At our HS, in order to take AP classes, you have to sign up for the tests the 2nd week of school, and pay then. Otherwise you won’t be able to stay in the class. Not taking the test will lower your grade in the class.
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So first of all, this was five years ago (and if you go ten+ years ago, MIT was still accepting AP Chem 5 to place out of 5.11). But at the time, DS20’s AP Chem 5 gave him permission to sit for the exam as I recall. He passed it and went right into 5.12 (orgo).
@31fan @Mwfan1921 I told this on CC when it happened in spring of 2016. It was Princeton. DS16 already had maxed out his History AP’s and didn’t want to sit for Euro, and furthermore would have to miss a day of work/pay AND not get the money back, which mattered to our family’s finances. They told him he could skip the English AP because that had been planned as a self-study, but that his enrollment for AP Euro required him to take the exam as a matter of academic integrity. I personally heard the voicemail on his phone, but for some reason CC people have doubted this story for going on nine years… BTW the reason he waited until the final college choice about these two was that if he were going to choose MIT, the English AP (self-studied or not) had the potential to fulfill a writing requirement, and the History AP would have given more elective credits. Ultimately, DS sat for the Euro exam and got a 5, but cancelled the English exam and got something like $70 back.
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I generally support this policy, despite my DS16’s annoying situation all those years ago.
If students blow off the exam (and teachers can tell because they can, I think, see the free response section later) then it messes up all the school’s statistics and information for the next generations of kids. It also hurts the teachers who can’t see where they may need to fill in more on certain topics the following year (and therefore help those kids).
Also, I kind of agree with Princeton that it’s not really academically honest to say you’re taking an AP class and then not actually be held to the examination on that specific material. We know there’s a lot of grade inflation and the AP exam is a nationwide standard.
That said, there are exceptions to probably everything I’ve said. Back to the OP - it is very late now to be “thinking about” which APs to enroll for, seeing as the deadline is past for exams and likely for classes except maybe semester-2 only classes.
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Not sure why you tagged me. I wasn’t on CC in 2016, nor do I doubt your story.
I can’t speak to the commonality of that a full decade ago, but it’s definitely not a common situation now, as taking AP tests is seen as an access issue because many HSs don’t pay for/subsidize students to take AP tests. Of course there are HSs that require students to take the tests. And maybe some colleges still do too.
Sorry, I thought you light-bulbed the question 
I did, not sure why that would precipitate a response. Regardless this is all quite far afield from what OP asked so I’m not going to respond again.
I’m guessing most people don’t call the college to ask about this, and that’s why we’ve never heard of it. It would never occur to me that my kid would be required to take an AP exam senior year, and indeed my D26 who is applying to highly selective schools is planning not to take one of hers this year. At our HS we have to pay for the exams ourselves, to the tune of more than $100 each. We won’t be calling any of the colleges to ask, and I’m not aware of any college that has something on their websites to this effect.
Our HS also. BUT no student is excluded from the exam for financial reasons. The school does have a fund set aside for those who can’t afford the costs. The family just needs to ask.
Our school also required the registration for the AP exam by the second week of classes, or the student was moved to a different course. And yes, this did happen.
Re: what colleges take…our kids both did very well on two or three exams. DS got a bunch of English credits. But nothing for his other two exams. DD got zero credits toward her degree from her AP scores (all 5).
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Please get back on topic and direct responses to the OP!
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