I have a friend who chose not to take the AP bio exam this year and her justification is that she will end up taking biology anyways in college since she is interested in something in the medicine field. Isn’t this counterintuitive because (I think) the point of AP classes is to choose the subjects you are interested in, challenge yourself, and take the exam? I know that many major universities do not give credit for AP classes, but I believe taking the exam and making a decent score shows a passion in that subject and, conversely, a poor score often serves as an indicator of overinflated class grades.
If everyone began to not take AP exams for the majors then essentially a STEM student should instead take all the English APs and history APs to get credit for classes they may actually get to place out of… But I think it would make more sense if STEM majors were to take the science APs and the science exams to prove their interest regardless of the fact they have to repeat the course.
Now I am not questioning her particular decision because other factors may play into it that I don’t know about, but it just sparked this question/thought in me. I am confused if the only purpose (or the main purpose) of AP exams is only to place out of college credit?
@bodangles but the course may not reflect the same level of knowledge/understanding across different schools. Isn’t the exam necessary to prove mastery of content since AP courses at some schools are not as challenging as others?
Not saying it makes sense. It’s just the way it is.
Say you take an AP exam senior year. You already have all of your college decisions in hand. Why would whatever score you get matter to the colleges? It doesn’t – they don’t consider it.
Furthermore, at least on the Common App, AP scores are self-reported. You don’t send the official results from the CollegeBoard until later, when you’re getting credit. Schools care so little about the scores that it doesn’t matter if you can verify what you said your score was. Compare that to your transcript and SAT, which you have to send official records of.
*Also the cutoff for a 5 can be as low as 60-70% raw score. Not really “mastery.” It doesn’t mean much.
There is no reason to take an exam if you are accepted to a college and they do not accept AP credit. You can just for practice or to prove it to yourself, but AP tests can be quite expensive. Last I checked they were around 80 or 90 dollars. I would not take it just for the fun of it.
But likewise, some schools offer college level courses (not AP) that aren’t tailored to AP exams. The course might be harder than an AP in the same subject but not based on the same curriculum and thus a student might not do as well on the AP exam but might be better prepared for college.
An SAT II test can tell admissions the same thing as an AP exam and in fact many colleges require two SAT IIs (Subject Tests), but not AP scores.
SAT subject tests cover regular high school level material, not advanced high school / college frosh level material like AP tests. So they are not the same thing.
Back to the original question, it is the case that many medical schools do not accept AP credit for pre-med science courses. However, having the AP credit and having the option to discard it by retaking the course is usually better than not having it in the first place (except at the few colleges where it can be financially disadvantageous to have higher class standing by credits). If the student decides not to do pre-med, then there is no need to retake biology for that purpose. Even if the student does do pre-med, if s/he is academically adventurous or is a biology major, s/he may choose to substitute higher level biology courses for general biology skipped with AP credit.
Is the friend a senior? If not, she should probably take the exam. Otherwise, she won’t have a score to self-report on college applications and some colleges might think she is hiding a 1 or a 2. She doesn’t have to use the credit if she is pre-med.
For seniors who already know where they are attending, the decision to take or not take the test depends mainly on whether they can get credit that is useful to them and on high school policies. (With some exceptions that might be mentioned to you in email from the college you are attending.)
Wow judging by these responses I think I am just in a school atmosphere where students always takes the AP exam (relatively rich small town public school so money isn’t a issue for most). Even this year I just see seniors taking 6-7 APs after being admitted into college. But thank you for the responses, I understand that taking AP exams is not all its made to be at my school. Yet, depending on specific policy and intended major, like the above^^ post mentioned, a student may be able to substitute higher level courses and they are still worthwhile as a potential credit when you are unsure of what course of action to pursue.
One thing I find mildly amusing is that many schools in this area (mine included) encourage freshman to take only 1 AP course - ap human geography and prep them extensively for this one exam, which nearly no university gives any credit for. I wasted the second semester of my freshman year over preparing for this one exam and everyone in my freshman class (at least 600+ all took it). I know some other schools that allow light APs like EnviSci, world history, or psych in freshman year which seems like a good idea that our school should implement. At least these courses have some credits in a lot of state universities.
@Ynotgo sorry seems like we posted at the same moment. No, my friend is not a senior, but at this point the decision is made and I can’t do much to help her. Does the common app not allow a student to specify that they didn’t take an exam so there is no doubt that they are hiding a score? Either way, judging from earlier posts the self reported AP score are quite ambiguous anyways so colleges don’t really care (for lack of a better way to put this).
You are right that many colleges don’t care about self-reported APs. I don’t think there is a way to say “not taken” for an AP test. If she did it to save money and is low-income, her GC can note that in the GC letter.
Our high school students are under a lot of stress. Students who take a lot of AP classes gain in several ways, but also gain even more stress. Once students get their university acceptances and know where they are going, there is a natural inclination to lose some degree of motivation. I don’t see anything wrong with cutting back and taking one less AP test than you had AP class. My older daughter skipped one of her AP tests – corresponding to the class which was the most work and in which she was doing the least well. This allowed her to study more for the remaining AP tests.
"There is no reason to take an exam if you are accepted to a college and they do not accept AP credit… I would not take it just for the fun of it. "
Most of us can probably think of something to do on a Saturday afternoon which is more fun than an AP test.
I agree about the stress levels being high and finding ways to cut back where possible being a good idea.
(My son’s likely college emailed admitted students to say that even though they offer absolutely no credit for AP tests, they expect admitted students to take all the tests they said they would in their application. They do not need to send in scores. I believe this is because of the Honor Code. But, Caltech is that way about their honor code. They are probably the only college that does this.)
AP tests are not on Saturday afternoons, btw. They are during school.
It’s really up to the student if the HS doesn’t REQUIRE students to take the AP exams. Our kids’ HS requires all students taking the AP course to take the AP exam, so S took AP exams for all his AP courses. Some other places make it optional, as it appears your friend’s HS does. The main thing is for your friend to learn the material. If she doesn’t want to take the exam and it’s not required, that is OK.
Our S ended up with over the maximum number of allowable transferrable AP credits of 60 when he entered his U, so he actually didn’t HAVE to take all of the AP exams he did (but he chose to because he actually likes taking exam as a measure of mastery of the subject matter). The credits allowed him advanced standing which gave him a better selection of courses and time slots for registration, plus a few general ed courses were satisfied by the AP credits. It is a personal preference thing–he even opted to take a few exams of courses he hadn’t ever taken.
That said, taking a lot of AP exams in the spring can be quite tiring and S was exhausted when he was done with all the tests he took. The good thing for him and other SRs at his HS was that they were done with classes once they completed the AP exams.
My D is a senior taking 6 AP classes, and has already committed to college. She is opting to only take 5 of the 6, and of the 5, she is only actively prepping for 3, because those are the tests that she’ll get and take credit for. She’ll take the other 2 courses freshman year regardless of her AP score, so it wasn’t worth it for her to spend the time studying for those 2 over other priorities.
At my daughter’s school, AP classes impact more heavily on the GPA than honors courses, which are weighted more heavily than non-honors courses. If a student takes an AP class but decides not to take the exam, the class is treated as an honors course rather than an AP course. This means that their weighted GPA will not be as high as it would have been if they had taken the AP test. Does the final GPA after senior year matter, since pretty much everyone has already applied to college? Possibly not, but it’s good incentive to finish strong and just take the test (as useless as it may end up being for college credit).
Here is an interesting bit of information that I have not seen mentioned. My S chose not to take the Physics exam as he knew he was going into engineering and would retake the Physics. Ultimately he switched out of engineering after he retook the Physics. He now needs two additional science courses to complete his gen eds. Turns out that if he had taken it and gotten the scores required it would have transferred as a gen ed science even though he retook the Physics (which counted as his Physics). That would have been 3-4 additional credits toward graduation. He retook calculus and got his calculus credit and got a math gen ed credit from his AP course. He regrets not doing the same with the Physics.
I’m sure not all colleges do this but you certainly can’t get any credit if you don’t take the test. It could just be a bonus.
That seems weird. It seems like it is more common practice to give credit only once for similar material (i.e. if a student retakes the college course that covers similar material as AP credit, only one will be counted).
Believe it was done because there are various levels of calculus. I.e. Calculus for business, calculus for engineers. So he got a gen ed credit equal to the lower number (business) Then got credit for the higher one (engineers) when he took it.
The school wants most students to retake Calculus and/or physics because they do not feel that the high school AP courses cover the material in as much depth as needed. Thus they can give a gen ed math credit. My son would attest to the fact that Calculus was much more in depth in college then his AP class.
I know some other schools that allow light APs like EnviSci, world history, or psych in freshman year which seems like a good idea that our school should implement. At least these courses have some credits in a lot of state universities.