If your daughter is happy, then you shouldn’t have to second guess her or your choices ever. Going to an Ivy is not the be all to end all, trust me!
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@NateandAllisMom We are in the same boat. S21 got A’s in AP Lang all year…and a 2! Also got a 36 on ACT total and English and 4-5’s on the other AP’s. He did get a 3 in physics because they only let him submit one or two parts of his answers during the server debacle and with taking 5 AP exams last year, I told him to not worry about retaking physics. So we didn’t submit that Lang score but his AP Lang teacher wrote an amazing LOR. Hoping the holistic body of work will be considered.
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I’d rather have the A in AP Lang than the 5 on the AP exam. My D is more science-oriented, but somehow managed a 5 on the AP Lang exam. A complete surprise for her and me.
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Not all or nothing. You can pick specific scores to send but honestly there is no reason not to send them, or to send 3’s. My Ivy daughter sent a 3. Actually she sent 2 3’s. It obviously didn’t keep her out. One of the 3’s was actually in the major she was applying for. She had a new to the course teacher that year and we were always advised to submit all AP scores. It also did not keep her out of Michigan Engineering for that same major. I think some people are just too scared to take a risk or make themselves seem less than perfect or just human. It’s an individual decision but really not the end of the world.
This year I too have heard AP scores are going to be looked at more because that is one uniform measure of courses taken throughout the country because APush at one school is not the same as it is at another. My other daughter has a friend who had over 100% in AP CS at her high school, but got a 1 on the AP CS Exam. My son piped in saying that’s virtually impossible because that AP Exam is fairly easy that everyone should be able to get at least a 3. The exam is also not really subjective. So clearly there was something off about that high school course and probably something on the AP Exam kids were expected to know that wasn’t taught at all in the course. Who knows? This was 4 or so years ago.
As for AP Lang last year, I can only imagine what the guidelines were to get a 4 or 5 since that is subjective and things were different. But schools are required to submit their school report which includes exactly what was mentioned in a different post - how many AP courses offered, how many kids take them, how many of each score there are, etc. They need that to determine rigor of the high school. Not reporting may not matter from Junior year due to covid so like test optional maybe it isn’t the end of the world, so maybe it won’t hurt someone but if someone has a 5 on something I don’t understand why they wouldn’t report it.
Also, not submitting an SAT over 1500 I don’t understand either. That is a 33 ACT. At what level ACT or SAT do people think kids should submit for elite schools? Only 36’s and 1600’s? Come on folks.
As for over selling under selling. Tulane has a low yield because they over sell. They have no application fee, they market the hell out of their school, they tend to accept kids that are full pay in ED that wouldn’t get in during RD or if they needed money (know a whole bunch from our high school) and have a low yield because of how they market. Michigan is another one that often defers the best candidates because they don’t want to hurt their yield of accepted students that then attend. So, they often defer those thinking they’re going for Ivies. This year UM will have all the ED admittees withdraw by the time they notify students of EA so maybe they will let in a lot more during their EA process. I know plenty of students who have wanted to go to UM that didn’t get in or were deferred because they were “over-qualified” including legacies. People were shocked. These were also full paying. Michigan this year definitely monitored demonstrated interest because they asked if and when you visited campus.
Lastly, re Selingo’s talk. I find it crazy that schools are going to monitor all the social media, internet, checking the portal, and all that nonsense because many URM’s and low income students just don’t have that kind of access thus putting them at a big disadvantage. Not to mention that the super star kids who did go and apply to a ton of schools and have huge course loads can’t spend the time to do this. We’re dealing with a pandemic and everyone is just trying to get through one day at a time, so is it just going to be the helicopter parents doing this nonsense to make their kids look more involved with the process anyway to score a point or two. And seriously, when a school has thousands of ED applications and 30k or more EA/RD applications how on earth do they have time to keep track of that as well? Someone please pipe in on that who has experience because I would love to hear it. Schools doing interviews aren’t even having the alumni send in anything official due to the amount of time it’s taking.
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I’ll chime in because it helps to know more and more of us are in the same boat. My son got a 3 on calc BC which really isn’t good for a STEM guy applying to engineering schools. We chose not to send and I’ve been worried since but what can you do. There were so many stories of bad scores and people struggling with the IT issues on the tests, I’m hoping it’s no big deal.
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CB only allows you to send all AP tests scores, you can’t pick and choose like SAT scores. You can pay to withhold an AP test score…at least you used to be able to. If you self-report and don’t send official scores, you can report what you want.
I doubt many schools are checking social media for students…student names aren’t generally on those so how would they even know who’s who? It’s easy to track signing up for emails, opening those emails, clicking on a link, how long one stays on the website, how often one checks the portal, visits, etc. because that’s all systematized.
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You can self report whatever AP scores you like on the common app. I don’t think any schools expect official score reports from CB until after admittance. My D20 self reported her 4s and 5s and did not report her 3. My S21 didn’t report any AP scores. He debated reporting his Calc BC from sophomore year, but his junior scores were such a mess from the online format that he just bailed on all of them. I really feel for AOs if they think AP scores are going to help this year. Pretty much every student I know had at least one really bizarre result from last spring’s fiasco.
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@Aguadecoco and @evergreen5 We struggled with the decision to send ACT scores to ND. His score was not in the 25-75th centile (more like the 10th centile based upon prior years), but I did get the sense from the online sessions that they wanted scores if you had them. But part of me thought that if they care about rankings (which I think they all do to some degree) then maybe they would not want to actually have to “own” an ACT of an admitted student that dragged down their average. We sent the AP scores of 4s and 5s hoping that would be a proxy.
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Interesting analogy, especially since D21 works in a restaurant right now, but, thanks to my ex-husband/her father socking away a decent amount of his paycheck every month, D21’s first year can be full pay.
We did fill out FAFSA, but CSS was too complicated for him to complete due to his and his second wife’s financial situation, so it would be interesting to see how everything shakes out.
One other topic - TO - according to dccollegecounseling.com (great resource even if you aren’t in the DC area), Florida public universities saw a 50% drop in applications due to not being TO.
Completely agree with all of this! Well said.
@Darcy123 my D submitted her other AP scores (she had Bio and Calc AB from sophomore year, and 5 other ones from junior year.) which are in line with her class grades.
For D21’s ED (and my alma mater), there is an Admissions Liaison Program (ALP) through which alumni can set up interviews for their children with ALP counselors. We did the first visit in May of D21’s sophomore year and did a virtual follow up this summer.
When D21 submitted her ED application, she was told to email the counselor, who in turn would alert Admissions.
Whether this makes any difference will be seen tomorrow evening, plus, ironically, UVA states in its CDS that demonstrated interest is NOT considered.
Besides, ED is demonstrated interest in its own right.
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My daughter took the ACT in January, 32, then buckled down with a tutor and daily early morning class, her practice tests were 35’s. Her March test on the 14th, cancelled. She wasn’t able to take them again until October, really wasn’t prepping due to not knowing if she’d ever be able to take them, started up again a few weeks before the exam, 33. Her tutor was always accurate when predicting score for her older sister, and I think she would’ve scored better in March. I’m guessing many kids are in the same spot.
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I think for the most part kids scores will be lower. My daughter took ACT in feb (once) and was all prepped for march SAT (cx), then after about 5 more test cancellations she finally took in september and hadn’t touched a practice test or looked at anything since march!!! She did well and submitted, but probably would have been higher had she been prepared more recently and had ability to superscore. In a normal year she would have taken each test once more time! Is what it is.
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You can pick and choose what AP scores you want to submit, my daughter said she is sending them to the college she commits to to see if she gets credit. Are they supposed to be submitted when they apply?
I just went on my college D’s CB account…you can not pick and choose which AP scores to officially send, the AP score report is cumulative. You can pay to withhold (or cancel) a score or scores. Here’s the language:
“After you take an AP Exam, we send your score report to the college or university that you designated in My AP. Your score report is cumulative and includes scores for all the AP Exams you have ever taken, unless you requested that one or more scores be withheld from a college or canceled. When you go online you will be able to see your entire score report and score-send history. If you wish to send additional score reports to colleges, universities, and scholarship programs you can do so online for a fee.”
I would self-report the AP scores you want to report on the common app, and only pay to send them to the college your D matriculates at. Once admitted there’s no reason to pay to withhold or cancel a score.
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I haven’t seen anyone state they would not send a score that was over 1500 (I did mention that my D21 did not send her score to her lotto schools because her score was NOT 1500+).
We self reported the AP scores we wanted and will follow up once she is in.
As for ACT/SAT it seems that this should be their death knell but somehow, sadly, I think they will always be a part of the process. I will be interested to see how the acceptances divide between score and no score. All my kids test well and had scores in the upper echelon. I know many kids struggle with testing who are bright kids and end up not making the cut at places they could probably thrive. My one son got in to a reach with test scores but it proved to be too rigorous for him. He is super smart but lacked the maturity and executive functioning skills to survive the environment at that time. That being said I don’t think it will make any difference for admission for my D21 this year but does impact her merit and scholarship money.
No. I don’t think any school expects anyone to send official AP score reports unless they attend that school. Similar with how so many schools now have students self report grades and only have you submit an official transcript once you graduate high school if attending that school.
One nice thing about AP though is if your kid is taking it in May of their senior year you can then arrange to have the scores all sent at one time to the college as one report and pay only once instead of having them sent multiple times.
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