<p>Hi--</p>
<p>I've just finished my sophomore year of high school and have taken three AP exams (Calculus BC, World History, and Chemistry). I scored a 5 on the Calc exam but a 4 on the World History and Chemistry exam. If I want to get into the top selective schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford), have I just made a huge blunder or do I still have a chance? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>The actual scores mean very little or almost next to nothing. What you should worry about is the grade in the class.</p>
<p>Try to get all 5’s junior year…4’s still look good sophomore year</p>
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<p>4s/5s are great. You’re fine. Don’t dwell on it.</p>
<p>We were told that they can’t hurt you, but if you have some good scores to report at application time, meaning they were taken in the first three years of high school, it can be a boost.</p>
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<p>Who told you that? All the admissions officers that I have talked to have conveyed something similar to what An0maly quoted.</p>
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<p>When they say “they can’t hurt you,” I believe it’s a euphemistic way of saying “we won’t reject you because of it”. Nonetheless, if you have a 4.0 with 1’s on your AP exams, it’s clear that your scores will hurt you.</p>
<p>D applied to 7 schools: Barnard, NYU, Binghamton, Brandeis, GW, American, and Muhlenberg</p>
<p>She got accepted in all and never sent any AP score reports. No one asked, and I didn’t see the need to pay the money unless asked. Plus she had gotten a 2 in AP physics and we were not going out of our way to advertise that. (She had a 90’s grade in the class.)</p>
<p>The only report we sent was the summer before she enrolled in NYU, so that they had official record of her AP’s so she could get credit for them.</p>
<p>On the basis of our experience, I would say that AP’s scores were not particularly signicant in the admissions process (at least to the above schools.)</p>
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If you have 1s, why in the name of God would you send them? Assuming common sense on the part of the applicant, they can’t hurt you because colleges would only see 3s and up, right? And if you take them before senior year and do well, it’s a nice sprinkle on top of your cupcake.</p>
<p>@uskoolfish–if she got accepted to all of those schools, she must be a pretty good student. Is there some reason she didn’t apply to the Ivies/equivalents?</p>
<p>They give more emphasis on AP classes rather than AP scores. Scores will only help you if you score 4+. Otherwise they will have no effect on your chance.</p>
<p>chardo:</p>
<p>Since we would not qualify for financial aid, D chose schools that would give merit aid. Attending an Ivy would have meant our financial commitment to approx. $55K + per year. The only school (besides Binghamton) on her list that did not give merit aid was Barnard. We chose that as a back up if she did not get merit aid from the others. Since we are from Long Island, we felt more comfortable making a commitment to spend full price on a school that she could commute to if there was the financial need.</p>
<p>In the end, she rec’d merit aid from packages ranging from $11K to $22.5K per year. Those were numbers we felt more comfortable spending.</p>
<p>Additionally, D ended up as a music major (vocal performance) and none of the Ivies offer that as an undergraduate degree. She toyed with applying to Brown, but in the end decided that she would be happier at NYU or Barnard. She is attending NYU and is very happy with her choice. And we have saved money that can be applied towards grad school if she wants.</p>
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<p>It was just an example, but consider an applicant with some 4s, some 5s, and two 1’s. If you only send your high scores, the college will wonder why you didn’t report anything for the two classes where you got a one. I’m willing to bet that they’ll assume that you failed that exam, and that will certainly reflect negatively on a class grade.</p>
<p>@ rOadTo3b - I disagree. If you have a failing grade on an AP exam, then it will hurt you, although not a great deal. Why would ANY person see an A in a class and a 1/2 on the exam and just ignore the score? It brings up grade inflation and makes it apparent that your class wasn’t rigorous or you didn’t care.</p>
<p>uskoolfish
NYU is great, and with 10-20K aid is even better than Ivy at full price. Good to know those schools give significant merit aid. We’re in the same boat–LI kid who will not qualify for financial aid. He will have Ivy-caliber goods, so hopefully there will be some nice merit aid opportunities at other top schools.</p>
<p>chardo–good luck!</p>
<p>Not going to lie that talent merit aid helped, too. D wouldn’t have gotten any $ from NYU without it (despite being top 5% and school president.)</p>
<p>Research your schools carefully to see what options are available for merit aid. And your son wants to apply to schools where he is a top candidate or he has something unique that will complete the school’s class profile. If you go too high in the rankings, schools that offer true merit aid are few and far between.</p>
<p>Maybe you can interest your son in Cornell and do the land grant colleges? It just wasn’t a fit for D.</p>
<p>Luckily younger D is an artist. So that may help again with the talent $. (She is a rising junior.)</p>
<p>yeah, he wants engineering, but gotta get him interested in life sciences</p>
<p>eh,
they actually mean very very little… especially since ap scores are self reported
meaning you could lie and say you got all 5s and colleges wouldnt know
colleges are far more interested in the rigor of your curriculum, ap or not, and grades in your ap classes etc
just dont self report 1s 2s and 3s and youre good</p>
<p>As long as you have above 3 the grade doesn’t indicate such drastic inflation that anomaly is talking about. Keep in mind, the ivies (and the UCs now) are very skeptical about collegeboard as an institution, they will regard the AP scores with little scrutiny. My valedictorian got 5s,4’s, and 3’s and is going to Yale.</p>
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<p>And what makes you say that? Specifically what is the College Board doing that renders AP scores suspect?</p>
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<p>Yeah, just to clarify, a lone 3 or even a 2/1 is not going to be a deal breaker. I’m referring to consistently failing exams. </p>
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<p>You can lie about your 5s, but if you send in a score report, they will verify it and reject you for lying. You can choose to not send a report but then you don’t get any credit so it’s like not reporting scores at all =p</p>