<p>If your son doesn’t feel prepared for the exam, I don’t think it sounds like a good idea for him to sit for it. If he does want to take it, do get him a test prep book as soon as possible. There’s time yet for self-study before the May test date but not much.</p>
<p>Unless your son is applying to colleges that will require him to take a more advanced physics course if he scores well on the AP test, I see no harm in having him take it. It’s a diagnostic tool. If he feels after taking the test – or his score indicates – that his knowledge of physics is shaky, that provides him with useful information for college course selection.</p>
<p>My son took AP AB Calculus and got an A in the course. But when he took the AP test, he discovered that he didn’t have a solid knowledge of several important topics. After the exam, he told me, “Regardless of what score I get on this test, I’m going to take first-semester calculus over in college. I’m not ready to go on to the next level.”</p>
<p>As it happened, he got a 3, and the college he attended required a 4 for credit. So he didn’t have a choice about taking the course over. But he would have taken it over even if he had gotten a 4. </p>
<p>He got his money’s worth from the test.</p>
<p>D. did not skip, she took them after finals.</p>
<p>Our school doesn’t require students to take the AP test, and they don’t help paying for it. My kids have taken some, have not taken others, for all sorts of reasons, including financial.</p>
<p>S did not take the AP Physics test because he knew he wouldn’t do well. He’s not planning to take the AP Statistics test either.</p>
<p>D took the AP Language test her junior year; most of the schools she was applying to gave the exact same credit for AP Lit so it wasn’t worth paying for another test.</p>
<p>S is a senior and the school he’s attending allows you to use either AP U.S. Government or Comparative Government, not both. So he’s only signed up for one of them. I didn’t want to pay for both and see if he did better on one; I made him look at sample questions and choose the test he thought he might score better on.</p>
<p>S took the SAT subject tests because a couple of the schools he was considering required them. He did OK but not great. He did not list them on his Common Application. He just sent the scores directly to the schools that required them.</p>
<p>SAT subjects are not that hard, but there are exceptions. SAT II in US History is the hardest one, check score statistics, you will see that this one has the lowest one.
AP Stats is very easy. However, it is almost waste to take it in HS as college Stats is the easiest class to boost your college GPA. Take the hardest ones in HS (like History), save easiest ones for college.</p>
<p>One more point: Maybe this is a decision that should be made by the student, rather than the parent.</p>
<p>What does the student want to do in this case?</p>
<p>What’s hard or easy can depend a lot on the student. One son aced all tests even those outside his area of interest, the other excelled in all the history APs and AP Bio, but his Calc and Physics scores were less than perfect. (They were also probably affected by senioritis!) There’s no need to skip APs you take as a senior a bad score can’t possibly hurt you - the question is what to do as a junior. Ideally of course you study on your own and take the test, but that’s not always practical and some subjects are easier to teacher yourself than others. Subject tests aren’t the subject of this thread. (But both my kids found the US History subject test very easy if you were taking APUSH at the same time.)</p>
<p>^^Good point, marian. </p>
<p>Many students at my high school didn’t take the AP exams. When I was a juinor/senior (08/09), exams were $100 a PIECE because we had to take them off campus. I’m sure it’s gone up since then. A lot of us didn’t have that kind of money. </p>
<p>AP scores are self reported. Nothing wrong with only providing high scores and there’s nothing wrong with not taking the exam, especially if you don’t feel prepared.</p>
<p>In the NC public schools, all SAT and AP scores automatically show up on the transcript. There is no suppression of this data either. NC also requires that the AP exam be taken for the course to be considered AP. Be sure to check the transcripts carefully. There may be more info on it than you want!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wow, if that’s the case, then I sure as heck hope they’re helping low income kids take AP tests. They’re not cheap and that’s really unfair to those who are economically disadvantaged.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I absolutely cannot imagine our local, “good” public hs administration caring whether or not students in AP classes are required or not-required to take the corresponding AP test. You also have to understand that the cost of an AP test, while no big deal whatsoever to you or me, IS a big deal to many students. And it’s largely irrelevant in college admissions for most students anyway.</p>
<p>My d took ap stats and the school required the test. The teacher was a terrible stats teacher so all the kids were unprepared. Think she had two or three 4s per year. No fives. Anyway, my daughter new she was gonna not pass, had no intention of reporting it, she was a graduating senior, she was already in college, so on the test, she created her name in the scantron boxes, another girl did zigzagatterns, etc.</p>
<p>It shculd have been a good class, but eh, it’s no wonder she had so many 1s</p>
<p>Our school definitely cares about students taking the AP test, both to keep students and teachers honest. They also understand very well that the few hundred dollars spent on the tests have the potential of saving thousands for the students in the long run. Students on free and reduced lunch automatically take tests for free or reduced prices and others can petition for hardship. Parents would be up in arms if large numbers of students were failing the tests.</p>
<p>Ah, but there’s a difference between caring about “I want our students to do well, so that we can claim that our students got x number of 4’s and 5’s on AP tests” and “I feel it’s important enough to mandate as a policy that all AP-course-takers take the AP test.” Of course our school likes to be able to say the former, but they don’t really care about the latter. There just doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to force the handful of students who don’t sit for the AP test to do so.</p>
<p>Certainly find out if the AP scores are automatically on the transcripts. Otherwise, the collegeboard will allow you (for an additional fee of course) to suppress any AP test scores you do not want sent to a school you are applying to. So you can then only send the scores you want to send.</p>
<p>When my d had to sit for ap stats test, their decorating of the form was a protest in a way.</p>
<p>Some colleges have a limit to how many ap credits you can get anyway. Yes, the ap credits my daughters got helped, but having six more would not have made a difference credit wise. </p>
<p>Having ap test count toward grade, well, ew.</p>
<p>
Perhaps Stats might be the easiest to boost your college GPA but it is not the easiest for AP exams. The mean score for AP Stats is 2.82 and only 12% of testers scored a 5. The lowest mean scores for AP exams are:</p>
<p>French 2.54
Word History 2.57
Human Geography 2.61
Environmental Science 2.66
Government & Politics 2.67
Biology 2.70
US History 2.75
German/Macro Economics 2.76
Chemistry 2.77</p>
<p>Physics are actually some of the higher ones.</p>
<p>Physics C E/M 3.47
Physics C Mech 3.38
Physics B 2.92</p>
<p>The 3 hardest by lowest percentage of 3 or higher:</p>
<p>World History 48.4%
Environmental Science 49.4%
Biology 50.6%</p>
<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/AP-Student-Score-Distributions.pdf[/url]”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/AP-Student-Score-Distributions.pdf</a></p>
<p>Our son is not taking any AP tests in his major field because the schools he is considering won’t give credit for AP tests in your major and they do their own placement tests for placement in classes so there is no need to take (and pay for) the AP tests. He will have several AP classes on his transcript with no corresponding AP test reported. The schools want to know which classes they have to give credit for, not how well you did on every test.</p>
<p>You can suppress AP scores - I think you have to pay a fee. Given that, why not take the test and see how it goes?</p>
<p>At my D’s high school AP tests are expected but, not required. I left it up to her as to how well she felt she would do on the test. She is going to Penn State in the fall and it appears that for Penn State, unless you will get a 5 don’t bother. The tests are very expensive and I’m sure there are plenty of kids that only take 1 or 2 for that reason. I know the AP class shows up on the transcript but, I can’t imagine that the colleges (except maybe the ivies) care whether you take the test. In fact, my D’s Spanish teacher told her class that if you are a native Spanish speaker you couldn’t get any credit for taking the Spanish Language AP test. So, why pay for a test that won’t get you anything. Does that student get penalized when a college looks and sees she didn’t take the AP test? I would hope not.</p>