Do colleges care about the number of AP courses/exams you have taken by the end of junior year? Would there be a massive difference between 5 AP exams taken vs 6 or 7 AP exams taken?
AP exams are only used for college credit and are not considered in admission decision, however; your grades in these AP classes are considered for admissions. Around 6-7 AP classes/exams is about average for many applicants. Much depends upon the number of AP classes available at your HS and how many the top students at your HS are taking.
6-7 APs after junior year is average?
No, 6-7 AP’s over 4 years of HS.
Even for 4 years, 6-7 APs would not be an average. Perhaps it is the average for Ivies applicants. Only in certain area like California and NJ that students tend to take a lot of APs. In most public schools, they don’t even offer more than a dozen or so AP classes.
So the number of APs taken does not matter? It’s not worth it to take AP Stats or self study Econ?
Worth it? That’s an individual decision. If you were to do it because you want to learn about statistics and economics then it would probably be worthwhile. If your goal to to impress admissions officers, a self studied AP that doesn’t show up on you transcript has minimal value and having AP Statistics on your transcript would be good but not overly impressive. Good luck.
On College Confidential perhaps. Or applying to HYPMS.
As @Sherpa said, “worth it” is relative. If you have an interest in econ and want to self study it, go for it. If you want to self study to impress admissions officers, don’t bother; it won’t impress them.
In terms of how many AP’s, IMO there is a law of diminishing returns after 6-8 total. Once you hit that number, each additional AP is unlikely to meaningfully impact your application in any way. Assuming your academic schedule is rigorous enough without additional AP’s, you are better off using the time polishing essays or further developing your EC’s.
It also can depend on which AP courses and tests.
If two students at the same school took broadly similar schedules, but chose different subjects for AP courses, college admissions readers may think differently about their rigor:
a. Human geography, environmental science, statistics, psychology.
b. US history, chemistry, calculus BC, English literature.
Ask your GC and find out what would be consider most rigor curriculum. For most schools, it would require much less AP than you planned. Again, what is more important is the number of rigor (AP in this case) course, not the number of AP exam.
Does rigor stop at most rigorous, or is it a never ending scale that you can always add to?
What would be the level above “the most” rigorous? LOL.
most rigorous as in your guidance counselor marks down most rigorous