Thinking about registering for an AP Exam without taking the associated class? Here are the pros and cons. https://insights.collegeconfidential.com/ap-test-without-class
This is a prime example of a poorly written article. This “con” has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the article.
Not sure that “Weigh your Options” was supposed to be a con. I suspect it was supposed to be in a larger font as a sub-heading on par with the pros and cons.
What flabbergasts me about this entire article is no mention of the effort a student needs to go through to learn and study and entire high school year-long course in their spare time.
A $94 fee is a con, but needing to self-study what is taught in 100+ hours of class doesn’t rate a mention?
Taking the tests without taking the class can serve to be useful in some situations:
-If the student wants to attend a public u that gives credit for many AP tests, the student might be able to start college at a higher academic standing.
-If the student is particularly interested in the course (they plan to major in it, for example) and the school doesn’t offer it.
-If the student goes to a school with few or no AP offerings and wants to challenge himself.
The following are not good reasons to take the test without the class:
-Trying to impress colleges by racking up a bunch of test scores. It doesn’t impress them.
-Trying to get out of taking the class and thinking you can just do the exam instead. Colleges ideally want to see the grade you got in the class, and the test score isn’t so important. If the school offers the class and you don’t take it, but submit a test score for it, that’s isn’t going to impress the college.
Most colleges don’t use AP scores for admission purposes. There are a number of reasons for this, but for very selective schools, a main reason is that many kids don’t have the financial ability to pay for these tests. This is why they care more about the grade in the class.
Take the class if at all possible and focus on doing well in it.
Very weak sauce article. 30 seconds I’ll never get back.
I’m not sure about that.
For example, watch the “behind the scenes” video of the Amherst admission committee I’ve linked to below. At about 40 seconds in they discuss a student that got all 5’s on AP test when he hadn’t taken the related courses. They seem very impressed.
That tells me that scoring well on AP tests without having taken the class would not only be considered in the admission process, but would also be impressive to the committee - at least at school like Amherst. If one were just starting out in high school I don’t think that would be a bad plan to help differentiate yourself to selective universities, if one could pull it off.
That is a one second snapshot,and we do not know what the next sentence was. For all we know, the next comment was “Whew. Could she be more of a one-dimensional drone? Go out and throw a ball.”
An anecdote (and I know that the plural of anecdote is not data) that I have often told is from 2014: When I was going through the admissions process a few years ago, I went to an Exploring College Options event, which had reps from Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Duke, and Georgetown, among others. During the Q&A, someone asked, “What do you think of applicants who self-study for additional AP’s over and above the AP classes they take?” One rep responded, “Please don’t do that. We’re not impressed by that.” The other reps all nodded.
As @Lindagaf notes, and with whom I agree, there are valid reasons to self-study an AP. But from my experience on this site and others, 99% of the threads asking about self studying usually start with “What are the Easiest APs to Self Study to Impress Colleges.”
As an aside, this is a common misquote. The plural of anecdote IS data - inasmuch as an anecdote is a single point of data. There’s a somewhat interesting history to this quote, if one is interested.
To the original topic, I guess there’s no way for anyone to know for sure, but I’m of the opinion that scoring 5’s on multiple AP subjects in which one hadn’t taken classes would show that the student had invested in an academic life far beyond what was required by his or her school. S/he would have demonstrated that they took control of their education and used their initiative to learn outside of the school structure. I think that would be noted and considered favorably by admission committees. We may just have to agree to disagree on this.