Close one nostril with the tip of your finger, breathe in from the other, now close the nostril you took breath in from and open the other to breath out, now do the reverse. Repeat a few times, by the end of the 5th or 6th breath you would have fully relaxed. 
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AP tests and senior year: Kid has 3 APs - gov, stats and env.sci. He has discovered that heāll have finals + AP tests for each of these (for some reason he didnāt in his prior AP classes, just the AP test). Heās pushing back against taking the AP tests now.
I donāt blame him, or even really disagree with him. Itād be nice to have the credits, but not essential.
But on a final official transcript, to the schools heās already accepted by, is it going to be a rescindable event?
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My daughter isnāt planning on taking her AP gov test. I hadnāt thought it would be an issue at all, she didnāt take AP Enviro last year either.
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Not at all. My S is a college junior who didnāt take one of the AP tests his senior year - neither did many of his friends. Not an issue at all. Also, AP scores do not go on our high school transcripts, only the class grade, so I donāt think colleges ever know the difference.
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Our top private college counselor says no reason to take AP exams at the end of senior year and most seniors donāt. It can be useful to place out of a foreign language or some other requirement or for placement but by then a kid usually knows where they are going for college and if that college gives any useful credit. I generally view the last semester of high school as a light semester - the kids finally can take it easy! My son is very unlikely to take the AP exam for any of his three APs.
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That is what we are told as well. Generally kids take the AP exams at the end of freshman (if applicable), sophomore and junior years with the idea that it may be somewhat helpful in college admissions but not at the end of senior year.
Note that a foreign language AP test score may sometimes get you out of a college foreign language requirement (though often you can do same via placement test), an English AP score may get you out of a freshman college writing class requirement. AP scores may get you placed in a higher level science class though I am a believer in retaking those classes in college as AP classes really arenāt the same.
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My kid is planning to take all the AP tests for his senior year classes. He is looking at the 4 year course requirement maps for engineering majors at the schools he is considering, and noticing that there is not a lot of space for all the electives he would like to take, so he wants to have the option to pass out of classes or gen ed requirements.
If his desired major had more space for electives, he probably wouldnāt be taking all the AP tests, though.
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My son has to take all his APās test for him to get his AA. 
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I think if your kid is a great test taker and they can get credit, it makes sense to take the AP tests senior year. My D23 is not a great test taker and will only take her English AP this year because itās her strongest subject.
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The bummer part is you have to registered for an pay for the AP tests before you know what college youāre going to (for most). Otherwise it would be an easy decision to wait and see if the school accepts the credit (and also consider if taking the credit actually helps based on your major requirements). Most of my two older kids AP results were wasted on their colleges which capped them to 2 and 4 courses total regardless of scores.
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Good reassurances, thanks everyone.
The only possible reason to take the ACTs for my kid, then, is the still-outlier University of Melbourne. Melbourne has an ACT threshold (kid has met that) and an AP exam threshold: an aggregate score of 13, which must be met with three, or four, test scores added together.
Kid has three 4s. So he would need a fourth AP score to meet the aggregate threshold.
Sigh. Itās never simple, is it.
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My S20 had one score of 3 that received no credit at his private college. When he transferred to a public university, he not only got credit for a 3, he got additional credits for a 5 that he had in foreign language. 5 additional credits between the two! So, you just never know.
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Iāve told my kids that first-semester composition is worth taking even if they place out of it, because itās so often a useful āHow To Collegeā class. YMMV, however.
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Our school makes everyone take the AP exam. You have to pay in September and if you donāt, they pull you out and move you to a non-AP course. It stinks.
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Our public school one ups this. If you donāt take the AP test in May, they remove the AP designation from your transcript, and you donāt get the weight advantage on your GPA for the class either.
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My kids go/went to Catholic high schools and taking the AP tests is required at their schools unfortunately. And we have to pay for them. D23 is in the IB programme which also has required exams in order to earn the IB Diploma. We just got word that the test costs will be added to our November tuition bill - going to be a ridiculous amount of money I hadnāt anticipated on spending during the holidays! I think she has six IB tests and one AP exam that we have to pay for next month. It would have been nice if they could have spaced the cost out.
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Despite consistently writing āAā essays in high school (and as far as English/Writing, acing all APs and the ACT) my daughter still DID take her collegeās first-year writing seminar and indeed did find it useful, if only to figure out exactly what style, format, etc. they were looking for, and what other emphasis they might have.
As a bonus, given all the other anxiety that comes with the big step", it was a stress-free, easy āAā, without feeling that it had been wasted time (which is something she intensely despises).
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Depending on your state/area, the school administration/board might need/want to show high AP participation as part of their āschool/district report cardā.
In our case, once a year, the stateās rankings are published and parents/home owners will be very conscious of the school system delivering competitive rankings vs. neighboring towns so that realtors will tout a ādesirableā, āgreatā school district as a selling point.
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Even though at her Ivy (and likely many other top schools), APs canāt be used as credits towards the class requirements for a major, she was able to apply some towards some of the general education/broad knowledge requirements.
As a result, she was able to take other courses of interest that otherwise would not have fit her schedule.
Furthermore, some of her 5ās allowed her to skip some initial (repetitive) ā101ā classes, and once she had locked in a major and debating second majors and minors, it allowed her to apply some credits towards minors.
So there wasnāt a dollar-for-dollar ROI, but she certainly found her AP scores to offer welcome opportunities/flexibility at various times during the 4 years. After having slaved through the all those AP courses during high school at a compressed time-frame (to finish the material by test date), sitting for a quick test to gain the instant rewards was a small effort.
In addition, our high school removed AP test takers from finals requirements for that class.
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