Our S19 is taking AP Comp Sci and absolutely hates it. Managed to get a B-plus for the semester but only because programs and projects were the majority of the grade. He did not fair well on tests and got a C on the semester final. He took the class because he thought he may have some interest in Comp Sci. He’s a very strong honors/AP student overall and a particularly strong math student but I think his poor test scores are partly because of a teacher who doesn’t have time to help after school and a class that is full of kids who have learned some Java in the past and the tests are curved.
He’s decided he wants nothing to do with Comp Sci. In fact, he wanted to drop if but my husband and I (and his counselor) said no. I asked his GC if it would be bad for him to NOT take the actual AP and he thought that was fine since he won’t take Comp Sci in college and would never use the credit for anything even if he did study his brains out and got a decent score. He’s got other APs and honors classes to focus on and SAT IIs to take this spring so he’s going to bag the AP Comp Sci test.
Does anyone have any experience where this backfired? It really does not matter, right? You don’t report your AP scores and they are not on the applications, correct? He will take eight other APs before graduation and will definitely be taking all of those tests. Just wondering if he’s ever going to get into a predicament where a school would actually ask for all AP scores before making admissions decisions.
Schools will see the AP class on his transcript, but not that he did not take it. My D15 took APGov and skipped the exam thinking (erroneously as it turned out) that the school where she ended up would not give credit for it anyway.
She did report her scores for her other exams, and she knew that doing so might make a college think that she must not have done well on APGov, but she didn’t sweat it. She had very good results.
@suzy100 Thanks, that’s helpful. Your daughter reported her AP scores actually on her applications? I honestly haven’t looked at the common app yet (or any others) to see if there’s a place to put that score. Or maybe she had to report it through the College Board like you do SAT tests?
@HRSMom Awesome. Thanks for the clarification. Yes, he will have AP Calc, AP Stats, AP Lang, APUSH, AP Physics I, AP Gov, AP Macro, AP French, AP Studio Art and plans to send all of those. Of course they are all in the plan (four next year and five senior year) but I expect he will do fine in these classes. AP Comp Sci was an anomaly since it’s a subject he had absolutely no experience with.
The only caveat, and this is HS specific, is that some HS’s list standardized testing on the transcripts. In these cases though, the school will usually remove them, so talk to the GC. But really, not taking one AP exam, not a big deal.
He is good. Zero issue, especially since he is not going into CS. Just didn’t take the test, not a big deal. Mine didn’t take one of them last year - not sure which, but this one had nothing to do with her future and had 5 other AP tests to worry about, so it became about bandwidth. Didn’t matter at all that she didn’t take it.
An example where it could have a little impact or would be “more noticeable” is a kid applying to engineering at a top school that had AP Calc BC as a junior but doesn’t take the AP test. Engineering is so darn competitive that one little thing can set you apart. Many schools say they don’t look at AP scores except for credit when you get there, but in this kind of situation, some do take a look.
@homerdog Colleges dont need to know if you take the AP test. Its only for credits if you want to use it. Then again, if your son studies really hard on the AP test and gets a 4-5 and VOLUNTARILY puts it on his common app, it might be a boost in his application.
If he has not time to study for both the AP test and the SAT’s, ditch the AP test and focus only on the SAT test…
Not a problem. My kids took several more AP classes than they did exams. We didn’t pay for exams if they thought they wouldn’t do well for any reason (bad teacher, too busy, whatever) or didn’t want to take it. Reporting AP exam scores is optional on applications (my kids had great scores on the exams they took and didn’t report them) and you don’t need to send the AP exam scores anywhere except to the college you attend. We viewed the exams as for college credit, not admittance, and the classes as the best fit academically for our kids.