<p>Sophomore D1 is pondering course selection for junior year. Four APs (Calc AB, US History, Chem and one of the Englishes) are locked in. Her top priority for choosing her other courses is to make sure she can have a Beloved and Wonderful Teacher for one of her core courses instead of the Awful Terrible Teacher who is the only other alternative for that particular AP. Since BWT only teaches an AP one period of the day, D1 is not requesting any classes that would conflict with BWT’s AP class. Since that’s the period when many of the non-core APs meet, it restricts D1’s choices.</p>
<p>One possible option is the AP Studio Art class. The class meets every period, which avoids the scheduling problem. D1 loves ceramics and likes the idea of having one period of the day which is unlike the others. The problem she foresees is the AP test itself, which is a portfolio for AP Studio Art: just about every student who takes the class at her school ends up with a 1 or a 2. Even a 3 is apparently a rare and wondrous event. Our district requires students to take the AP test if they are enrolled in an AP course, so opting out of the portfolio submission is not an option. </p>
<p>Just how bad would a 1 in Studio Art look on a transcript? D1 had AP World in 9th grade, and has Physics B and Euro this year, so without studio art she will have 7 APs coming into her senior year. What will an adcom think when seeing one bad score for a non-academic AP nestled with a bunch of good/great academic AP scores? We are in California and D1 will be applying to UCs: does anyone have any insight into how one bad AP score is perceived in a less holistic admissions office?</p>
<p>I realize that your daughter loves ceramics but studio art is not focused on ceramics. In our school, even the non-AP studio art class requires the review of a portfolio at the end of the year. In addition, each student had to work on his/her sketch book every night and weekly reviews/grades of the sketches were recorded. Our public school has an excellent art program and I’m not sure if the requirements here are much different than the requirements at other high schools.</p>
<p>Based on the experience of my 2 kids, Studio Art (non-AP) is fun but it requires quite a bit of work. I don’t recall them doing much work in ceramics. Much of the work was drawing, sketching, multi-media collages, painting, history and observations of works by major artists, a bit of computer manipulation of photographs, and focus on completion of one or two major pieces of work to “show” at the Art Show. </p>
<p>Does your school offer a Ceramics class as an elective?</p>
<p>*As far as not reporting one AP test score, I don’t believe that is possible. If you look at the AP score report, the scores of all AP tests taken are included.</p>
<p>I wonder if the district would make an exception for the AP Studio Art test, since it really isn’t a test. If it’s so rare that a student would pass with a 3, much less do well enough to get a 5, either the AP designation should be removed from the class or the test not be required. Why make the parents flush $86 down the drain? Money is tight!</p>
<p>I don’t know a single school that wants the official AP transcript until after you are accepted and only if you want credit for those courses. You self report the grades on the app. You can just leave off the AP art test grade. They won’t know if you just didn’t take the exam and they are not going to care.</p>
<p>You don’t need to report the AP score to colleges.</p>
<p>It is strange (and unfair) IMHO that the school requires the portfolio test while obviously not being able to provide adequate preparation…
The portfolio requires a lot of work. Make sure your daughter is up to the task, and knows what is required before she gets into it…</p>
<p>It has been a few years but I recall the art teacher at my son’s high school saying it is a very difficult AP to pass. At my son’s school many kids spend 2 yrs in AP Studio Art before they are ready to submit the portfolio. The students who pass are serious about their art. Also at our high school one would not qualify to take AP Studio Art without having had quite a few years of previous art classes. Before AP Studio Art a student would have taken Freehand Drawing, Beginning Painting and Advanced Painting.</p>
<p>If your daughter feels that she can earn a decent grade in the class without the grade bringing down her overall gpa, than give it a try. It’s the GPA that’s going to matter regarding college admissions. In all honesty, if she plans on taking 4 AP’s during her junior year, she should take an EASY “A” elective to fill out her schedule.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that the school would allow your daughter to take the AP Studio Art class without a lot of prior art courses. No junior could take it at my D’s school, because the prerequisites are Art, Drawing/Printmaking, Graphic Design, Painting, and either Advanced Painting or Advanced Drawing, plus a teacher recommendation. At least at D’s school, this is a course for serious art students only. Isn’t there another elective she could take? Does it have to be an AP? This just seems like a mismatch to me, but ultimately I doubt that a low score on the AP will hurt her in admissions.</p>
<p>I know a number of schools that require students to commit to taking the test if they are taking the course. It does make the school look much better and give more weight to the curriculum if that is the case, if the scores are good. It doesn’t tell a college much of anything if a school offers AP courses and most of the kids never end up taking the exam.</p>
<p>I would not jump to the conclusion that the school’s students are not scoring well on the the AP Studio Art “exam” due to inadequate preparation. My son’s high school has one of the best studio art programs in our state (known for its emphasis on the fine arts, brand-new facilities, extensive classes in many media, etc.) and even there students rarely earn a 3 or better. That is quite consistent with the national statistics: only 25% of all AP Studio Art (3-D) portfolios submitted last year were rated a 4 or 5. The grading is very harsh, as it is based on college art major standards. (By the way, my son’s portfolio only received a 2, but he was accepted to RISD – where he is currently a senior – and to every other art school he applied to!)</p>
<p>If the OP’s daughter truly enjoys studio art, I’d encourage her to go for it and not to worry about the AP score. As others have pointed out, she does not have to report the score to colleges if she does not want to. And a hands-on art class would give her a break from a heavy load of academic classes.</p>
<p>When the college receives the official AP score report, all scores will be listed. I believe what cpt is implying is that on the application itself, the student writes in the scores of his/her AP tests. She is saying that the student can pick and choose which AP scores to write down. Sure, but once the school gets the official AP Test Report (which includes ALL AP test scores), they will compare it to what was filed on the application. Sooner or later, the college will see the complete set of AP test results–which may be after the student is offered an admittance and decides to send the official report. It’s a gray area–lying by omission. A college is more likely to reject a student based on the grade in the class rather than the grade on the AP test.</p>
<p>If the OP’s daughter plans on taking 4 AP’s during her junior year, she should fill out the remaining part of her schedule with easy “A” classes as not to risk a decline in GPA.</p>
<p>If your daughter enjoys art, the AP class sounds like fun. I doubt that the AP score would have any particular impact, unless she’s proposing to go into art–and even then, maybe not. </p>
<p>CB’s AP site for Studio Art has portfolios on line, so that you can see what sort of work is preferred by the CB graders. The last time I looked, as I recall, art that was digitally-based seemed to be preferred–which seemed a little weird to me. Perhaps the level of technical drawing or painting skill of most high school students is not high enough for the graders to overlook that aspect of the work. I also observed that portfolios that are not just collections of “best work,” but rather themed groupings seem to be preferred strongly. If the students at your daughter’s high school are scoring low, despite talent, maybe there’s a hook for portfolios?</p>
<p>I doubt this is done. Many colleges will tell you that they don’t use AP scores as part of the admissions process, but only for placement and credit issues. OK…then why ask for those scores on the application?!</p>
<p>If AP scores had a lot of weight in the admissions process, I believe that colleges would require you to send them an official AP score report from the College Board (as if the college board wasn’t making enough money!). Colleges require an official SAT report and the official transcript from the schools (unless you’re applying to a California state school).</p>
<p>My sons’ school has an open Studio Art program–that is, anyone who wants to take the course is permitted to do so. It is a very popular course, and nearly all of the kids do go for the AP score. They average a 4 on the exam.</p>
<p>cpt,
You may not know “of a single school” requesting AP scores as part of the admission process, but plenty of D1’s reach schools asked for these.</p>
<p>I think the whole AP Studio Art portfolio requirements and evaluation is one of the hugest flaws on the part of Collegeboard. CB should first of all communicate the necessary preparation to the high schools, which in turn should communicate that to families. In order to get a “3,” much prep is needed. But further, i.m.o., the portfolio requirements themselves are much, much more designed to select for art school candidates than anything else. I think that there should be two levels of portfolio: one for students who consider themselves accomplished but not applying to art schools; they should have half the number of pieces required; they can choose depth or breadth. The art school candidates should need both depth and breadth.</p>
<p>AP Studio Art
AP Studio Art Pre-Professional</p>
<p>You just leave the test score space blank on the application. By the time you send them the AP scores, you are already admitted. I don’t know a single school that asks for the official AP transcript unless you want to get credit for the exams or get to take more advanced courses at the college.</p>
<p>Epiphany, name one school that wanted the official AP transcript, please. Yes, they leave a space on the application for the score, which you can leave blank. I know many kids who have done that and gotten into HPY. You don’t have to fill in the AP test scores. Yes, it helps your case if you have great scores. But a lot of kids take the course and not the exam. They are not going to chase down an AP studio art test score.</p>
An official report needs to be sent only to the school where the student is matriculating, which is done at the end of senior year, when all the tests are finished. By that time low scores do not matter.
No college will rescind an admission because of a low AP score.</p>