Our system also requires payment for the exams and the exams are the final exam for the class. But that’s alotta AP classes on the OPs tab. I do not care for the idea of public schools offering these branded classes and charging for them. Our system does pay for the test for low income families and only offers 5 total so it isn’t too expensive. Each of mine took 2 of the 5 offered when it was $80 for a test but I still wasn’t happy that they purchased the curriculum.
I don’t think FL pays full price for each exam. I think there is an arrangement where the college board pays them, or FL pays less if everyone takes the exams. If FL was paying full price, what would be the advantage of making every AP student take the exams? It would be cheaper for the state to not require everyone to take them
@Otterma , I wish I could like that 10 times. There are so many amazing courses at these schools, and 4 years goes by so quickly as it is…
Policy in our school is that you take the class you take the exam and it is not up for debate. If you cannot afford the test the school will help cover the cost. The cost for the test is $105 here if I am not mistaken. If you don’t take the test you don’t get the credit. Sorry, but you knew going in the cost to participate. I have spent well over 1k. You want a top rated school think of it as part of the cost of admission. Also in our school once you sign up for an AP class it cannot be dropped after I think the second week and it counts as a withdrawal. They tell you it will go on your record so be sure you really want the work. You are provided the book in May and the work begins for the following year from June to May. You are expected to do significant work over the summer. This is a public school of 1k kids. Ps The test is $94 dollars but if you read the college board schools can upcharge for other cost which would explain our cost. Our school does well on AP exams with many high scoring students.
To the OP: my son took a lot of AP exams that could not be used at the private LAC he chose. He went off to the LAC with high hopes.
But it turned out that he ran into problems managing his time at the LAC. He had A’s in most of his courses, but ended up with a D and an incomplete in others, and after two years decided to take a leave of absence.
That was good. He got a job and did some growing up.
Then he applied as a transfer to an in-state public. Because of his grades at his LAC, he did not have enough transferrable credits to qualify for junior standing. Also, the public university had a different set of general ed requirements, and he did not have some of the courses that the public u. students would have taken as freshmen or sophomores.
But he stil had those AP scores! And now those score were like gold, because of course the state public was quite generous, and they filled all sorts of those basic requirements as well as immediately boosting my son’s overall credit count up to the level it needed to be so that he could graduate in 2 years at the public – rather than having to tack on an additional semester or year fill in the gap. And it also freed my son to have a far more interesting and rewarding experience at the public u., because of the added flexibility from all those credits.
I wish you and your son the best, and certainly it’s more likely that he will stay and graduate from Williams and never use those AP credits.— but the point is, you never know.
Also, you might not see value from the spending the money now, but it is something that you and your son agreed to when he enrolled in the courses, and it gives the school data that it wants and needs. You’ve probably saved an equivalent amount already on application fees because your son had the good fortune to be admitted ED, rather than having to put out the money to apply and tranmit scores to 8 or 10 other colleges if Williams had deferred him. (I assume that any kid who wants to attend Williams would have a good list backup LAC’s to apply to). Any you aren’t looking at spending extra airfare in April so that your kid can visit 2 or 3 or 5 different schools that have accepted him in order to settle on one. So just as your son agreed to attend Williams as part of the ED process, you and he also agreed to complete the AP-through-testing process in exchange for an opportunity to take the courses at his high school, and got the benefit of an improved high school academic experience.
You wrote, “we are prepared to pay top dollar for a top school” – so obviously it is not a financial hardship for you. So I think you really should take a broader view. Just think of it as a fee you are paying for the courses he has been taking, even though the fee comes at the end of the course rather than at the beginning. As to whether or not the public school should subidize or not, that’s a separate question and may have a lot to do with demographics of the school or district as well as overall budget. That’s the kind of thing that should be addressed globally, through the school district or PTA — in a manner that is fair to everyone – not just that benefits kids who happen to be admitted to colleges that don’t award AP credits.
We also cannot take the tests at the school which is similar to another poster. They are scattered all around town from churches, to halls to even a old camp hall. Anywhere large enough for the students. They must provide their own transportation.
OP.: Yes, annoying in that circumstance…it’s a $$$$$ business these days.
Congratulations to your son. Think of it as just a bit more $ spent in the big “search”, like the $ spent on RD schools where now you don’t need an answer. Maybe that will seem less annoying then.
I was just speaking to one of my colleagues and asked this question. She said they tell their parents day one that the course culminates in an exam. If you do not take the exam, you do not get credit for the course. Any ap designation and weighting is removed. It is part of the syllabus which the parent and student have to sign in order to stay in the class. . She said it is like sitting in the class and not taking the final.
Starting at a higher level is of value, since the greater value of college course work is at the higher levels.
@Massmomm wrote:
The teacher giving an AP-modeled final exam seems an obvious solution to many of the concerns, or at least a decent compromise, with the added benefit that students will be motivated to do well as it would count for the course grade. As for the rest, I think if the school wants the official data, it should either pay as it does for other in-school standardized tests or make it optional, in which case the low scorers presumably opt out.
Public schools who pay for the tests either have very generous budgets or limit the number of students enrolled in those AP classes. Frankly, it is not an AP course if the student doesn’t take and pass the final- how did you know that anything was taught in the class if there is no final? Our school re-calculates the gpa on the transcript and re-categorizes the course as nonAP if the student doesnt take the exam.
^AP course designations and exams are separate - students can do one without the other - happens all the time. There is no College Board requirement that students enrolled in an official AP course take the exam and there is nothing stopping the school from administering its own final. AP courses are designated by College Board following a syllabus audit.
I was poor. No one told me about fee waivers. I wasn’t in a poor school district so those things never occurred to me to ask or they to offer. It took months to save up enough for AP tests and there were a few I didn’t take because I couldn’t afford them.
This still would have been an enormous amount to me as a student. I probably wouldn’t have taken as many AP classes as I did since I never knew whether or not I’d be able to afford exams. I’ve worked since my early teens. Most of my money went to making sure we had food and didn’t go homeless.
If the school wants feedback, why not give them AP tests as a final? If you’re going to require exams, they should be covered by the district.
“My son was admitted Early Decision to Williams College” - That’s great. Perhaps you will save a lot of money on other college apps and visits. If your son is not concerned and it’s not a family financial burden, then I’d advise you to just move on and enjoy his senior year.
Agree that the AP courses helped gain admission ED to WIlliams since rigor is important to them. Did your s take any APs last year? Did you pay for the exam then and was it as bothersome to you, or did you see the cost as worth it for the upcoming college application season? Since your son chose a fabulous school that you obviously knew doesn’t give AP credit (though does use it to satisfy prerequisite which, as others have said, is helpful), then this was your choice. Don’t see a reason to complain.
For those of you who are saying the AP exam counts as the final exam at your high school – do your children have to wait until AP scores are released (July?) before they get their final grades for those courses?
At our high school, the teachers give a mock AP exam before the actual AP exam and it counts towards the student’s grade, but the actual AP exam score doesnt’factor in at all. Students can opt out of exams, but you have to be strong to stand up to the teacher and school pressure if you opt to take this route. DD opted out of one her junior year. She would have had 4 exams in a fairly concentrated time period and she opted out of one of them. At that time, only some of the schools she was looking at would give credit for the exam she opted out of, while they all gave credit for the other three. In the end she ended up at a school that did give credit for that class, but the class was an easy A for her, so she didn’t mind taking it.
Prior to enrolling in each AP class (the prior year when scheduling), my daughter had to turn in a form signed by me stating that I agreed that there was an $89 payment PER CLASS that was required. Again, at the beginning of the year, I had to sign yet another agreement to pay the $89 by a date certain for this class.
Even if your school didn’t provide these “notices”, you knew going in that your child was taking AP classes and that the exam costs money. I’m failing to understand why there is complaining now - and yes, I understand that his college doesn’t accept the credits. But if they did and he didn’t score high enough, they wouldn’t accept them anyway. You never know what’s going to happen with those credits following the test.
With my two oldest, the school paid for the exam. They were both very good students and I probably would had paid for them to take the exams if required. It would have been a stretch though.
Now, the student has to pay. We did not pay for our third child to take his AP exam. He was not doing that well in the class as he was not putting forth the effort required. His teacher recommended that you take the exam if you have a B- or better. He did not and we did not let him take any more AP classes until his senior year. We still did not pay for the exam.
Our school goes until mid June, so we still have 3-4 weeks of classes after AP exams so all classes give their own final exam.
D16 's LAC would not accept AP credit from certain classes she was taking. SO . . . she didn’t take some of the tests. (her HS did not require kids to take the AP tests).
Like another poster above, she has transferred to our state’s U; and this semester is taking one of those exact classes that she took AP in HS; I wish she had that credit because we are paying a lot more for that class now.
I understand the annoyance of paying for something not needed. But, you just never know if those credits will come in handy.
one nice thing about AP awards is that they can be added to a resume in the early college years and it does sound nice. good luck!
ANother thought: i hope your son thrives at Williams. But I have seen many a story where everything does not work out the way that was hoped and they end up going to another not as selective University…where AP credits might be useful.