I too was annoyed at having to pay for these AP exams even thought no college credit was to be given.
I am grateful that I would be able to pay $700 without it causing a hardship. Many other families can’t say the same, even though they are well above the subsidized lunch threshold. I don’t think we should get into the business of what a family should be able to afford. A kid should be able to take the AP class, and get the bump-up in GPA calculation for that, without taking the AP exam itself unless the school district is willing to pay the AP test fees, in which case I can see denying the bump-up if a kid chooses not to take the test.
@TheGreyKing My D15 was in a similar situation senior year of HS. She had been admitted ED to Pomona which won’t give more than 2 units of credit for AP exams, and she had already taken 5 by then (World History, APUSH, Chemistry, Statistics and Calc BC). Senior year she was taking AP Bio, AP Lit/Comp, AP Gov/Econ and AP Psychology. Fortunately our school didn’t enforce a requirement to take the tests, although her Lit/Comp teacher definitely let her know he didn’t appreciate her skipping the test. She didn’t want to take any, but after much griping and groaning she took the AP Psych test. That ended up being useful for satisfying prerequisites for her Behavioral Economics class.
The interesting thing that I didn’t expect is that, because we sent all scores to the registrar, all six of her AP scores appear on her Pomona transcript. All six scores are listed with two credits awarded but not allocated to any specific AP score. I don’t know how many colleges put AP scores on transcripts, but it’s something to keep in mind when sending scores.
Pomona’s AP policy is listed at
https://www.pomona.edu/admissions/learn-more/admitted-students/advanced-standing
Looks like AP can count up to two course units toward the number needed to graduate, but unlimited subject credit and advanced placement where allowed by the departments.
Students and parents should be aware that even if AP credit toward courses or credits needed to graduate is limited or not given, the subject credit and advanced placement from AP scores may still be useful. So the student may not be able to graduate early, but may be able to take additional electives of interest instead of lower level requirements.
Interestingly I ended up using my AP credits in a round about way in grad school. I had taken more courses than required as an undergrad and all the ones that were graduate level and related to architecture that were greater than number I’d been required to take, I could petition to get credit for. I saved almost a semester’s worth of tuition.
Many districts have education foundations which may subsidize tests for families who are not on free and reduced lunch but still can’t pay the full freight. In PA, free and reduced lunch students only have to pay $20 per test. Which can still add up!
Bingo
To make the point seriously that I was making above facetiously, how high does your income have to be, before you don’t mind at all sending $658 to College Board with no real return on it? Higher than our income.
An AP class is just that, a class. An AP test is something that anyone can take, regardless if they took a certain class or not. In this way, they are separate things. (How many times do we hear of schools that don’t specify their classes as AP, yet many kids take coordinating AP tests.) I believe that if a school does not have a class available that is equivalent to the AP class, they should not be required to take the test. Forcing kids to take an AP test for a mostly arbitrary ranking of a HS is ridiculous, as is not letting a student challenge themselves in a class because they may not score high enough on a test.
@QuantMech - That’s an interesting question. In our case we never questioned the assumption that the kids would take the test for every AP class they took, even though 1) we’re comfortable but still very frugal, 2) by the time senior year tests came it was clear that AP credits would be of minimal value at their chosen colleges, and 3) our HS didn’t require that students take the tests.
To us, taking the AP exam was just was a natural step at the end of the course. DS had taken a ridiculous number of AP classes, including 7 in both his junior and senior years, so it wasn’t particularly surprising when he was awarded our state’s State AP Scholar Award as the most prolific, high scoring male AP junkie in the state. DD was a relative slacker, with I believe 2 less AP classes and tests. And unlike her brother, she wasn’t valedictorian, as another girl in her class had similar grades but two more AP’s.
Knowing this, we thought there’d been a mistake when a few months later she was notified that she had earned the State AP Scholar Award. Each state has only two award winners, one boy and one girl, and there was no way our daughter could have outperformed the valedictorian, or so we surmised.
It was only then that we realized that some students strategically skip some or all AP tests, especially senior year, after college plans and AP utilization potentials were settled.
It’s hard to understand. I’m the type of person who buys groceries at three different stores in order to save money, but I never regretted paying for 35 or so AP exams between the two kids.
And I also never regretted that they didn’t attend our state flagship and utilize all those AP credits to enter as third year students. But if I were to add up the money we would have saved…
Holy crap, it would have been a lot.
@MomOf3DDs our school does not allow you to take an AP test on their campus unless you took the course.
UCB RE: #98. Not clear how much of the BC material they actually cover as the teacher apparently told the kids they probably wouldn’t do well on the BC test but would on the AB. The cynical view is that this allows the school to offer both AB and BC calc and thus report they offer an additional AP.
Wow, that policy is restrictive, VickiSoCal, #109! I’m glad our school did not have it, although we had to pay for the AP exams out of pocket.
I am not sure that I would have been willing to pay for 35 AP exams, even at yesteryear’s “bargain” prices.
My kids took 32 AP exams between the two of them. I paid for 31 of them. Son took one of the computer exams on a self study basis – really between computer camps and coding for fun he studied for it by just being him – because our school didn’t offer it. Took him to a nearby high school that did offer the test and they didn’t charge us to take it.
They got a mix of credit and no-credit out of them. Started college as officially juniors in terms of credits but not toward graduation. Daughter could graduate early but she has a full ride that can’t be used for grad school if she graduates early so no real reason to graduate early. Will get double major instead. Son could also graduate early but will likely pick up some graduate school classes at the end of senior year.
You never know. My son started at a liberal arts college that only accepted a few of box AP classes. He left that school and is now at a state school that accepted all of them. We are SO thankful he took those AP classes.