I took AP Computer Science in 10th grade and I had a horrible teacher. In fact, the median score for my school was 1.48 and 20/27 people who took the test got 1’s. I ended up not taking the test, but this year (Junior Year), I am taking an online course from Johns Hopkins to self study for the test.
My questions are: (1) Is it worth it to take the AP Test? Many people skipped out of it because they felt that they were not prepared. Also, preparing for the test and completing the course will take a lot of time and I am already crunched with 4 AP’s and one honors. (2) Will it affect college admissions? Will they know that most people who take the test from my school failed?
Thanks for your help.
I don’t think they will know or care about any other students from your school. What they will see is that you took the class, but didn’t report a score on the test. They will probably assume you either didn’t take it, or did poorly. Did you get a good grade in the class? I think it looks better to have a result from the test if you took the class, but others might disagree. Your schedule is full, as you say. Take the test if you think you can do well, and not sacrifice your grades or scores in your other AP classes.
I got an A in the class; it was so easy that pretty much everyone did.
Whether it is worth taking the test depends on whether you can get advanced placement in CS courses in the colleges you are considering.
You mentioned in another thread aiming for HYPSM and Berkeley. Out of these schools, only Stanford allows advanced placement in CS courses with AP CS A (score of 4 or 5 allows skipping CS 106A and placement into CS 106B or 106X). Even if you do go to Stanford and have a high enough AP CS A score, you may want to check the old final exams for CS 106A to see if you know the material well enough to skip it.
If you do not plan to take more advanced CS courses in college, then it will not be worth the bother at all, unless you think a few generic elective credits (if they even give that) will of some use.