<p>How important are AP's in the college admissions process? Are they purely just money savers or do elite colleges really care about how many you took, if you self-studied em, and that stuff? Also how presitigious is the National AP Scholar Award?</p>
<p>Elite colleges want to see you taking the most rigorous curriculum available to you, which means if your school offers APs, you should be taking a decent selection of them or it will hurt your app. Self-studying (with high scores) is an excellent way of showing interest and motivation beyond the limits of your high school's offerings, though it's not expected and your app likely will not be hurt if you don't do it - only helped if you do.</p>
<p>I don't know how prestigious it is - just checked the AP site and wasn't able to find information about how many students earn it per year. Two things to consider, though:
a) AP Scholar awards are really just a summary of things that are already on your record, not accomplishments in and of themselves.
b) They're awarded in September, so (unless you take a lot of exams early in your HS career) colleges won't see the National AP Scholar Award on your app.</p>
<p>Well by the time I end my junior year I would have taken exactly 8 exams, with 5 of them being Self-Studied....so hopefully If i get a 4 or above on all of em I can get that =D (my school only has 3 AP Courses offered in sophmore+junior year)</p>
<p>A couple hundred juniors get National Scholar every year. There was a figure somewhere on CC before.</p>
<p>The award itself is not a guarantee into any college - nor is it a "hook." I believe the initiative and motivation demonstrated by taking many AP exams shine out much farther than just the title of "National Scholar." </p>
<p>I think colleges will also assess the level of difficulty in the AP exams taken in its consideration of a student's academic potential. For example, a course load combining physics, chemistry, and biology would look better than a list of scores that has humgeo, envsci, and psych - for example. It's not just about the numbers.</p>