Our kids are not obliged to take the exams. Families pay, though the district will pay for those families for whom it is a financial hardship. In sophomore and junior year generally most take them because it looks strange to colleges to take the course but not the exam, plus majority of kids at our school get 4s or 5s (generally about 80% of school’s AP scores) so generally a positive on college applications. In senior year it is more variable and if students are not expecting or wanting to get college credit from the APs they may not bother with the exams.
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Senior year APs are harder for a college to evaluate - especially early action They won’t have grades when they decide.
AP pre calc shows the student is on pace math wise but not advanced. No rigor checks there.
Your student will create a list best for them. It likely won’t be top 20s but so much more goes into building a list, starting with budget.
This is the same exact policy at our public HS. The competitive students could usually take 4 AP’s during senior year. A few hyper-competitive ones were able to petition for 4 AP’s during junior year as well.
Our school makes the students take AP exams, pay for them the second week of school. AP stats was accepted by my kids’ colleges, probably as an elective. One of my kids graduated college a year early due to AP classes, another could’ve but instead had 42 extra credits. I don’t know anyone here who takes classes at CC, it’s not free.
We’re definitely not looking at top 20 or even top 50! But in looking at merit for both in and oos publics to find schools that could work, weighted grading is often a factor which sort of got me thinking about APs. (A separate issue is our school’s weighting weights honors AND APs equally…which Im not sure colleges do AND our school has a max 4.0 uw/4.5 weighted per class…I know that other schools use a 5.0 scale). The whole thing is very confusing for a strong student at a normal school but not not top student at top school. Thats why I love hearing everyone’s thoughts:)
Weighting systems vary a lot. Many schools do not show a weighted GPA on the transcript at all. Our kids’ HS transcripts only show the unweighted GPA. This is a hindrance at many large public schools that simply read “either weighted or unweighted” GPA off the transcript.
Maybe it’s me, but my kids chose their classes, 100%. They chose what schools to apply to, they completed their applications themselves (I haven’t seen a college application since mine, and have 4 college graduates, 1 more in May). Did they always make the best choices? No. I had some kids who were overachievers, some not so much. I have 1 with 9 AP 5’s, 1 who never got more than a 2 on an AP exam (never studied for them). We were pretty hands off.
Your achools’s grading scale will go along with the school profile so don’t worry about that. My D’s high school also had the same weighing for honors and APs and it was just a small bump.
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If budget is an issue, do a “match me.” As long as your budget is $40k, there’s lots of schools. Some at $30k and even potentially $20k.
Btw merit in and of itself doesn’t matter. Overall cost does. Some schools are cheaper full pay than others with merit.
If you do a match me and state the desired budget, you’ll be given schools that fit. Obviously the more geographically flexible you are, the better. AP’ in many cases, won’t help or hinder in this regard. They may in some but likely not a high percentage.
Don’t worry about what you see others reporting here. Schools differ in what they offer, what they require/restrict, how they grade, etc. Your best bet is to choose the most rigorous path that allows your student to do well and have time for other things that matter, including sleep! Your school will submit a profile that will allow AOs to put that transcript in context.
I would recommend taking the AP exams at the end of junior year. There’s no obligation to report the scores, but a good score can “validate” an A. In a test optional world, it can help to have a few points that are standardized.
To your question, I believe most people report APs as the # taken by graduation, and yes, there is likely a bit of puffery on the part of some. (Years ago, the NYT showed a transcript that included AP Botany, which doesn’t exist!)
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Many colleges will recalculate on their own basis using either the grades section on common app or STARS if they use it. I think others just rely on the school profile context to gauge.
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Interesting seeing how different as we are almost neighbors! Our transcripts show: uw and w GPA, uw and w academic GPA, and the (UC/CSU) w 10-12 GPA.
And ours only shows weighted GPA of academic classes (so no health class added to the GPA, for example). I think showing weighted GPA only must be similar to a lot of schools since I seem to see so many chance me threads with just this reported number.
Our school had no weighting and no rank. Note that the CC is generally asked to rate the curriculum for each student as “most rigorous, moderately rigorous, etc., so if you are concerned about that, ask your GC if your schedule will meet your expectation on that front.
It was up to the teacher to determine if the AP or IB exam was mandatory. When it was, the reason was that they wanted the students to have a shared goal and commitment to mastery. In several subjects, they had found it difficult to manage two sets of students with different learning goals. Seemed fair enough to me!
Yes, it’s not uncommon for chance me posters to need help calculating their own UW GPA.
Our counselors leave that part blank.
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Our AP teachers will always teach on the assumption that all students will take the tests, even if they choose not to.
Again, thanks for all the responses.
I think because tuitions are so high (even our state flagship is around $40k instate cost of attendance without merit), all these questions around gpa, rigor, and merit are important for me to try to understand. For ex, several of the NPCs included grades and SATs (which he hasnt even taken yet) in their calculation. Obviously, you can do without, but its less accurate. So it can make a difference between not ruling out the possibly/likely $43,000 school vs pretty much ruling out that same school for a visit if it looks like it won’t come in below $58,000, for example. We won’t get financial aid for $58,000…but that is just not feasible for us to actually pay that much for 4 years for one child.
Beyond that, it really is interesting to hear how it is done at other schools and to hear everyone’s experiences. Thank you all!
Just one data point- for our state flagship your child’s unweighted GPA and standardized test score will be the determining factor in merit aid. The test score is kinda the big differentiating factor as so many kids have very high GPAs.
Now, our flagship will give .5 quality points for honors so a couple Bs will be covered by that weighting. APs are weighted +1 but that ship has pretty much sailed for your child at this point as it is too late to add more than what he has. But the good news is there is a point at which, for many or most of these schools, it is a wash. They apply their own weighting and then a 4.0 is seen the same as a 4.25 or a 4.4. At some point it’s just a great GPA, it qualifies for merit aid, and they don’t try to figure out if a 4.4 is better than a 4.27 or how much better a 4.6 is really.
So, don’t worry about APs not taken. But for our flagship the test score is going to be what scores better merit aid and the good news is, as a junior, he still has time to study for that and get that up as high as feasible.
It is important to know what the schools you are targeting look at. Sometimes they are very transparent! Test scores have been key for us. They GPA has to be there but it is the ACT score that is really bringing the biggest $$ in state for us.
Ours did too and taught all the courses as if everyone was going to test. In some classes, students were equally motivated whether they planned to test or not. In others, the energy in a collaborative class was diminished if there was a cohort with a resistance to review, for example, or work over breaks. There was always another alternative, often one with equal rigor but more flexibility. But we digress….
Yeah, my D’s college accepted her AP Stats score as satisfying her quantitative general studies requirement. So it wasn’t course credit (per college policy, she could only get credit for two courses through AP scores), but it did check off a box for her, much like other APs might satisfy prerequisites without necessarily granting course credit. Senior year APs can pay off.
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