<p>Everyone always has tons of APs, and I'm just sitting here feeling so incompetent. I can take a lot of honors next year, but I don't know what to do about APs. Is there some thing where you can study a subject and then take an AP test? How does that work? Sorry if I sound like an idiot...I'm a sophomore lol.</p>
<p>Colleges make allowances for HS not offering APs. They like to see that you have taken the most rigorous course load available which would be honors courses in your case.</p>
<p>You can self-study APs and I’ve seen several threads on CC about which subjects can be self-studied successfully.</p>
<p>self-studying…when do i need to do that? junior year? and do you know of which ones that are possible for me to self-study?</p>
<p>Just be sure schools know you had no opportunity to take AP and take the hardest courses you can take. Take SAT subject tests, maybe more than two, as a way of demonstrating you learned a lot in the courses you took.</p>
<p>If there’s a local community college, you can also see about taking a class or two there - but it isn’t required. As stated above, you aren’t responsible if your schools don’t offer APs.</p>
<p>You may not be penalized for failing to make the most rigorous course selections by going to a school that does not offer APs. But it’s likely that at least at some highly selective colleges, where you’re being compared to applicants who have demonstrated their ability to do college-level work by succeeding in AP courses, the fact that you haven’t demonstrated that could weigh against you.</p>
<p>The recommendation to remedy that by taking courses at a CC (and doing well in them) is a good one.</p>
<p>There are a ton of my kids in my school (huge school, very good students) who took one day and studied the entire AP Macro book and passed the exam with 3+ scores.</p>
<p>All depends on the subjects. I know someone who studied a week for AP Bio and got a 2, but that is understandable.</p>
<p>If you exhaust the offerings in your high school (e.g. you complete precalculus but your high school does not offer calculus), consider taking courses at a community college to get exposure to actual college level work so that the transition to college will not be as much of a shock.</p>
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<p>Colleges will know that you school doesn’t offer APs. When your school sends colleges the Secondary School Report, they will also send a school profile. The profile includes information about the classes offered in your school, the distribution of grades in classes, the post-graduation plans of recent graduates (How many go into the military? How many into the work force? How many to two-year colleges? How many to four-year colleges, and which ones do graduates attend most often?), and so on.</p>
<p>My advice is to self-study for a couple of AP tests. A second option would be community college courses. Our school doesn’t offer AP and our students generally don’t get into top schools. Many who do get into better schools struggle and return talking about how difficult college classes are. The simple fact is most aren’t as prepared as their counterparts who had more difficult courses to start with. There’s a sharp learning curve needed to do well and few do well with it.</p>
<p>By comparison, students I’ve talked with who have had (decent) AP courses return talking about how easy college is compared to what they expected. They still need to study, of course, but the preparation is already there.</p>
<p>Lower level colleges don’t care about AP. It’s where the vast majority of our college bound students end up. If those colleges appeal to you, don’t sweat AP. However, if you’ve got your eye on something higher, hop over to the AP threads and read about self-studying. My guy got a 5 on AP Stats by self-studying. If I’d known then what I’m telling you now I’d have had him do at least a couple of others. Instead, we went the community college route (did two courses there - both As). Now we’re finding out that several top colleges prefer AP and won’t give credit for the cc courses (but they would for a 4 or 5 on AP). State schools don’t care either way.</p>
<p>Others may know better, but I have my doubts about how much taking an AP test without the course would help you, especially if you didn’t make the top score on it. I came across at least one school that said they wouldn’t give college credit for a test without the course, so that might be an indication of how the practice is viewed. Not having AP will likely make SAT subject test scores more important.</p>
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<p>Which school? I’ve never come across that before. I’ve seen schools that won’t give credit for certain courses (Human Geography, etc), but I’ve never seen a school that gives credit insist it can’t be self-studied.</p>
<p>Colleges look for you to take a demanding schedule from what I hear, they will not penalize you if your school doesn’t have APs. My kid’s HS (considered a top public HS) doesn’t officially offer APs anymore but it does have very challenging high level courses and many students still study for and take the exams. A high school profile is sent along with your transcript so the colleges you apply to can see if what level classes you take relative to what the school offers. If you want, you can self-study for a couple of APs. But in general, as long as you take as good a schedule as your HS offers, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.</p>
<p>Creekland, a quick look through web sites I might have visited didn’t turn up the one I saw that explicitly said “no credit for test without course,” but Wesleyan says “A student who completed an Advanced Placement course in secondary school and has achieved a score of …,” which amounts to the same thing. Others discuss their policies in terms of getting credit for AP courses, perhaps without thinking of the alternative of test only. But would any school give credit for a lab course such as Chem, Physics, or Bio without the actual course having been taken?</p>
<p>Schools who do not offer AP, while not in the majority, are out there. There are also a fair number of homeschooled students applying to colleges. These students sometimes take the AP test by self-studying for it. Since collegeboard is picky about the title “AP ____” they can’t call their course by that name, but they can still submit their test scores. I’ve yet to see a college deny credit due to not having the named course.</p>
<p>I have seen colleges look less than fondly upon AP courses students take when they aren’t accompanied by a test score. I just haven’t seen it the other way around.</p>
<p>I’m talking about whether the college gives college credit (to count towards required credits for the college degree) for the AP high school course. Some definitely don’t for test results only without the course, based on what they say on their web sites. Obviously, anyone that takes the AP course but not the test has no chance at all of getting college credit anywhere.</p>
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<p>And this is what I disagree with. I have yet to come across a college that offers credit for an AP test score of _<strong><em>, not offer it to those who have self-studied. If you have an example of an exception, I’d love to know about it, but I believe the colleges figure if you’ve scored _</em></strong> on the test, then you’ve proven knowledge of the course content regardless of how you got there. If it’s a lab course, then they may also want documentation of lab work, of course, but many self-study those too.</p>
<p>USNews always has a list of the 100 most selective schools in the country (out of many thousands) every year. Each of my 3 children attended a school on that list. Their schools, three different ones, are always on the list.</p>
<p>Their hs did not have AP, so not one of them ever took an AP class. It did not stop them from getting into a selective school.</p>
<p>^^^ I agree that top 100 shouldn’t be a problem. I was thinking along the lines of top 25 - top 50 that our local high school students have difficulties getting accepted at even if their stats (SAT/GPA) are within range. Our better students can easily get into the bottom 50 (even bottom 60) of the top 100. Granted, the top 25 - 50 are tough to get into for anyone, but not having AP certainly doesn’t seem to help. Looking at the recent colleges listed on our high school web site two appear to make the top 40 (Johns Hopkins - 1 grad and West Point - 1 grad). We have over 300 graduates per year.</p>