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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How many chemistry, physics, and math courses did they take at MIT?
I’m asking because generally medical schools are okay with using AP credit if you take additional college courses in the subject.
Of course, it is the kid. But more often than not, it is the team (=family) effort.
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I haven’t seen a college application since 1984, and all 5 of my kids went to college. They chose their own classes in HS, chose where to apply, got all of their “stuff” submitted by the deadlines. One applied to 20 universities. They attended 7 different universities (including grad school and study abroad- and we had zero involvement in study abroad, were surprised it happened, but he’s currently traveling for the next 3 weeks, I think he’s in Switzerland right now). I do think they might’ve helped each other out with advice and such. We never had access to any parent portals.
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Your kids are amazing! However, it is/was your choice to stay out of it. Different families have different relationships with their kids and different desires and abilities to help. IMHO, most kids benefit from parents that care and are involved in the process. But again: to each their own. I am sure there are a lot of kids who reject help or parents who do not want or cannot help.
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Our oldest wouldn’t even let us read any essays, the next ED’d to a targets, the next was very type A and had spreadsheets, very organized type A, the next the same, the Kate a bit of a mess but siblings were more appreciated than parents at that point. Don’t get me wrong, we’d do anything asked, and did. I think some parents are more involved, and some students want more involvement.
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I will be the first to say my 3 kids were kind of clueless about college. We helped them figure out what was important to them and helped figure out which colleges to check out. My kids are smart but they had little way to figure out how to put things in context (eg being impressed with a school talking about study abroad without realizing almost every school talks up study abroad). They all went to boarding schools, so once they knew where they were applying we had virtually nothing to do with the application process.
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Thanks all for the response - being a little tardy in response (didn’t expect this big thread after the first day and was away from laptop for a break)
As others have mentioned stats
US citizen studying international.
senior,1500/~3.9+ GPA/some ECs/sports at regional level.
Mostly targetting the big publics and EA in engineering/science (ASU, UTA, UW, UMich, UNC, Purdue and few more) Only ASU has come through at this point with merit for first year.
Plan is to get some merit and save on housing if possible with family + some loan maybe (still need to figure out based on what comes through)
FAFSA SAI didn’t qualify for nede based aid and NPCs were not great based on the data punched in, so relying on merit.
And typically, APs, my kid registers late (mid Jan or so) and self-studies since it is not available in the school.Cost a bit more though
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- Not sure why you would do it.
- You can absolutely negotiate. It is college dependent, of course. But what do you have to lose?
5. If it is smaller college then it may be helpful. Especially if it is a reach school or there are competitive scholarships involved. It is a great way to show interest and also impress admissions counselor if your student has great communication skills.
8. Why not? Join and see if they are useful for you. I would not join every school local list but if you are selecting between 2-3 schools, then definitely yes.
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If you’re applying to publics and don’t qualify for aid, you’re not going to be able to negotiate.
You start with budget. How much can you afford to spend a year?
ASU is showing $35,715 tuition but then lots of other fees now including a college differential. I can’t see which they are charging for but engineering is typically one - so could be another $2K. They are showing $21K for room and board but that seems high. Honors costs there too. But if it’s even $55-60K minus what your scholarship would be, can you afford that?
UT Austin - you’re not getting money - it’s going to be over $60K.
U Michigan is over $80K and the last two years even more - you’re not getting a nickel.
Purdue will be your least expensive - and charges an engineering surcharge. Mid 40s.
If you want engineering, not sure why you applied to UNC.
Question #1 to you - like every other single person out there, what’s your budget or what are you willing to spend?
You build an application list around budget, not by name or perceived ranking. If you’re doing engineering, it’s ABET you seek - you will (hopefully) find an ABET accredited school at your cost.
But unless your budget is full cost of attendance with this list - or if you somehow have housing savings everywhere - you can adapt that….
But otherwise, as many do, you built your list incorrectly.
Please provide a budget - and you’ll get a list of schools that work. It may include these or many not - depending on that # you provide.
The rest of your questions you asked - given a public, engineering school -
- no
- no
- no - short of a crazy change - but no
- no - unless they offer that or have a portal update
- no - unless it’s helpful for you
- not relevant to admission - and many will tell you to re-take classes in the major/area
- good for you but not relevant to admission
- not necessary.
Bottom line - you need a budget and then to live within that budget. There are schools from $20k-$95K - and you’ll often, in engineering, get a similar outcome. And there are private schools that will discount heavily - schools like Clarkson, as an example.
Hopefully you have a budget # in mind - and hopefully ASU meets it - or you’ll need to add more schools that do meet it.
OP said $20K in one of their other threads.