AP Classes and Scores

paco_1
Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:59:29 +0000

APs don’t play a big role at all, and when they do (not even big then), they do only in the following situations:
-if you want to get college credit (given your acceptance into X University)
-if you received an award (AP Scholar with Honors/Distinction, AP National Scholar, or even the aforementioned Siemens AP Scholar Award)
-shows you took a challenging and rigorous courseload (of course, this is relative to your particular school’s AP course selection)

sorry, but that’s all. Colleges really don’t care about APs. Terrible AP scores will NOT keep you out of an excellent college, including the Ivies.

“I think that they play a large role. Why wouldn’t they, there are a 3 hour test in a specific subject that you spent a year on and you’re being compared against the whole country. As opposed to that stupid A you get when compared against 25 people in your class.”

You are completely wrong. There are studies and articles out now that found that people taking the AP course and exam before entering college fared equally as well or even worse than college freshmen taking the college-equivalent-to-AP course. And besides, AP exams are overrated. Generally you just need a passing rate to get a 5 (~70%), and some AP exams have very generous curves.