By Rajkamal Rao
More than 6000 AP Daily video lessons are available in AP Classroom to help you prepare for AP Exams. https://t.co/lrmSPXjDyM pic.twitter.com/UelAFwrbbt
— AP for Students (@APforStudents) March 1, 2021
But why are AP courses so important?
There are four important advantages which a student gets by taking AP courses.
1. Colleges Love The AP Program
By definition, the U.S. high school curriculum from state to state is different. Someone taking U.S. History in New Mexico will not be challenged in the same way as someone taking U.S. History in Kansas. The U.S. K-12 education system is managed and administered at the state level. Efforts to nationalize the curriculum (Common Core) have repeatedly failed because there are clear advantages to having local control.
But when it is time to apply to colleges, it is only fair that students are evaluated on topics which are not only nationally standardized, but internationally so. The topics, the format, the questions and post-test evaluation are all standardized and administered by the College Board which conducts 34 different AP exams around the world with remarkable efficiency. The New Mexico student and the Kansas student will then confront the same exam if they take AP U.S. History on the same day. For colleges, evaluation and comparison of student performance become a lot easier.
According to the College Board, more than 90 percent of the about 2.5 million test takers in 2015 sat for three or fewer of the exams. But the percentage of students who took 10 exams, while very small, more than doubled over the decade between 2005 and 2015, to 0.7 percent, or 16,580 students over a four-year administration range.
2. Earn That GPA Bonus
High school students earn a significant bonus on their Grade Point Average if they take an AP course in school and pass the AP exam. Check out our primer on grades to understand how this works. Higher weighted average GPAs translate into a better class rank. In some states such as Texas and California, getting ranked in the top 10% could win you automatic admission into public universities.All school districts allocate grade weights based on the strength of curriculum of courses taken. AP and IB courses always rank as the most difficult of courses and earn the highest GPA bonus. Pre-AP, Honors, GT, Dual Credit courses are the next level down. On-level courses don't earn any GPA bonus.
[Read the following italicized text if your school district inflates Pre-AP courses].
[Unfortunately, some school districts (Katy ISD, Cypress Fairbanks ISD, Round Rock ISD) artificially inflate the degree of difficulty of Pre-AP courses by lumping Pre-AP courses together with AP courses awarding both the same GPA weighted bonus. This is a disservice to students and families because apples and oranges are not the same fruit.
Let us examine why Pre-AP courses don't deserve to be in the same category as AP courses.
Rigor. The rigor of AP classes equates to what college students typically experience in the first semester of college. Certain topics like AP Computer Science, AP Physics 2 and AP Calculus BC are even more challenging. AP Calculus BC, with topics such as Advanced Integration Techniques, Advanced Sequences, Series, Convergence and Error Bound, Taylor Series and Polynomials, Parametric Functions and Vectors, and Polar Coordinates and Polar Graphs, equates to a second-semester college-level Calculus course.
Why some school districts provide a teenager the false hope that taking Pre-AP Precalculus is no different from someone taking AP Calculus BC is head-scratching. The argument just does not compute. An apple is not an orange.
Evaluation. Student performance on an AP course is not only evaluated by a high school teacher during all 36 weeks in school, but is also anonymously and independently evaluated by the College Board on a separate exam (anonymously, because the evaluating teacher does not know the student and there can be no favoritism in grading). The multi-level evaluation of a student provides colleges an extra layer of assurance that the student's performance has been fairly measured. It is this assurance that allows institutions to offer college credit (see section 4 below) for strong performance on AP exams.
College Credits. No college credit can be earned by taking Pre-AP courses.
Yet, many students in these school districts gladly take an Honors-level course in place of a tougher AP course, effectively gaming the system to earn a better class rank with much lower effort. Families need to be aware that colleges can and do tell the difference when admission teams review student transcripts. Top universities want to see that students take the "toughest" courses offered by their high school. If a student could take AP Human Geography but has instead settled for the easier Pre-AP World Geography, this fact is plainly visible to college admissions officers. After all, "Strength of Curriculum" as a factor has consistently been the #4 rated factor in college admissions, after grades and SAT/ACT scores].
Let us examine why Pre-AP courses don't deserve to be in the same category as AP courses.
Rigor. The rigor of AP classes equates to what college students typically experience in the first semester of college. Certain topics like AP Computer Science, AP Physics 2 and AP Calculus BC are even more challenging. AP Calculus BC, with topics such as Advanced Integration Techniques, Advanced Sequences, Series, Convergence and Error Bound, Taylor Series and Polynomials, Parametric Functions and Vectors, and Polar Coordinates and Polar Graphs, equates to a second-semester college-level Calculus course.
Why some school districts provide a teenager the false hope that taking Pre-AP Precalculus is no different from someone taking AP Calculus BC is head-scratching. The argument just does not compute. An apple is not an orange.
Evaluation. Student performance on an AP course is not only evaluated by a high school teacher during all 36 weeks in school, but is also anonymously and independently evaluated by the College Board on a separate exam (anonymously, because the evaluating teacher does not know the student and there can be no favoritism in grading). The multi-level evaluation of a student provides colleges an extra layer of assurance that the student's performance has been fairly measured. It is this assurance that allows institutions to offer college credit (see section 4 below) for strong performance on AP exams.
College Credits. No college credit can be earned by taking Pre-AP courses.
Yet, many students in these school districts gladly take an Honors-level course in place of a tougher AP course, effectively gaming the system to earn a better class rank with much lower effort. Families need to be aware that colleges can and do tell the difference when admission teams review student transcripts. Top universities want to see that students take the "toughest" courses offered by their high school. If a student could take AP Human Geography but has instead settled for the easier Pre-AP World Geography, this fact is plainly visible to college admissions officers. After all, "Strength of Curriculum" as a factor has consistently been the #4 rated factor in college admissions, after grades and SAT/ACT scores].
3. Enhance Your Brag Sheet
The College Board recognizes students for their achievements in AP. These academic distinctions can make your brag sheet look better because they are "good things to include on résumé and college applications." And some awards will appear on your AP score report which you send to colleges. Check out the various AP Scholar awards and see if you have already earned a level. The College Board does not always inform you if you have won an award. You need to log in to your account to print out a certificate. |
| Source: The College Board |
4. Lower College Costs
Many colleges award you with college credit for completing AP exams if you earn a certain minimum score. AP exams are graded on a 1 - 5 scale with the 5 being the most accomplished. As the College Board says, "each college and university makes its own decisions about awarding credit and placement." Check out this College Board website to see what it takes to earn college credit at your favorite institution. Once you get an idea, visit the actual college website because there could be information that may not have been updated on the College Board website.
During the college applications process, you don't have to send your scores. All platforms and colleges accept self-reporting of scores for the purpose of college admissions.
But you MUST send all of your scores to the one college that you will ultimately attend. The deadline date for this is the middle of June of your Senior year, around the time you graduate from high school. The College Board allows you to send all of your AP scores for free to one college. Colleges require the official scores from the College Board in order to grant you course credit or permit you to skip a course. Every year you take AP Exams, you can send one score report for free to the college, university, or scholarship organization of your choice. Score reports include this year's and prior years’ AP Exam scores. Most students don't take advantage of the free score send all years, but only at the end of the Senior year after they know their future college.
Just because a college rewards you with course credit, it does not always mean that you should exempt out of a particular course. If you're studying to become a medical doctor, you might think that you could accelerate your path by exempting out of a freshman year Biology 101 based on the strength of your AP Biology performance in high school. But it may make sense to take the Bio 101 class in college after all because learning in a college environment is far different from doing so in high school. You would have matured more and your ability to grasp things would be higher in college.
Also, just because the AP Credit Policy Search shows that you can earn college credits does not mean that every AP course that you complete, even if you meet performance requirements, will result in an automatic granting of college credits. All students pursuing an undergraduate degree must complete the so-called core curriculum of standard courses.
In Texas, the 42-hour statewide Core Curriculum applies. Examine this link to see a detailed list of all core courses for your destination Texas institution. There are three fields on this page:
- Select Fall Semester of Calendar Year
- Choose an Institution
- Choose Component Area - we suggest that you keep this as ALL.
 |
| UTD Core Curriculum requirements (partial). Source: Texas GECC WebCenter |
Your AP courses will
often exceed core curriculum requirements. Suppose you completed AP
Physics, AP Chemistry, and AP Biology with a score of a 4. All these
will technically get you college credits. But if your destination
college requires only two Natural Science courses to be completed as
part of its core curriculum, only two of the three AP courses that you
worked so hard for will qualify for credit. This is one reason that
students who have 15 AP courses are often able to transfer only 8-9 AP
courses for credit.
The College Board allows you to cancel your AP score if you are not happy with your performance in an exam. Score cancellations are permanently deleted from your record. You will need to fax or snail-mail the form to the College Board with your signature. The form will ask you for the exam code. Find it on page 4 here:
Nearly all universities disallow changes to a student record once an AP credit is claimed. Contact us if you have questions about which courses to transfer for your desired major.
Summary
Gaining admission to colleges and obtaining college credit using your AP scores are entirely different things and handled by two separate organizations within each college.
The first is handled by the undergraduate student admissions office which looks at your grades in school, accompanied by any self-reporting of AP scores that you have done in your Common App as a way to evaluate your merit. This is a subjective exercise as your record is compared against the record of other students.
AP scores for credit transfer are handled by the counselor's office within each department of your target college. This process is resolved a month or two before you start at a college, generally after orientation. The university will have strict rules about granting college credit for AP classes - and a counselor has no authority to override the process.
The College Board allows you to report one set of full AP scores for free to one destination college, the college in which you enroll and to which you pay a deposit. You can do this in early June, two months before starting in the Fall.
The College Board allows you to cancel your AP score if you are not happy with your performance in an exam. Score cancellations are permanently deleted from your record. You will need to fax or snail-mail the form to the College Board with your signature. The form will ask you for the exam code. Find it on page 4 here:
Nearly all universities disallow changes to a student record once an AP credit is claimed. Contact us if you have questions about which courses to transfer for your desired major.
Summary
Gaining admission to colleges and obtaining college credit using your AP scores are entirely different things and handled by two separate organizations within each college.
The first is handled by the undergraduate student admissions office which looks at your grades in school, accompanied by any self-reporting of AP scores that you have done in your Common App as a way to evaluate your merit. This is a subjective exercise as your record is compared against the record of other students.
AP scores for credit transfer are handled by the counselor's office within each department of your target college. This process is resolved a month or two before you start at a college, generally after orientation. The university will have strict rules about granting college credit for AP classes - and a counselor has no authority to override the process.
The College Board allows you to report one set of full AP scores for free to one destination college, the college in which you enroll and to which you pay a deposit. You can do this in early June, two months before starting in the Fall.
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