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<p>While AP participation continues to increase, note how rare it is for a student to do more than 14. Good context for many comments that I have seen on this topic.</p>
<p>You know this was 5 years ago? A lot of things have changed since then…</p>
<p>When we visited Duke 2 years ago, our tour guide had taken 21 AP courses and tests. </p>
<p>I’ve had at least a dozen kids over the years do 16 or 17 (some all fives) and have had two who have done 18 APs (he got one four, 17 fives).</p>
<p>(note: they attended a non-AP school, so they prepared outside of school, either on their own or with tutors/cram schools)</p>
<p>@anonemuss and @marvin100 and @menefrega I know that this article is five years old and many kids are taking more and more AP tests, but even if the number tripled from 5 years ago, it’s still very few students. </p>
<p>And then there are the schools that have have eliminated APs altogether, like Scarsdale High School, a leading public high school in westchester, NY, and riverdale country school, a leading private school in NYC. Each of those schools have around 20% or more of their graduating class admitted to ivies + Stanford, Chicago, MIT & another 20%+ admitted to top 30 unis and LAC without taking a single AP class.</p>
<p>As has been discussed here many times, the benefits of taking more than 8 AP classes is questionable - there is not much evidence the additional classes change your odds of acceptance much, so take them only if you want to, not because you think it will impress admissions. And self-studied APs are usually of limited worth, colleges are pretty much not impressed.</p>
<p>As for schools eliminating them, that’s fine as well, but I’m sure those schools just have their own versions of the classes not directly tied to APs. They are still extremely academically rigorous schools that admissions at the elite schools are more than familiar with, which is what really counts. In fact it kind of shows how it’s the class, not the test, that is really valuable.</p>
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The above should be edited to read: And self-studied APs are usually of limited worth (except for potential college credit); colleges are pretty much not impressed.</p>
<p>Last Spring, I went to an Exploring College Options event, which had reps from Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Duke, and Georgetown. During the Q&A, someone asked, “What do you think of applicants who self-study for additional AP’s over and above the AP classes they take?” One rep responded, “Please don’t do that. We’re not impressed by that.” The other reps all nodded.</p>
<p>I’m married to a lawyer, I rarely answer in absolutes. Somewhere, some school is impressed, but for all intents and purposes, your answer is the correct one.</p>