Reporting AP Scholar with Honor: Advice

We just realized that my DS is an AP Scholar with Honor - see: Qualifying for an AP Scholar Award – AP Students | College Board

He did NOT report this on his Common Application. We did not realize these categories existed until after he submitted 8 applications for EA. He also did not submit his AP scores as we’d read it’s really about placement/credit once admitted, not admission.

He will add it to the honors section for the few RD applications he is submitting. We are wondering what we do regarding the already submitted applications. Part of him thinks he should email admissions and let them know, but part of him thinks they’ll think he “forgot” this initially as I guess he should have known in July when he got his scores, or at least in September when it was officially awarded. He was not informed by his school of this, or to even be on the look out for it, and hadn’t opened his College Board account in a while. He noticed just recently when he was logging in to send AP scores for a scholarship application.

He has a strong application, but only had 3 honors in the Honor section - NMSF, a history award from Junior year and he put National Honor Society in the section (as opposed to as an activity - as he had enough activities).

What do you think about this? Is it worth reaching out to admission officers/updating for the already submitted applications?

Additionally, I’m also wondering if I should be upset it wasn’t flagged by guidance. Small public school where the counselors, there are 4 of them, each have under 150 students assigned to them. He is probably one of a few kids who has 4 as a senior as our students are not allowed to take APs til Junior year. He actually took AP Macro on his own as a Sophomore. And as a Junior, took AP Physics, APUSH and APBC Calc. Most kids take Calc as Seniors; there are about 10 of them who took APCalc as juniors. So in reality, most current seniors have 2 at this point (history and science). But there are some who have 3 and he has 4. (He’s in 3 now - AP Stat, AP Comp Sci and AP Chem - so he’ll have 7 at the end). This isn’t something the counselors typically see, I guess, so I understand not flagging it, but am also sort of upset it wasn’t flagged. They do report how many kids are AP Scholars, etc. on the Profile, so they do track this info. And, I guess I could have realized, if I’d closely looked at the Profile, that it’s a thing. We just missed it.

Thanks!

It really doesn’t add much to the application. My daughter got her letter of AP scholar with distinction this semester, she’s a freshman is college, um, thanks?

I know he didn’t submit his AP scores yet, but did he self-report them in the Testing section of the Common App? If so, it will be apparent to the people reviewing his file that he qualified for an AP Scholar award even if he didn’t list it separately.

Yes, he included them in the Common Ap., but some of his schools, like Northeastern for example, don’t take the scores from the Common Ap. He sent his SAT scores directly to Northeastern but did not send the AP scores, so they, and a few others, don’t actually have his AP scores. Same with Penn State - they took the SAT but not APs from the Common Ap. What do you think in that situation?

Well, his transcript shows he took the AP courses and I assume he did well in them — that is what will matter most to schools. His NMSF status shows he is good at standardized exams.

I don’t know that including the AP Scholar award adds much except to confirm he also did well on the AP exams as well as each course in school, if they had any question about it. If his other stats are consistently strong, I don’t think that question will arise.

If it were me, I think I would do nothing for now. Submit it later if waitlisted anywhere. Maybe see if the guidance counselor can note it and send along with any mid-year grades that are requested. Good luck to your son!

If the scores required for qualifying for Scholar status were included on the Common App, then the award itself is a bit redundant. And if a school says it doesn’t use AP scores in admissions, then the corresponding award is very unlikely to be meaningful.

I wouldn’t do anything.

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This is not something to worry about. It does not make it break an application as so many students hit this threshold. Most do not add it with other things on their application that are more unique.

The notifications go directly to the students and it pops up when they log in.

School counselors really are dealing with a lot, please do not be upset with them. This is an unprecedented time for school counselors. The college board reports on this would be accessed by the test coordinator(s) and they just may have not made it to the school counselors with all of the other work they have on their plates.

Schools who are looking will see the self reported scores and know. NU and others in that tier will most likely assume the majority of their applicants have accomplished this level.

Thanks everyone. Based on a review of his schools, it looks like Northeastern may be the only one to not either have downloaded his AP scores from the Common Ap OR had an SRAR/self reporting component on the portal.

I am trying not to be frustrated with the school counselor. However, things haven’t been smooth sailing. For example, the counselor submitted DS’s recommendation letters for Penn State on 11/2, even though his application was in on 11/1 and she’d been told two weeks prior he was applying and needed recommendations sent. Thus, he’s not considered to be part of the EA pool. His other 7 made it in on time. It looks as if she might have sent the recommendations to Penn (which was on his Naviance list/Common Ap list for potential RD) and then realized later she’d done the wrong school. It’s not the end of the world as he’s still eligible for Schreyer Honors College as everything was in before 12/1, but it still makes me anxious and maybe extra critical. She also missed an EA deadline for a friend of DS for Michigan.

I think based on what you all said, for the EAs we’ll not update/do anything, unless deferred or we have something else to inform them of. But, it can’t hurt to add it in now for the few RDs left.