How many APs did you take?

ramboacid
Wed, 04 Sep 2013 10:33:19 +0000

Totally agree with PMCM18, AP stuff as it pertains to colleges is very subjective and depends on your school/the opportunities your school presents to you. A kid from the rural midwest would not be penalized for taking only one or two AP courses if those were the only ones the school offered. A kid from NYC might be if his school offers 10 or 15 AP level courses and he/she only takes a few.

That being said, AP scores are largely not that important in college admissions - the fact that you self-report them probably means that the college isn’t very concerned about them. My school was against AP courses on philosophical grounds, and thus didn’t offer them, but plenty of people walked into the testing area in early May after taking a roughly-corresponding course that year and did well. If you take AP courses then your grades in those courses are probably more important than the test scores for admission purposes, but if you get a high grade in an AP course and a 2 or 3 on the test, then the worst it’ll do is cast doubt on the rigor of your high school curriculum.

As for me (these were “self-study” as there were no AP courses but mostly I had taken some kind of course related to them):

10th Grade:
AP Computer Science A - 5
AP U.S. History - 5

11th Grade:
AP Chemistry - 5
AP Biology - 5
AP Calculus - 5 (AB subscore - 5)
AP Spanish Lang - 4

12th Grade:
AP Statistics - 5
AP English Lang - 5
AP Physics C: Mechanics - 4 (my school’s physics curriculum sucked, so I didn’t bother with the AP for E&M :D)