Hi guys,
I was wondering if most ivies would jump to the conclusion that your class was easy if you got a 3 on its AP exam.
Depends on your GPA in that class. If you had like a 90 average and a 3, that would seem reasonable. However, if it was like a 99 and a 3, it would indicate that the class was easy or too much grade inflation.
I had A’s in all of my classes for the entire year
Then most likely a yes.
Well shoot. I also heard that you submit AP scores after you are already accepted to that school. Do you know if this is true?
You can self-report your scores on the Common App, so you might want to leave off a 3. But once your accepted, you must send the official score report with all scores. Or at least that’s how I understand it.
It’s not going to matter. Just don’t send the ones you don’t want them to see if it makes you feel better. I don’t think AP scores play any role in admissions because of how subjective they can tend to be.
The only issue is that it was half of the exams I took. I took 4, and got 3s on two of them. I was confident I got 5’s on both as well. This stinks
Any college / university will put your AP scores in perspective.
- How many APs does your school offer? How many do most people take? How do the kids from your school generally do on the APs?
- If there are others from your school applying to same colleges they might compare your scores to other students’ scores from your school. They (colleges) know that not all schools prepare students for the AP exams at the same level. At some HSs they expect 4s and 5s. At others it’s fine just to have taken the course/test.
- They will also look at the national distribution of scores for each specific AP exam - you can google “2015 AP score distribution” and see the results. For some tests, a 3 is not that bad. For others, the percentage of kids with 5s and 4s is much higher. For example, only 4.1% of kids got a 5 on the Physics 1 exam and only 6.2% on the Bio. While 65.2% got a 5 on Chinese Language and 44.6% got a 5 on Calculus BC. Bottom line, some of the tests are “harder” than others.
I do think if you leave off an AP score on Common App it might be construed as “he/she didn’t do very well on that one and didn’t want to list his/her score.” A 3 is still passing though, so not the end of the world. For all you know, you could have been a couple of questions away from a 4 … or a 2! Also, lots of people list AP Scholar with Distinction, AP Scholar w/ Honor, etc. on Common App. Bottom line: one 3 won’t necessarily sink your chances for these “honors” depending on how many tests you have taken.
If you had a bunch of 1s and 2s it would be a different story. Do you have some 4s and 5s as well as the 3? Was this your first year taking APs?
Good luck.
Yeah it was. The 3’s were in APUSH and Mech…
For APUSH the breakdown listed was:
5 - 9.3%
4 - 17.8%
3 - 23.6%
2 - 25%
1 - 24.3%
So you still did better than 49.3% of the kids taking that one. And only 28.1% of students did “better” than you. Not horrible. Is Mech Physics C?
Also, consider your intended major. Were the APs in an area you intend to study or in something else?
Good luck.
Yes it is. And I want to go into architecture, so yeah. I just want to know where I went so wrong T_T
It’s ONE test. Don’t sweat it.
Two tests 
What were the other 2 APs you took and what did you get on them??
BC Calc: 5 w/ 5 AB subscore and Lang: 4
So if my calculations are right, you have an average score of 3.75 which, given that you’ve taken only 4 APs so far, makes you “AP Scholar with Honors” (need 5 tests to get w/ Distinction) which is perfectly fine. You have Subject Tests you can take, too. Did you take those? But again, don’t sweat it. One 5, one 4 and two 3s is not the end of the world. Focus on everything else on your applications: essays, recs, ECs, etc.
Thanks @4Gulls . I appreciate you trying to make me feel better. I did take my subject tests, and they weren’t as goo d as I had hoped, but still ivy material. I just dont think I am good at standardized tests
No. If you have poor (relative) AP scores, you don’t report them. You self report AP scores on the Common App and then when you actually commit, you send official scores only to the school you are going to. If you scored 3 or lower, don’t mention the AP score. They will make judgements about your grades based on your school profile. If average ACT/SAT scores are 30 / 2000, and your top 5 percent - you are positioned very well. If a student is applying to a very top college and they self report a low AP score, you don’t get points for honesty
I understand. I just am afraid that they would think that I did not take the exams for half of my AP classes, and am therefore a slacker. I worked so insanely hard this year in my physics and calc classes. I probably put in over 3 months worth of hours into each class alone