There’s one exception, Georgetown will only consider AP scores sent officially (they always have to be different). This is important because they will consider AP scores in lieu of the subject test recommendation.
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this is my D21 also. Her list only has one real reach school, a few matches and half are safeties by her academic credentials. I think she’d be happy at most of them. We are full pay on paper but not by bank account and so the schools that would have been true reaches for her (ivies, etc) don’t have any merit aid so she didn’t apply. I wonder whether she’ll still thrive at her safeties and whether there will be regret. Sigh.
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S21 has a lopsided score, math lower than his grades indicate he is capable of, but he decided to send his scores to all schools. Avg SAT score at our school is not high, so he didn’t want AOs mentally assigning a potential score based on the school profile.
I don’t know if that was the right move or not, so will just wait and see how it all shakes out.
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Our school offers no AP classes, so I feel fortunate DS has an ACT score.
As to over or under matching, his top three schools include two very high reaches and a low match/probable safety. He tells me he could be very happy at any of them. If you haven’t seen it, watch Malcolm Gladwell’s Google Zeitgeist talk, which definitely touches on this subject.
As to increased EA apps, I truly think some of it is because we are weary and uneasy. Our household is looking forward to the 15th, just in case he hears good news. Then the second leg of this (RD apps) will be totally different than planned. So there may be some kids reaching for the moon, but others are just trying to get to the end of this process that much sooner.
And dumb reasons not to consider a college: mine refused to look at my alma mater, a highly ranked public, because the website was horrible. I have to admit, it felt a little last century, but still.
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@zinnia203 Haha I totally relate to the dumb reasons to not consider a college. For my twins, they wouldn’t consider UIUC which is a top engineering school. None of mine would consider Northwestern all saying “too close” but my son if he doesn’t get into his ED school will apply anyway. Fortunately their supplemental essay is short and he did visit. Unfortunately, they don’t consider legacies because there are some on his father’s side.
They also had absolutely no interest in U-Chicago for a myriad of reasons but mainly because for what they want it just isn’t what they’re known for. Of course, it is known for just about everything else!
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This has been my kids’ strategy, mostly safety/matches, because of needed merit. They focus on colleges with good honors programs with solid programs for their majors. It’s worked out so far.
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Sounds like the next PTA fundraiser needs to be for hiring someone to redo the school profile. 
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Interesting all these 3s on APLang we had same situation, ds reported b/c he wanted his 4s and 5s - his paper for the test was on Obama…we were thinking maybe his reader didn’t like all the good things ds said but maybe 3 was the score this year
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Ha, ha, right now I’m wishing that D21 wasn’t interested in my alma mater (and her father’s to boot). I’m too emotionally invested in the decision coming out tomorrow evening.
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Replying to give more info on the posts about getting AP credit and/or needing to repeat classes that were taken in high school. Just want to add
that I agree with the comments here about not needing to retake all science classes for medical track if they have AP credit. I looked into this for my kid (pre-med) and was told by a pre-med advisor that she was ok to NOT retake general chemistry since she placed out of the university’s placement test along with her AP test. I also personally CALLED 5 med schools around the US - all highly known ones - and all 5 told me they don’t care if the student takes it at the college level or high school level that they will look at the MCAT results.
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So interesting about all the 3’s! I think I am going to encourage him to report the scores on future applications, because he did well on AP Euro, APUSH, AP Bio (for which he did terribly in the class, but got a 4 on the test which he barely studied for).
Thank you for posting this. This bit is reassuring (bolding is mine) :
Tulane’s Schiffman raises another fear that students and those who support them have about diminishing spots for admission. He says, “from a number of panels I have served on, I’ve almost universally heard that the rumor that colleges allowed for massive groups of freshmen to defer a year/take a gap year (and thereby leave this current senior class in an even more competitive place) was completely unfounded.” He emphasizes, “I did not hear a single university admission officer note that because of gap years, this current applicant pool would face tighter admission standards.”
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Duke did. They flat out said they will take fewer kids because of sophomore leave of absences. But they are the only ones I think I’ve heard of that made a statement like that.
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@19and21 I would totally report 3 and above.
I live in close proximity to Stanford. So, I googled their thoughts on retaking freshman chemistry, if a student received a 5 on their AP Chem exam, as an example.
[quote]”Where do people with a 5 on the AP chem exam belong?
Students who earned a 5 on the AP Chemistry exam may place out of general chemistry and begin with Chem 33 in the Winter if desired. Students who choose to take Chem 31M or Chem 31A/B will forfeit their AP credit in chemistry. However, premedical students should be forewarned that a few medical schools do not accept AP credit, and thus a student may need to take either a general chemistry course or a more advanced chemistry course in order to qualify for those few medical schools. It is therefore recommended that pre-med students with a 5 on the AP Chemistry exam and who do not anticipate taking more advanced chemistry courses consider enrolling in Chem 31M rather than enrolling directly in Chem 33.”[/quote]
https://chemistry.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate-program/faq
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@Mwfan1921 That’s what I recall, that you have to send all or none, but some people seem to be disagreeing with that. It doesn’t really matter, I was just curious.
They mean you can self report individual scores but to officially send you have to send them all. Almost no schools ask you to officially send AP tests as they are not required as part of the application. If you want schools to look at them at all then you self report. And you can report or not report whichever ones you like.
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AP Bio is actually one of the hardest AP Exams to earn a 5. You can go to the collegeboard site and see the distributions for all the tests to see what percent earn a 5 and so on.
My daughters took AP Stats and got 5’s and we didn’t think it was any big deal. Then the one in Business school was told everyone retakes the stats class even if they took AP Stats so she figured that is what she would do. Then when she met with her advisor he asked her what she got on the AP and when she said 5 he said not to retake it. He said they only recommend retaking it if you don’t get a 5 and so few get a 5. Who knew? The other one her school doesn’t take AP Stats in Engineering. Bummer especially since you have to take Stats!
D21’s school profile does list a bunch of schools that students were admitted to over the past 5 years, but that’s not even accurate. D19 is at Emory and Emory isn’t on the list. Our school doesn’t use Naviance, so perhaps has less easily-available data than schools that do. Now about that PTA fundraiser…
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I don’t think it takes money to change the profile. It’s just a decision of the counseling department.
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