP classes and that is race. If you read the paragraph you would have seen the difference in the class rigor, grades, SAT scores, and ECs between the Black and Asian student. In the end, the black student got in not for performing exceedingly well compared to his/her peers, but purely because he/she was black.</p>
<p>It’s unrelated because this is a topic about the weight of AP exams and you’ve somehow managed to tie in your opinion of race and affirmative action which is of no use to the OP.</p>