2
4 years ago
Admissions Advice

Sending NO AP Exam Scores

Will submitting 0 of the 4 AP exams I have already taken negatively affect my application by a decent amount? I scored 3's in both AP Histories and 2 in AP Chem and AP environmental science. However, I received high B's in AP world and u.s and A's in ap chem and environmental (I just suck at AP exams). I'm still submitting exams I will take in 2021, but not including any of these exams. Is that fine or should I include the 3's? I feel like colleges will then know I failed chem and environmental (I mainly care about top UC's).

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AP
2
10
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3 answers

4
4 years ago

In my opinion, choosing not to submit the exam scores will not negatively impact your application. For one, there is a significant percentage of students who take AP courses but never take the exams at all, so you're definitely not in an unusual situation. If you don't send your scores, then colleges will have no idea whether you took the tests or not; they can only see them when you send them with your permission. Also, a lot of admissions experts agree that AP Exams actually have no effect (or at least no significant effect) on your admissions probabilities. See https://www.collegexpress.com/articles-and-advice/test-prep/blog/icymi-ap-scores-dont-matter-college-admission/ for one example.

Hope this helps!

4
3
4 years ago

You're in a tough spot because if you report zero and they know you took 4 APs, then yes, they will assume you bombed them or didn't pass them. But if you submit (2) 3s and (2) 2s then that doesn't match up with your grades so they might think that your teacher in AP Chem and AP Env.Sc. had serious grade inflation because you got 2s in those vs. your 2 histories where the grade and AP score sort of aligns.

Since you mostly care about the UC Schools and the UC Schools do give credit for 3s in History/Social Studies I believe, then I recommend you submit the (2) 3s in AP World and AP US Histories and do not report the (2) 2s in AP Chem and AP Env. Sci.

That way the AO people will think you're "okay" on your APs but nothing special rather than raising a bunch of "yellow flags" as to what happened.

Good luck and hope that makes sense to you.

3
0
6 months ago

I'm basically in the same situation rn lol

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