<p>I was wondering how much weight top tier colleges put on AP exam scores. Because I've heard that AP scores do not mean anything in an admission officer's eyes and that SAT subject tests are worth more. I've also heard that the only thing AP tests do is earn college credit. So can anyone confirm for me?</p>
<p>yes. ap exam scores have no bearing on admission- they are only for credit and placement once you’ve been accepted.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure they take AP scores into account when it comes to admissions…</p>
<p>@Newdle nope. You don’t even have to send them. In fact, many schools specifically say don’t send them. They have no bearing on admission with one exception: do poorly in class, get 5 on exam (prove you know the material).</p>
<p>That’s a very common myth. Once you start filling out applications you learn the truth.</p>
<p>@guineagirl96 is correct. SAT subject tests are worth more. Considering that you self-report in terms of admissions, they might take them into account if your school doesn’t offer APs (or homeschooled) and you get all fives, but they don’t have a significant impact on admissions. Therefore, if you are wondering whether to self study for the AP test or the SAT subject test for something like bio or us history, take the subject test for the purposes of admissions. The AP tests are simply for credit purposes after admission</p>
<p>I think it becomes sketchy when you have A’s in the class itself, but you don’t self-report any scores or 1s/2s. With a scenario like that, the college might wonder how rigorous your school actually is. Anyway, like you said… I guess you can always not self-report.</p>
<p>A lot of people don’t self report theres really no need…</p>
<p>AP classes and the tests that go with them are VERY IMPORTANT for selective college admissions. </p>
<p>Regardless of what a student self-reports on their application, your guidance counselor in the Secondary School Report (SSR), which is sent to colleges along with your transcript, must note: (a) the number of AP Classes offered at your high school, (b) If your school limits the number of AP classes a student may take and (c) note the maximum number of AP courses allowed per year. </p>
<p>Your GC must also rate the rigor of your course load, as compared to all other college bound students in your high school. Selective colleges are interested in students who have taken the MOST DEMANDING course load at their school and guidance counselor’s generally give that rating to kids who take many AP’s (if your high school offers AP’s). </p>
<p>As an AP Exam is the culmination of an AP class, if your transcript notes that you have taken a certain number of AP’s courses, but you report scores for fewer exams, selective colleges will assume that you didn’t do well on the tests that you are not reporting. How that will effect the outcome of your application will vary from college to college. </p>
<p>See SSR, page 2, especially the upper right hand section of page 2: <a href=“http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/documents/UG_Admissions_SecondarySchoolReport.pdf”>http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/documents/UG_Admissions_SecondarySchoolReport.pdf</a></p>
<p>I’m not sure selective colleges assume anything - if you don’t report it, there’s also a chance you didn’t take it. They aren’t going to assume you did poorly because there a reasonable chance you were ill that day or had too many tests in one day, so chose not to take one. Or you simply couldn’t afford it, those tests can add up and all families can’t afford them. </p>
<p>One low score would rarely hurt you anyway, anyone can have a bad day on a one shot test. All 1s and 2s might call into question a schools grading system if you were getting As, but the colleges probably already know about that from past history.</p>
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Maybe . . . but as the College Board offers reduced fees of $25 per test, if you’re applying to a selective college (HYPSM and the Little Ivies) and have done well in the class, Admissions expects to see that you have taken the test. When student’s don’t self report those tests, I would imagine an Admissions Officer might wonder why. </p>
<p>I agree that if a student has an A in an AP class, but scores a 1 or 2 on the exam, that reflects badly on the school rather than the student, as it’s an indicator that the high school has inflated grades. </p>
<p>They might, but nothing I’ve ever read says they assume you did poorly. It just goes on the “not enough info” pile. They generally look for reasons to admit you, not deny you, unless it’s something horrible like a violence problem.</p>
<p>^^ I agree that Admissions looks for reasons to admit. However, at highly selective colleges with thousands of qualified applicants and not enough room to admit all of them, when an Admissions Officer goes to bat for an applicant and presents the candidate to the full committee, they don’t want to have any missing pieces of the puzzle. During peak admissions times in November and February/March, I have known guidance counselors to get phone calls and emails from Admissions Officers with inquires about why students didn’t take AP tests, or other information that seems to be slightly off. The last thing you want a GC to say is, “Well, she just didn’t feel like taking the test” as that’s not a good indicator of a student’s drive and scholastic ambition.</p>
<p>I second gibby here. What admissions say is one thing, what they do is another. When someone takes an AP class and receive an A, but don’t have AP score to show it, it raises doubt about the quality of the A. When there is doubt, one likely is out because there are plenty of other people to take the limited spots at the top schools.</p>
<p>Now I’m not talking about self study. That’s probably not much use since the classes themselves are considered important too.</p>
<p>I can agree that head to head, someone with an A and a 4 or 5 is going to look better than someone with just an A and no test score. But it’s rarely that cut and dry and someone who has everything else in line, but one missing AP score, is not going to be denied because of it.</p>
<p>As for self-study, someone recently posted that they were told explicitly by someone at H, Y, or P admissions and several others that they don’t like it and it does nothing. It sort of goes in the category of “Didn’t have anything better to do, this kid is a grind.”</p>
<p>@MrMom62, you may be referring to a recent post I made about self study. Recently, D went to one of those Exploring College Options presentations where they have representatives from Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Penn and Stanford. During the Q&A, my D specifically asked what they think of students who self study for extra AP exams over and above the AP classes they’re already taking. The Harvard rep said, please don’t do that. We’re not impressed by that. The rest of the panel agreed.</p>
<p>The point was that it doesn’t help for admissions purposes to stack on a bunch of extra self study AP’s. D asked the question because she has a classmate who was taking 4 AP classes junior year but was also trying to self study for 2 more just to impress the adcoms. </p>
<p>Yes, thank you for moving that comment here. That comment needs to be spread far and wide.</p>
<p>I think you are missing the point. The reason admissions don’t care about the self study much is that some smart kids can spend 10 hours (or even less) on a crash course book and get a 5 on AP test easily. The admissions don’t really care about that since they also value the class instruction/interaction/homework experience. That doesn’t mean they expect you to skip the test after taking the AP classes.</p>
<p>This is an interesting conversation. D is a rising Senior and had 4 AP classes this year. She decided to forego the AP Gov AP exam to concentrate on others that she felt were more important. She took AP Gov first semester and so the amount of work required to get back on board with that would have taken away from time spent on what she felt were more important AP Exams. Also, we were under the impression that there are only so many AP credits that would be helpful - she had already taken the APUSH exam (5), and will take AP Euro next year so is there that much benefit to taking the AP Gov test? </p>
<p>Anyway, it seems like the comments on this thread would suggest that a bit of rational decision-making should be set aside if one is considering ultra-competitive schools, and that a student should just take all AP tests (if they are enrolled in the course) in order to avoid an AdCom deciding that this is “not a good indicator of a student’s drive and scholastic ambition.” Perhaps that’s true, but it seems a bit of a shame. But point noted.</p>
<p>What about AP exams at the end of senior year? It seems to me that a student may know that he or she is going to a college that won’t give credit for certain AP’s. For example, say you’re taking AP Psychology but know that your college won’t give you credit for it. My recollection is that Stanford, for example, won’t give credit for a lot of AP’s, including Biology, Psychology, US or World History, Gov’t, Econ. Why bother to take the exam in that situation? Senior year AP scores are certainly not going to affect admission.</p>
<p>At our HS, students enrolled in AP courses are required to take the AP exam; it counts as the final exam for the course (and for some of the courses, grades will actually be changed after the fact if student does much better on the exam than they did in the course.) </p>
<p>FWIW, I remember reading on Williams College’s website that they expect a rigorous course load described as AP or IB courses (if your school offers them) BACKED UP BY STRONG EXAM SCORES.</p>
<p>So I don’t agree with folks who say categorically that AP exam scores don’t matter at all for admissions. Obviously, strong AP exam scores can only bolster an application. (Not that one or two poor exam scores will necessarily cause automatic rejection either.) I do think it doesn’t make sense to self study a lot of AP exams for admissions purposes – would be better to take a CC or dual enrollment course in subjects that interest the student if the course isn’t offered at the HS. YMMV </p>