<p>keabie18, I don’t know where you live but it is inappropriate for your school to bribe you in this fashion and I would find out if other neighboring school districts do this and if not report this to your state board of ED. </p>
<p>Same with requiring you to take the exam or you fail the class. Schools do this purely for state funded money. Unless the school is paying for your test, they cannot demand any of this and if you were motivated, you could really raise a legal action.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insight, I didn’t even think about the legal implications of such a policy. I’ll bring it up with my AP Gov teacher on monday 
I live in NY. Though, I could see them arguing that I had a choice whether to take the AP class or not.</p>
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<p>Good question. No, I don’t think so. The school is requesting either the ACT or SAT. I see the AP score reporting differently, since it’s additional volunteered info.</p>
<p>For admissions, the schools are interested in whether you took the tough courses. The AP scores are really for placement after matriculation. If you elect to report those scores when applying, you’re choosing to give a more complete picture of yourself. </p>
<p>Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If you report six out of eight scores, they’re going to assume that the others are 1’s, or maybe 2’s. They’ll be correct almost always.</p>
<p>For me, the lesson from this thread is that the OP should write “not taken” if the student doesn’t sit for the test. This wouldn’t have occurred to me without reading this thread.</p>
<p>RE: the original post–
not an option at our public HS. If you take an AP, you are required to take the exam.</p>
<p>As for what happens if you decide to bag out of it at the last minute, I have no idea.</p>
<p>^ How is that possible? How is that legal?</p>
<p>keabie18 and lspf72–that would be illegal in our state as well. Some states allow schools to charge fees for books, etc. so if your state is one of them, it might be legal there. If you are at a private school, they can do whatever they want :D.</p>
<p>If the school pays for the exams, that is different. Our district reimburses you the cost of the AP exam, which for us is only $55/test because the state subsidizes some of the cost already, if you get a 3 or better.</p>
<p>It is also required to take the exam at our public school. Parents and students are informed in writing before being allowed to sign up for class. I believe there is an application for a fee waiver. </p>
<p>AP is an elective not a requirement so there is no legal issue same as there is no legal issue to charge kids for drivers ed, which costs a lot more and has no shortage of takers.</p>
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<p>No, they’re not. Could those of you who live in school districts where taking the AP test is required if you take the course actually listen for a moment? Adcoms KNOW that not all school districts require the AP test be taken, so they aren’t going to know whether the AP-French class with no AP-French score means “kid took it and bombed” or “kid didn’t take it.” Since the vast majority of school districts in the country DON’T require the test be taken, why are you making the assumption that they will assume it was taken and bombed? </p>
<p>Anyway, shrug, my kids each bombed one AP (which they didn’t report) and they got into their first choices, both top schools by CC standards, so I’m going to guess no one really scrutinized at that level. Indeed, I can tell you for sure that my daughter’s essay and an unusual EC were very much the reason she got into her LAC. </p>
<p>Adcoms know that schools differ greatly in the # of AP’s they offer (if any). They know that regions of the country differ greatly in terms of “everyone takes the AP test” vs not. Admissions is not a function of counting up AP scores. They are lucky strike extras IMO. Some of the kids here on CC with 10 AP’s who think that makes them a shoo-in for Harvard – they don’t understand that most kids in the country probably don’t have access to any AP’s, or at most one or two, and yet those kids get into Harvard too.</p>
<p>I think the AP test requirement is determined by each school/state so one would have to check into their state’s or county policy . Our school does not require it (though they push students to take them). </p>
<p>It is a real shame as at our HS, there are some classes that are offered as regular eg Physics, Chem, Bio and AP with no honors version in between. So if you want to take an advanced version of a science, you must take the AP one. </p>
<p>It is depressing to think a student cannot take an AP class for knowledge or challenge without being forced to take a test. Just perpetuates that only do something for a grade mentality.</p>
<p>I wish D had not taken a couple of AP exams…she scored 5’s, but because she will take the corresponding IB HL exams it was a waste of time/effort. The colleges will give credit for one or the other, not both (which makes sense). Her teachers encouraged her to take the AP’s, so I paid and she studied. It was a lot of work and money.</p>
<p>She will not take the AP English exam, although her English HL has suggested it a couple of times. It won’t do anything for D, the exam date is right between two HL exams for her IB diploma. She doesn’t need the extra study stress.</p>
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<p>That’s our high school. Honors and AP are generally the same thing. There aren’t enough personnel / students to enable (for example) Regular Physics, Honors Physics and AP Physics.</p>
<p>Mom2mom, it won’t have been wasted if for some reason she does better on the AP than the IB exam. Some schools only give credit for 5’s on APs and 7’s on IBs so that’s not an impossible scenario.</p>
<p>I do totally get that some schools don’t make kids take exams and ad coms know that, and they also know that the quality of AP courses varies widely as well. That said, they also know the schools, if someone from our school didn’t report an exam grade it would probably be because they really bombed the exam, or they skipped it because they thought they would bomb it.</p>
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<p>Hmm, I think here in Georgia it’s technically not required, but in our area (middle/upper-middle class, I guess) I don’t think my D has read a book for English lang/lit class since 6th grade that we didn’t purchase. Needless to say we buy PE clothes, school supplies, expensive calculators, field trips, AP exams, etc. I suspect this is all a matter of what the traffic will bear (and what parents want, probably). Things must be different at schools in lower income areas.</p>
<p>Thanks, mathmom, that’s a good point about AP’s and IB test scores. She’s a senior, committed to her college, so we know the limit for credit, etc. Which we did not know when she started taking AP tests as a high school sophmore. I do think the IB program co-ordinator and the high school could clarify the credit situation. They give the impression that both will count, and it comes as a shock to many parents that this is not the case. (I had CC to help me figure that one out, and the websites of the colleges were most interesting to her.) Since the first year of HL classes, and generally the IB SL elective are AP classes at the high school, this impacts a lot of people.</p>
<p>This year’s English AP will not do a thing for her, that was the case at all her top choice colleges, so I’m glad we opted out. And the timing could have a negative impact on her overall IB score.</p>
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<p>Same at ours. We do have classes that are not AP branded that are flagged on the school profile as being “rigorous”…AP Physics, an Lit class and a few others. For all the rigorous classes you need pre-reqs and a certain GPA in those pre-reqs. The high school has 5 AP branded classes and about 3 or 4 that are considered rigorous. There’s no AP arms race at our high school and really no intention of adding more. The “rigorous” classes are sometimes more difficult than the AP branded classes according to the kids. Colleges just want to know that you “tested” yourself with a degree of rigor appropriate to the school. As I said earlier if you sign up for AP then the AP exam IS the final exam at my kids’ high school. If you don’t take the test, well, it’s the same as “skipping” an exam. It’s the student’s choice to sign up for the class or not. We did not send any AP scores for S1 or S2 until we knew if it benefited the kids with the college of choice. Take the test and decide if you want to send the scores.</p>
<p>I don’t think this has been mentioned…note that on the AP test answer sheet, there will be an option for the student to designate a college which will automatically receive an AP score report (which is cumulative of all AP tests taken as of that July’s report). Come application season, I wonder how many students remember or parents know that one college might have their AP score report!</p>
<p>There’s also a method for withholding that report and canceling a score, but you have to do it June 15, before you know the score. See</p>
<p>[AP</a> Scores - AP Scores & Reporting Services](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>View Your AP Scores – AP Students | College Board)
<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/ap-bulletin-students-parents-2011-12.pdf[/url]”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/ap-bulletin-students-parents-2011-12.pdf</a></p>
<p>If you want only select AP scores sent to a college, you can pay the collegeboard an additional fee to withhold that low score so that only the ones you want sent are sent. It does require an extra step and money but can be done. </p>
<p>Our HS does not include AP test scores on the transcript so that is the first thing you have check and I guess see if it can be removed from there before you go to the trouble.</p>
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<p>thank you, PG! I would like to think that adcoms are quite able to figure this out, given there wider range of knowledge about how different HS’s operate. my kids didn’t take AP’s if they didn’t want to skip an intro course, or weren’t going to get credit anyway. Despite this, they managed to get into quite good colleges. Our district does not pay for tests, and though we could have afforded them, why throw away 80+ dollars for each test, if they served no educational purpose?</p>
<p>For required classes at our high school they generally have 4 levels, basic, regular, honors and AP. For some of the more “elective” classes like physics they have regular, honors, AP and college level (taught at the high school by University professors). Electives like foreign languages you just have one level and you sign up for whatever year you are in, our kids are in Spanish 4-which is really AP Spanish. Next year they signed up for Spanish 5 which is actually the college level class taught in the school.</p>
<p>We only reported AP tests for our other kids that they would have received credit for at the various schools to which they applied. The question on the app was “which courses are you requesting AP credit”. It wouldn’t have answered the question correctly if they put down all the scores. Some of the colleges only gave credit for a 5 in some subjects but he got a 4 on the test so he didn’t put it down. Our other kids didn’t even take AP tests as seniors because they were maxed out on credits already so it made no difference if they took the test.</p>
<p>My D will have taken 11 AP exams by the time she’s done. This caused me to look up the advance credit and waivers granted for AP credit on the websites of colleges to which she applied. It fascinated me how differently they all treat AP credit. Not surprisingly, the Ivies seemed stingiest. However, there is huge variation in the subjects for which credit may be granted, and the scores required. Most colleges give credit for at most one of AP English Lang and AP English Lit, but there was one (I can’t remember which) that gives credit for both, separately.</p>
<p>I agree that it is not necessarily desirable for a student to accept an advance credit or waiver for an AP course in one’s major or closely related area, unless very confident that the AP course left one fully prepared for work at the next level. On the other hand, they certainly are a cost-effective way to cover off some breadth requirements and gain options of graduating more quickly or having room in one’s schedule to explore new subjects, study abroad, add a second major, etc.</p>