And I didn’t see this mentioned, but Stanford requires reporting of all AP scores.
As does MIT, but fortunately, that’s not on OP’s list
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Good info
@K_Ch none of this should change your plans other than to follow each school’s direction.
If your student is highly accomplished, they deserve the right to apply to where they want - and I don’t think the AP scores are a negative in any way. Assuming the 9 courses are in both STEM and non STEM, having all 4+s may even be seen as a positive.
Good luck to your student.
I think like you have said, best to send scores of 4s and 5s. I went through the Stanford link posted by @maijem11 and they show that 4 & 5 are accepted for equivalents although 5 can provide equivalence for the next level class as well.
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Not to mention that as @skieurope noted - Stanford shared with the Stanford testing link: “AP exams are not mandatory; however, if you have taken any AP exams, even if you self-studied for them, you are required to self-report all your AP scores in your application.”
So you have no choice - but it’s why it’s important to look at what each school says, if you want to withhold any (which I don’t think would be wise).
From an AP test POV, I think your student is in a good place.
Good luck.
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I hope so. Tysm.
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I wouldn’t submit that many 4s, to T20s myself, though VERY VERY tricky indeed and answer probably very by school and none us knows…
That is, unless the school says you have to submit them all (which some do).
IMO at schools of that level are looking for reasons to say no. They have SOOOO Many people with 4.0 GPAs and 1550s. Applicant is showing they are not in the top 20-30% (or whatever) of AP takers across many tests. Also potentially showing rigor of their HS isn’t super high…
AOs don’t know why you didn’t report or take exam - maybe you were sick and couldn’t make make up day, maybe they had a fencing tournament and prioritized it, etc. Maybe parent didn’t want to pay for 10 exams and you don’t qualify for a waiver. (they certainly are NOT free in my city). In theory, they should NOT hold it against you that you didn’t take exam. I know that theory doesn’t always hold true…)
I also think a few schools schools may average your AP scores and keep on a dashboard… (I swear I read that somewhere) so if doing comparison of candidate a with 12 APs and 4.3 and B with 8 APs and 5 average, which do they pick? I bet the latter…but once again varies by schools priorities - who knows?
You have to go with your gut.
Another thing would be if taking exam is required at your HS (it is some places) and AO will knows this.
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Generally speaking, that’s true. But for a prospective STEM major, withholding five STEM AP scores won’t give the applicant the benefit of the doubt—it will signal to the admissions committee that the scores weren’t strong.
Regardless, we’re missing crucial context here: the core stats. If the student has a 4.0 GPA and a 1580 SAT, AP scores won’t move the needle much. If they have a 3.5 GPA and a 1370 SAT, discussing top-tier universities is completely off the table.
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Agreed 100%.
Additionally, for clarity, they know from the transcript every AP class that was taken. They will intuit what they will if only some scores were submitted.
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Student has a 3.9 GPA.
That’s a good point, our HS requires the exam.
This is a good point - I have seen this as part of his grad plan/transcript from school.
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The level of school you’re discussing - you don’t have a choice.
Stanford requires it
Yale encourages it - which means requires
Look at the others. But if they are of the same ilk, I don’t see how you can exclude them and think that’s an advantage - or eliminating a disadvantage.
In the end, if he gets in - great. And if not, he’ll find a home where he can and will still do great things.
The Common Data Set provides data and metrics in a “common” format that facilitates comparison across institutions. Section C7 contains the admissions rubric of 6 academic & 12 nonacademic factors in first-year admission. Institutions can rate each factor as being Very Important, Important, Considered, or Not Considered. Standardized test scores strictly covers only the ACT & SAT. Other types of scores, whether required or optional, including AP, IB, & Cambridge fall under Rigor of secondary school record.
Here is a link to the Harvard CDS page, which also contains links to MIT, Princeton, Stanford, & Yale CDS reports.
A non-reported AP score for an AP course listed on the academic record would be assumed to be not a 5. I.e. 4 or lower. Better to report a 4 than to lead an admission reader to think that it may be a 3, 2, or 1.
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I don’t know if this is always the case. Example: this year, we had a snow day in the middle of AP exams (not the first time this has happened). This affected my son, who was scheduled to take the AP Lit exam that day. The school scheduled two make-up days, and my son couldn’t make either of them – didn’t take the exam in the end. Based on his grades in honors and AP English classes and his skills in writing and the humanities, it’s likely that he would have scored a 5, or a 4 at the lowest.
Now, granted, he was a graduating senior, and while a 5 could have helped him place out of some intro English courses in college (it would not have gotten him credit at the school he’s attending), he didn’t really suffer serious consequences for bailing on the exam. Had he been a junior, he would have worked harder to move things around to take the scheduled make-up exam. But surely there were juniors scheduled to take exams on the day it snowed and couldn’t take the make-up exams. My point is that things like this happen. Kids get sick in the middle of APs, or they have conflicts with overlapping exams, and perhaps have to decide which ones they’ll make up. Maybe they don’t get to make up all of the exams they miss. Some parts of the country have snow days in May, like we did.
So while a missing AP score might raise questions, it doesn’t answer them, and I think it happens often enough that admissions officers don’t automatically jump to the worst conclusions, depending on what the rest of the application file looks like. (FWIW, my son got into a highly selective school even though he declined to report one of his AP scores, because it was lower than his other scores. It clearly did not make a difference.)
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Do you have a source for this? Many students take an AP class but don’t take the test.
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But this might be why certain schools require them and others strongly encourage.
Every adcom may have a different, even if slight, on the topic.
But it is certainly plausible they could think this.
So depending on the school level, there could be risk. The perception is probably different by school and even adcom.
I agree with @ucbalumnus. If other students at the school were in the AP class and took the exam they will guess that your student took it too. And if there were extenuating circumstances and no exam, than put that in additional info. You are looked at in the context of the other students at your school. If they are all reporting an AP score from enrollment in the same AP class, why aren’t you? That is what I would be thinking if I were an AO. So unless I get a score or a reason I am thinking maybe 4 but maybe 3, 2, or 1. I don’t think you need a source as it is just logic: Same school same class majority report a score, a few don’t. And who doesn’t report a 5 as part of their common app? Probably no one. (My student did not report the scores for exams taken senior year. They were post acceptance and not very good! She had a hunch based on her lack of interest because they are not useful at her college so she sent her confirming 9-11th grade scores for her Common App in June before the 12th grade ones were released. Since her Ivy doesn’t give credit, they were satisfied with that it seems as she had fulfilled the process of confirming that she did not misrepresent the scores she had received on her common app.
If a student did not take the test, they could add that fact in the application to distinguish that from an unreported assumed-to-be-low score.
Some high schools put the AP scores on their transcripts. You might want to check to see if yours does.
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