This past year (junior year) I took two APs (my school only lets students take two APs junior and senior year and one sophomore year unless you get special permission and make As in all APs you already took). I took AP Bio and AP Literature junior year and got 4s on both of the finals. How will this fare when applying to Ivies or other schools that are similarly competitive? I feel like most people applying to these schools get all 5s. So does getting 4s look bad or is that okay?
Next year I am taking three APs: AP Calc, AP Lang, and AP Psych.
No. APs are used for credit/placement. I’m of the opinion that they carry little to no weight in the admissions process. Regardless, a 4 is a very good score. If you get rejected from a school, it will not be as the result of a 4.
As a student of UPenn, I can say that you will be shocked when you realize how little of your AP test scores actually give you credit. I’m sure students in other schools can agree with me here as well.
For example, my 5’s on the AP Micro and Macro allows me to take a harder ECON class, but it did not fulfill my sector requirement AND it didn’t give me any course units to graduate.