Do all these APs really pay off/matter?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:People desperately want APs to count for admissions simply because it’s a counting stat. I took X APs and scored a 5 on this many of them.

I think the reality is far more complicated and chasing 10, 12 or 14 APs is just misguided.

Montgomery County kids take APUSH in 9th grade. Isn’t it possible that colleges devalue APs if 9th graders can excel in them?

A lot of colleges put some kind of cap on the way they score APs. For example they might want to see one AP in each core subject, or treat “6 or more” APs the same, so that there’s no extra benefit to taking 18. But of course as with everything this varies from school to school.

Source? Or was this told to you by your admissions officer “friends.”

“On average, people who take harder classes in high school may be better students already, so of course they’d have higher GPAs in college. To control for that, Kretchmar and Wiesen took into account SAT scores and high school grades. They found that students who take more AP or IB courses do better in college—but only up to a certain point. If two students have similar SAT scores and high-school grades, and one takes zero AP courses and the other takes five, the student with five AP courses will probably have a higher first-year undergraduate GPA (3.26 versus 3.07). Above five courses, there’s no significant increase in GPA.

“From now on, when Kretchmar and Farmer read applications, they won’t be looking for more than five AP or IB courses. ‘There’s no penalty for taking more than five,’ Farmer explains, “but once you have five, you’ve jumped through the meaningful hoop, as far as we can see.’ Starting with the 2013–2014 admissions season, this is how UNC’s whole staff reading applications should be viewing AP and IB course loads.”

https://endeavors.unc.edu/more_ap_classes_may_not_be_better#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20people%20who%20take,to%20repeat%20the%20same%20mistake.

But also, isn’t it obvious? Look at all the disappointed parents and students crying about how taking eleventy-hundred AP courses didn’t get them into HYPSM. And look at all the kids from private schools that don’t even offer APs getting in. If overloading on AP courses was always better, that would be flipped. Go ahead and take more APs if that’s the best choice for you at your high school, but in terms of college admissions there really is a point of diminishing returns.

It’s one study done at one mid tier college, UNC. Not controlled for other factors like type of college, major, high school profile, student background etc.

I agree though that there’s a point of diminished returns, in my view 10 of the highest rigor APs.

+1 Just because one study done at one state school in North Carolina found that 5 APs is enough for them doesn't mean that this conclusion applies nationwide.

And you're also confused about your interpretation of students crying about taking "eleventy hundred" APs and not getting into HYPSM. These schools have small undergrad populations and <5% acceptance rates, and most applicants won't get in.

But that doesn't mean that students with more AP coursework aren't more likely to get in (even if acceptance rates are low) than students with less AP coursework. I would bet that in most elite universities, a higher number of APs is correlated with a higher acceptance rate (even if there are diminishing returns at some point).

Yes, of course kids with more APs don't have a less chance of getting in. But kids who take on a huge number of APs usually (not always) don't have time for much else. I'm always shocked by kids who take 15+ APs... unless their school is very easy. At our public it's very hard to get solid As in AP courses. Plus, does it fit the kids profile to take a bunch of random APs? Do those kids come off as grinders? Sometimes yes. Do those kids get into Ivies. Sometimes yes.

The number isn't that important. Take the ones that fit your profile. Beyond a certain number, there aren't that many that are in the core subjects. Better to spend the extra time pursuing interests and building relationships with teachers.

A friend told me she once interviewed a candidate for HYPS, and she had taken every single (!) AP available. She was not accepted... probably because she had not much else to show. The number of APs you take shouldn't even come up in the interview!

The number is important because it determines how many kids have it.

To be competitive to top schools for example, you’ll have to be in the top 1% ish of the AP metric, if that’s your strength.

It turns out it takes 12 exams to be in the top 1%, 10 exams is 3%, likely acceptable if you have other things, 7 exams is top 10% of students, likely not competitive at the very top colleges, but still solid at many others.

5 exams at UNC sounds about right, it’s top 20% of students.

That’s a cute theory but it’s more wishful thinking - you are so desperate to reduce admissions to how many of this or your score on that. Maybe for some schools you can do that but I doubt it matters at others.

I’m quite sure the number of typical AP is higher at HYPSM than at UNC.

Oh well if you’re quite sure I find that completely convincing.

In case you’re wondering, 25% of students at our high school get AP scholar with 5 exams. They end up at schools like UNC. Needless to say the ones ending at top 20 schools have significantly more APs.

Well by all means extrapolate from your high school to all the others

Definitely extrapolate if the sample is representative, you seem to be very confused about the concept.

Hopefully this fact will help your understanding. More than 400,000 students have an AP count of 6+.

It’s not a good way to sort out students if you don’t discriminate past 6 APs.

Yet, MIT, Caltech and many others are very clear that students are required to send all their AP scores. They obviously think that information is useful.

Yes, a school could choose to select its class by admitting only students who scored 5 on 18/18 APs by the end of junior year. That school would be very selective and very fair.

Also, that school does not exist.

Nobody is arguing that admission is only determined by the number of APs. But to say APs don’t matter much is quite myopic.

[Anonymous]

FYI: AP Environmental Science satisfied some Gen Ed requirement for my kid at UVA. My kid ended up having to take it senior year of hs due to some schedule issue. She never expected that “lesser” AP class to be so helpful in the end.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:People desperately want APs to count for admissions simply because it’s a counting stat. I took X APs and scored a 5 on this many of them.

I think the reality is far more complicated and chasing 10, 12 or 14 APs is just misguided.

Montgomery County kids take APUSH in 9th grade. Isn’t it possible that colleges devalue APs if 9th graders can excel in them?

A lot of colleges put some kind of cap on the way they score APs. For example they might want to see one AP in each core subject, or treat “6 or more” APs the same, so that there’s no extra benefit to taking 18. But of course as with everything this varies from school to school.

Source? Or was this told to you by your admissions officer “friends.”

“On average, people who take harder classes in high school may be better students already, so of course they’d have higher GPAs in college. To control for that, Kretchmar and Wiesen took into account SAT scores and high school grades. They found that students who take more AP or IB courses do better in college—but only up to a certain point. If two students have similar SAT scores and high-school grades, and one takes zero AP courses and the other takes five, the student with five AP courses will probably have a higher first-year undergraduate GPA (3.26 versus 3.07). Above five courses, there’s no significant increase in GPA.

“From now on, when Kretchmar and Farmer read applications, they won’t be looking for more than five AP or IB courses. ‘There’s no penalty for taking more than five,’ Farmer explains, “but once you have five, you’ve jumped through the meaningful hoop, as far as we can see.’ Starting with the 2013–2014 admissions season, this is how UNC’s whole staff reading applications should be viewing AP and IB course loads.”

https://endeavors.unc.edu/more_ap_classes_may_not_be_better#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20people%20who%20take,to%20repeat%20the%20same%20mistake.

But also, isn’t it obvious? Look at all the disappointed parents and students crying about how taking eleventy-hundred AP courses didn’t get them into HYPSM. And look at all the kids from private schools that don’t even offer APs getting in. If overloading on AP courses was always better, that would be flipped. Go ahead and take more APs if that’s the best choice for you at your high school, but in terms of college admissions there really is a point of diminishing returns.

It’s one study done at one mid tier college, UNC. Not controlled for other factors like type of college, major, high school profile, student background etc.

I agree though that there’s a point of diminished returns, in my view 10 of the highest rigor APs.

+1 Just because one study done at one state school in North Carolina found that 5 APs is enough for them doesn't mean that this conclusion applies nationwide.

And you're also confused about your interpretation of students crying about taking "eleventy hundred" APs and not getting into HYPSM. These schools have small undergrad populations and <5% acceptance rates, and most applicants won't get in.

But that doesn't mean that students with more AP coursework aren't more likely to get in (even if acceptance rates are low) than students with less AP coursework. I would bet that in most elite universities, a higher number of APs is correlated with a higher acceptance rate (even if there are diminishing returns at some point).

Yes, of course kids with more APs don't have a less chance of getting in. But kids who take on a huge number of APs usually (not always) don't have time for much else. I'm always shocked by kids who take 15+ APs... unless their school is very easy. At our public it's very hard to get solid As in AP courses. Plus, does it fit the kids profile to take a bunch of random APs? Do those kids come off as grinders? Sometimes yes. Do those kids get into Ivies. Sometimes yes.

The number isn't that important. Take the ones that fit your profile. Beyond a certain number, there aren't that many that are in the core subjects. Better to spend the extra time pursuing interests and building relationships with teachers.

A friend told me she once interviewed a candidate for HYPS, and she had taken every single (!) AP available. She was not accepted... probably because she had not much else to show. The number of APs you take shouldn't even come up in the interview!

The number is important because it determines how many kids have it.

To be competitive to top schools for example, you’ll have to be in the top 1% ish of the AP metric, if that’s your strength.

It turns out it takes 12 exams to be in the top 1%, 10 exams is 3%, likely acceptable if you have other things, 7 exams is top 10% of students, likely not competitive at the very top colleges, but still solid at many others.

5 exams at UNC sounds about right, it’s top 20% of students.

That’s a cute theory but it’s more wishful thinking - you are so desperate to reduce admissions to how many of this or your score on that. Maybe for some schools you can do that but I doubt it matters at others.

I’m quite sure the number of typical AP is higher at HYPSM than at UNC.

Oh well if you’re quite sure I find that completely convincing.

In case you’re wondering, 25% of students at our high school get AP scholar with 5 exams. They end up at schools like UNC. Needless to say the ones ending at top 20 schools have significantly more APs.

Well by all means extrapolate from your high school to all the others

Definitely extrapolate if the sample is representative, you seem to be very confused about the concept.

Hopefully this fact will help your understanding. More than 400,000 students have an AP count of 6+.

It’s not a good way to sort out students if you don’t discriminate past 6 APs.

Yet, MIT, Caltech and many others are very clear that students are required to send all their AP scores. They obviously think that information is useful.

Yes, a school could choose to select its class by admitting only students who scored 5 on 18/18 APs by the end of junior year. That school would be very selective and very fair.

Also, that school does not exist.

Nobody is arguing that admission is only determined by the number of APs. But to say APs don’t matter much is quite myopic.

And no one is saying they don’t matter. What they’re saying is the final number isn’t that important whether it’s 8, 10, 15, etc. Of course you have to take rigorous courses for selective colleges. But some people continue to focus on numbers when selective schools look beyond them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is so much competition about taking max APs. Does it really matter?

Yes, your child will learn more. What kind of dumbass question is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is so much competition about taking max APs. Does it really matter?

Yes, your child will learn more. What kind of dumbass question is this?

This is not always true. Of course you learn more in APUSH than regular US History. But do you really learn “more” in AP Psych than in a philosophy course? Or “more” in AP Euro than in a course on Asian history? Or “more” in AP Art than in orchestra? But there are no AP courses in philosophy or Asian history or orchestra, so the mad dash to accumulate APs causes kids to miss out on valuable learning experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is so much competition about taking max APs. Does it really matter?

Yes, your child will learn more. What kind of dumbass question is this?

This is not always true. Of course you learn more in APUSH than regular US History. But do you really learn “more” in AP Psych than in a philosophy course? Or “more” in AP Euro than in a course on Asian history? Or “more” in AP Art than in orchestra? But there are no AP courses in philosophy or Asian history or orchestra, so the mad dash to accumulate APs causes kids to miss out on valuable learning experiences.

APs are supposed to cover general education not niche subjects. You can always take Asian history at the community college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is so much competition about taking max APs. Does it really matter?

Yes, your child will learn more. What kind of dumbass question is this?

This is not always true. Of course you learn more in APUSH than regular US History. But do you really learn “more” in AP Psych than in a philosophy course? Or “more” in AP Euro than in a course on Asian history? Or “more” in AP Art than in orchestra? But there are no AP courses in philosophy or Asian history or orchestra, so the mad dash to accumulate APs causes kids to miss out on valuable learning experiences.

APs are supposed to cover general education not niche subjects. You can always take Asian history at the community college.

What makes Asian history “niche,” but European history “general education”?

What makes philosophy “niche” but psychology “general education”?

What makes orchestra “niche” but studio art “general education”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To compete for elite college admissions, yes: if the APs are offered, you should be taking as many as possible.

To reduce time to graduation at many colleges (state schools, some privates), yes: they can get you a ton of credit to chop off as much as a year.

My kid got enough credits to chop off 1 and a 1/2 years. He figured out that he did not need to finish undergrad in 2 and 1/2 years. Instead he did a double major. Since the college gave him full tuition, he wanted to utilize it for 4 years.

Same

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To compete for elite college admissions, yes: if the APs are offered, you should be taking as many as possible.

To reduce time to graduation at many colleges (state schools, some privates), yes: they can get you a ton of credit to chop off as much as a year.

My kid got enough credits to chop off 1 and a 1/2 years. He figured out that he did not need to finish undergrad in 2 and 1/2 years. Instead he did a double major. Since the college gave him full tuition, he wanted to utilize it for 4 years.

Same

+1. APs are letting DC double major more easily by knocking out some credits in HS.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:People desperately want APs to count for admissions simply because it’s a counting stat. I took X APs and scored a 5 on this many of them.

I think the reality is far more complicated and chasing 10, 12 or 14 APs is just misguided.

Montgomery County kids take APUSH in 9th grade. Isn’t it possible that colleges devalue APs if 9th graders can excel in them?

A lot of colleges put some kind of cap on the way they score APs. For example they might want to see one AP in each core subject, or treat “6 or more” APs the same, so that there’s no extra benefit to taking 18. But of course as with everything this varies from school to school.

Source? Or was this told to you by your admissions officer “friends.”

“On average, people who take harder classes in high school may be better students already, so of course they’d have higher GPAs in college. To control for that, Kretchmar and Wiesen took into account SAT scores and high school grades. They found that students who take more AP or IB courses do better in college—but only up to a certain point. If two students have similar SAT scores and high-school grades, and one takes zero AP courses and the other takes five, the student with five AP courses will probably have a higher first-year undergraduate GPA (3.26 versus 3.07). Above five courses, there’s no significant increase in GPA.

“From now on, when Kretchmar and Farmer read applications, they won’t be looking for more than five AP or IB courses. ‘There’s no penalty for taking more than five,’ Farmer explains, “but once you have five, you’ve jumped through the meaningful hoop, as far as we can see.’ Starting with the 2013–2014 admissions season, this is how UNC’s whole staff reading applications should be viewing AP and IB course loads.”

https://endeavors.unc.edu/more_ap_classes_may_not_be_better#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20people%20who%20take,to%20repeat%20the%20same%20mistake.

But also, isn’t it obvious? Look at all the disappointed parents and students crying about how taking eleventy-hundred AP courses didn’t get them into HYPSM. And look at all the kids from private schools that don’t even offer APs getting in. If overloading on AP courses was always better, that would be flipped. Go ahead and take more APs if that’s the best choice for you at your high school, but in terms of college admissions there really is a point of diminishing returns.

It’s one study done at one mid tier college, UNC. Not controlled for other factors like type of college, major, high school profile, student background etc.

I agree though that there’s a point of diminished returns, in my view 10 of the highest rigor APs.

+1 Just because one study done at one state school in North Carolina found that 5 APs is enough for them doesn't mean that this conclusion applies nationwide.

And you're also confused about your interpretation of students crying about taking "eleventy hundred" APs and not getting into HYPSM. These schools have small undergrad populations and <5% acceptance rates, and most applicants won't get in.

But that doesn't mean that students with more AP coursework aren't more likely to get in (even if acceptance rates are low) than students with less AP coursework. I would bet that in most elite universities, a higher number of APs is correlated with a higher acceptance rate (even if there are diminishing returns at some point).

Yes, of course kids with more APs don't have a less chance of getting in. But kids who take on a huge number of APs usually (not always) don't have time for much else. I'm always shocked by kids who take 15+ APs... unless their school is very easy. At our public it's very hard to get solid As in AP courses. Plus, does it fit the kids profile to take a bunch of random APs? Do those kids come off as grinders? Sometimes yes. Do those kids get into Ivies. Sometimes yes.

The number isn't that important. Take the ones that fit your profile. Beyond a certain number, there aren't that many that are in the core subjects. Better to spend the extra time pursuing interests and building relationships with teachers.

A friend told me she once interviewed a candidate for HYPS, and she had taken every single (!) AP available. She was not accepted... probably because she had not much else to show. The number of APs you take shouldn't even come up in the interview!

The number is important because it determines how many kids have it.

To be competitive to top schools for example, you’ll have to be in the top 1% ish of the AP metric, if that’s your strength.

It turns out it takes 12 exams to be in the top 1%, 10 exams is 3%, likely acceptable if you have other things, 7 exams is top 10% of students, likely not competitive at the very top colleges, but still solid at many others.

5 exams at UNC sounds about right, it’s top 20% of students.

That’s a cute theory but it’s more wishful thinking - you are so desperate to reduce admissions to how many of this or your score on that. Maybe for some schools you can do that but I doubt it matters at others.

I’m quite sure the number of typical AP is higher at HYPSM than at UNC.

Oh well if you’re quite sure I find that completely convincing.

In case you’re wondering, 25% of students at our high school get AP scholar with 5 exams. They end up at schools like UNC. Needless to say the ones ending at top 20 schools have significantly more APs.

Well by all means extrapolate from your high school to all the others

Definitely extrapolate if the sample is representative, you seem to be very confused about the concept.

Hopefully this fact will help your understanding. More than 400,000 students have an AP count of 6+.

It’s not a good way to sort out students if you don’t discriminate past 6 APs.

Yet, MIT, Caltech and many others are very clear that students are required to send all their AP scores. They obviously think that information is useful.

You have no idea whether a single school’s sample is representative of the whole

Sending AP scores doesn’t translate into it being a significant factor anymore than any other part of the application nor is there any evidence that it’s used to sort within a high school school or between high schools

You do know if you’re not a complete moron who doesn’t know how to interpret data.

AP scholar with distinction is 5 exams, nationally that’s 700,000 out of 4,000,000 students, or 18% according to College Board data.

Our high school is 25% AP scholars, reasonably close to national average. If you consider the population of students applying to college that skews higher grades, more advanced coursework, and 90% of students at our school do, the school is representative.

You can call me all the names you want but you’re making a huge, unsupported leap between a loose correlation in the percentage of AP scholars nationally to your school to a general statement that all college admissions must therefore resemble that of your school. That’s even assuming you have enough years of data about the admissions at your school to show some kind of pattern there.

I know schools where students take an average of 3-5 AP classes and 20% go to top 15 schools. But I’m not going to say this is representative of the whole. I guess you would.

Please, representative doesn’t mean every school must resemble the sample. You’re in a spot where any evidence against your beliefs is discarded.

APs are used to determine rigor, look at the typical school profile that is sent to colleges, it mentions how many APs are offered, how many students take them, average pass rate, GPA bump policy etc.

Does class rigor matter? Of course it does, we know that from the common data sets and college admissions pages that state a good preparation is to take challenging classes in all different areas. Hint, challenging is synonymous with AP.

That doesn’t mean you need 15 APs, but you need enough to be competitive in your high school and nationally. There’s a point of diminishing returns, sure. The courses taken matter, Calculus is important for stem, some classes are 1 semester, others are 2, etc. By no means 3-4 is competitive to Top 20, when literally over 1 million kids have the stats.

We have the same amount of evidence. One school each. But you discard one in favor of the other because you so desperately want this to be true so you can just tell your kid to load up on APs.

And when they’re rejected you’re the same ones that whine about how hooked everyone else is.

[Anonymous]

I've heard over and over on too many podcasts by colleges admissions reader / dean interviews that some APs are considered more rigorous than others. AP Euro & APUSH > AP World History. AP Chem & AP Bio > AP Enviro Science. AP Calcs > AP Stats. It's not that the "lesser" are bad, but some content is just clearly harder than others.

Having said that, I don't really care and your student should level up in the areas they are interested in and willing to do the additional work / study time to be successful in. I've had a driven top student that would take any and all APs available in every subject area and crush it. I have another DC that we should have allowed her to level up in her specific areas of interest bc now she is a little lazy and some Bs in big AP classes will end up hurting her b/c she doesn't want to do that much extra. I've got another DC who will probably graduate with zero, maybe 1 AP bc DC is not a student. Do what's best for your kid. But, if they are gunning for top schools.... they'd better be ready to take the APs in all the core classes if available.

[Anonymous]

Dc was able to graduate one year early with AP credits from a T20 private. That’s significant $$ saved for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People desperately want APs to count for admissions simply because it’s a counting stat. I took X APs and scored a 5 on this many of them.

I think the reality is far more complicated and chasing 10, 12 or 14 APs is just misguided.

Montgomery County kids take APUSH in 9th grade. Isn’t it possible that colleges devalue APs if 9th graders can excel in them?

A lot of colleges put some kind of cap on the way they score APs. For example they might want to see one AP in each core subject, or treat “6 or more” APs the same, so that there’s no extra benefit to taking 18. But of course as with everything this varies from school to school.

Source? Or was this told to you by your admissions officer “friends.”

“On average, people who take harder classes in high school may be better students already, so of course they’d have higher GPAs in college. To control for that, Kretchmar and Wiesen took into account SAT scores and high school grades. They found that students who take more AP or IB courses do better in college—but only up to a certain point. If two students have similar SAT scores and high-school grades, and one takes zero AP courses and the other takes five, the student with five AP courses will probably have a higher first-year undergraduate GPA (3.26 versus 3.07). Above five courses, there’s no significant increase in GPA.

“From now on, when Kretchmar and Farmer read applications, they won’t be looking for more than five AP or IB courses. ‘There’s no penalty for taking more than five,’ Farmer explains, “but once you have five, you’ve jumped through the meaningful hoop, as far as we can see.’ Starting with the 2013–2014 admissions season, this is how UNC’s whole staff reading applications should be viewing AP and IB course loads.”

https://endeavors.unc.edu/more_ap_classes_may_not_be_better#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20people%20who%20take,to%20repeat%20the%20same%20mistake.

But also, isn’t it obvious? Look at all the disappointed parents and students crying about how taking eleventy-hundred AP courses didn’t get them into HYPSM. And look at all the kids from private schools that don’t even offer APs getting in. If overloading on AP courses was always better, that would be flipped. Go ahead and take more APs if that’s the best choice for you at your high school, but in terms of college admissions there really is a point of diminishing returns.

It’s one study done at one mid tier college, UNC. Not controlled for other factors like type of college, major, high school profile, student background etc.

I agree though that there’s a point of diminished returns, in my view 10 of the highest rigor APs.

+1 Just because one study done at one state school in North Carolina found that 5 APs is enough for them doesn't mean that this conclusion applies nationwide.

And you're also confused about your interpretation of students crying about taking "eleventy hundred" APs and not getting into HYPSM. These schools have small undergrad populations and <5% acceptance rates, and most applicants won't get in.

But that doesn't mean that students with more AP coursework aren't more likely to get in (even if acceptance rates are low) than students with less AP coursework. I would bet that in most elite universities, a higher number of APs is correlated with a higher acceptance rate (even if there are diminishing returns at some point).

Yes, of course kids with more APs don't have a less chance of getting in. But kids who take on a huge number of APs usually (not always) don't have time for much else. I'm always shocked by kids who take 15+ APs... unless their school is very easy. At our public it's very hard to get solid As in AP courses. Plus, does it fit the kids profile to take a bunch of random APs? Do those kids come off as grinders? Sometimes yes. Do those kids get into Ivies. Sometimes yes.

The number isn't that important. Take the ones that fit your profile. Beyond a certain number, there aren't that many that are in the core subjects. Better to spend the extra time pursuing interests and building relationships with teachers.

A friend told me she once interviewed a candidate for HYPS, and she had taken every single (!) AP available. She was not accepted... probably because she had not much else to show. The number of APs you take shouldn't even come up in the interview!

The number is important because it determines how many kids have it.

To be competitive to top schools for example, you’ll have to be in the top 1% ish of the AP metric, if that’s your strength.

It turns out it takes 12 exams to be in the top 1%, 10 exams is 3%, likely acceptable if you have other things, 7 exams is top 10% of students, likely not competitive at the very top colleges, but still solid at many others.

5 exams at UNC sounds about right, it’s top 20% of students.

That’s a cute theory but it’s more wishful thinking - you are so desperate to reduce admissions to how many of this or your score on that. Maybe for some schools you can do that but I doubt it matters at others.

I’m quite sure the number of typical AP is higher at HYPSM than at UNC.

Oh well if you’re quite sure I find that completely convincing.

In case you’re wondering, 25% of students at our high school get AP scholar with 5 exams. They end up at schools like UNC. Needless to say the ones ending at top 20 schools have significantly more APs.

Well by all means extrapolate from your high school to all the others

Definitely extrapolate if the sample is representative, you seem to be very confused about the concept.

Hopefully this fact will help your understanding. More than 400,000 students have an AP count of 6+.

It’s not a good way to sort out students if you don’t discriminate past 6 APs.

Yet, MIT, Caltech and many others are very clear that students are required to send all their AP scores. They obviously think that information is useful.

You have no idea whether a single school’s sample is representative of the whole

Sending AP scores doesn’t translate into it being a significant factor anymore than any other part of the application nor is there any evidence that it’s used to sort within a high school school or between high schools

You do know if you’re not a complete moron who doesn’t know how to interpret data.

AP scholar with distinction is 5 exams, nationally that’s 700,000 out of 4,000,000 students, or 18% according to College Board data.

Our high school is 25% AP scholars, reasonably close to national average. If you consider the population of students applying to college that skews higher grades, more advanced coursework, and 90% of students at our school do, the school is representative.

You can call me all the names you want but you’re making a huge, unsupported leap between a loose correlation in the percentage of AP scholars nationally to your school to a general statement that all college admissions must therefore resemble that of your school. That’s even assuming you have enough years of data about the admissions at your school to show some kind of pattern there.

I know schools where students take an average of 3-5 AP classes and 20% go to top 15 schools. But I’m not going to say this is representative of the whole. I guess you would.

Please, representative doesn’t mean every school must resemble the sample. You’re in a spot where any evidence against your beliefs is discarded.

APs are used to determine rigor, look at the typical school profile that is sent to colleges, it mentions how many APs are offered, how many students take them, average pass rate, GPA bump policy etc.

Does class rigor matter? Of course it does, we know that from the common data sets and college admissions pages that state a good preparation is to take challenging classes in all different areas. Hint, challenging is synonymous with AP.

That doesn’t mean you need 15 APs, but you need enough to be competitive in your high school and nationally. There’s a point of diminishing returns, sure. The courses taken matter, Calculus is important for stem, some classes are 1 semester, others are 2, etc. By no means 3-4 is competitive to Top 20, when literally over 1 million kids have the stats.

We have the same amount of evidence. One school each. But you discard one in favor of the other because you so desperately want this to be true so you can just tell your kid to load up on APs.

And when they’re rejected you’re the same ones that whine about how hooked everyone else is.

I also have the evidence of the national average, what colleges say about APs, and what information high schools send to colleges.

But sure you know better than everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard over and over on too many podcasts by colleges admissions reader / dean interviews that some APs are considered more rigorous than others. AP Euro & APUSH > AP World History. AP Chem & AP Bio > AP Enviro Science. AP Calcs > AP Stats. It's not that the "lesser" are bad, but some content is just clearly harder than others.

Having said that, I don't really care and your student should level up in the areas they are interested in and willing to do the additional work / study time to be successful in. I've had a driven top student that would take any and all APs available in every subject area and crush it. I have another DC that we should have allowed her to level up in her specific areas of interest bc now she is a little lazy and some Bs in big AP classes will end up hurting her b/c she doesn't want to do that much extra. I've got another DC who will probably graduate with zero, maybe 1 AP bc DC is not a student. Do what's best for your kid. But, if they are gunning for top schools.... they'd better be ready to take the APs in all the core classes if available.

Of course not all APs are the same. People put forward a number because it’s easily digestible. One can take AP precalculus, Calculus AB and Calculus BC and still count as one course Calculus BC.

Every college is saying to challenge yourself in high school. That means take the most you are interested in, and can handle to still get an A, and prioritize core classes.

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Anonymous wrote:People desperately want APs to count for admissions simply because it’s a counting stat. I took X APs and scored a 5 on this many of them.

I think the reality is far more complicated and chasing 10, 12 or 14 APs is just misguided.

Montgomery County kids take APUSH in 9th grade. Isn’t it possible that colleges devalue APs if 9th graders can excel in them?

A lot of colleges put some kind of cap on the way they score APs. For example they might want to see one AP in each core subject, or treat “6 or more” APs the same, so that there’s no extra benefit to taking 18. But of course as with everything this varies from school to school.

Source? Or was this told to you by your admissions officer “friends.”

“On average, people who take harder classes in high school may be better students already, so of course they’d have higher GPAs in college. To control for that, Kretchmar and Wiesen took into account SAT scores and high school grades. They found that students who take more AP or IB courses do better in college—but only up to a certain point. If two students have similar SAT scores and high-school grades, and one takes zero AP courses and the other takes five, the student with five AP courses will probably have a higher first-year undergraduate GPA (3.26 versus 3.07). Above five courses, there’s no significant increase in GPA.

“From now on, when Kretchmar and Farmer read applications, they won’t be looking for more than five AP or IB courses. ‘There’s no penalty for taking more than five,’ Farmer explains, “but once you have five, you’ve jumped through the meaningful hoop, as far as we can see.’ Starting with the 2013–2014 admissions season, this is how UNC’s whole staff reading applications should be viewing AP and IB course loads.”

https://endeavors.unc.edu/more_ap_classes_may_not_be_better#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20people%20who%20take,to%20repeat%20the%20same%20mistake.

But also, isn’t it obvious? Look at all the disappointed parents and students crying about how taking eleventy-hundred AP courses didn’t get them into HYPSM. And look at all the kids from private schools that don’t even offer APs getting in. If overloading on AP courses was always better, that would be flipped. Go ahead and take more APs if that’s the best choice for you at your high school, but in terms of college admissions there really is a point of diminishing returns.

It’s one study done at one mid tier college, UNC. Not controlled for other factors like type of college, major, high school profile, student background etc.

I agree though that there’s a point of diminished returns, in my view 10 of the highest rigor APs.

+1 Just because one study done at one state school in North Carolina found that 5 APs is enough for them doesn't mean that this conclusion applies nationwide.

And you're also confused about your interpretation of students crying about taking "eleventy hundred" APs and not getting into HYPSM. These schools have small undergrad populations and <5% acceptance rates, and most applicants won't get in.

But that doesn't mean that students with more AP coursework aren't more likely to get in (even if acceptance rates are low) than students with less AP coursework. I would bet that in most elite universities, a higher number of APs is correlated with a higher acceptance rate (even if there are diminishing returns at some point).

Yes, of course kids with more APs don't have a less chance of getting in. But kids who take on a huge number of APs usually (not always) don't have time for much else. I'm always shocked by kids who take 15+ APs... unless their school is very easy. At our public it's very hard to get solid As in AP courses. Plus, does it fit the kids profile to take a bunch of random APs? Do those kids come off as grinders? Sometimes yes. Do those kids get into Ivies. Sometimes yes.

The number isn't that important. Take the ones that fit your profile. Beyond a certain number, there aren't that many that are in the core subjects. Better to spend the extra time pursuing interests and building relationships with teachers.

A friend told me she once interviewed a candidate for HYPS, and she had taken every single (!) AP available. She was not accepted... probably because she had not much else to show. The number of APs you take shouldn't even come up in the interview!

The number is important because it determines how many kids have it.

To be competitive to top schools for example, you’ll have to be in the top 1% ish of the AP metric, if that’s your strength.

It turns out it takes 12 exams to be in the top 1%, 10 exams is 3%, likely acceptable if you have other things, 7 exams is top 10% of students, likely not competitive at the very top colleges, but still solid at many others.

5 exams at UNC sounds about right, it’s top 20% of students.

That’s a cute theory but it’s more wishful thinking - you are so desperate to reduce admissions to how many of this or your score on that. Maybe for some schools you can do that but I doubt it matters at others.

I’m quite sure the number of typical AP is higher at HYPSM than at UNC.

Oh well if you’re quite sure I find that completely convincing.

In case you’re wondering, 25% of students at our high school get AP scholar with 5 exams. They end up at schools like UNC. Needless to say the ones ending at top 20 schools have significantly more APs.

Well by all means extrapolate from your high school to all the others

Definitely extrapolate if the sample is representative, you seem to be very confused about the concept.

Hopefully this fact will help your understanding. More than 400,000 students have an AP count of 6+.

It’s not a good way to sort out students if you don’t discriminate past 6 APs.

Yet, MIT, Caltech and many others are very clear that students are required to send all their AP scores. They obviously think that information is useful.

You have no idea whether a single school’s sample is representative of the whole

Sending AP scores doesn’t translate into it being a significant factor anymore than any other part of the application nor is there any evidence that it’s used to sort within a high school school or between high schools

You do know if you’re not a complete moron who doesn’t know how to interpret data.

AP scholar with distinction is 5 exams, nationally that’s 700,000 out of 4,000,000 students, or 18% according to College Board data.

Our high school is 25% AP scholars, reasonably close to national average. If you consider the population of students applying to college that skews higher grades, more advanced coursework, and 90% of students at our school do, the school is representative.

You can call me all the names you want but you’re making a huge, unsupported leap between a loose correlation in the percentage of AP scholars nationally to your school to a general statement that all college admissions must therefore resemble that of your school. That’s even assuming you have enough years of data about the admissions at your school to show some kind of pattern there.

I know schools where students take an average of 3-5 AP classes and 20% go to top 15 schools. But I’m not going to say this is representative of the whole. I guess you would.

Please, representative doesn’t mean every school must resemble the sample. You’re in a spot where any evidence against your beliefs is discarded.

APs are used to determine rigor, look at the typical school profile that is sent to colleges, it mentions how many APs are offered, how many students take them, average pass rate, GPA bump policy etc.

Does class rigor matter? Of course it does, we know that from the common data sets and college admissions pages that state a good preparation is to take challenging classes in all different areas. Hint, challenging is synonymous with AP.

That doesn’t mean you need 15 APs, but you need enough to be competitive in your high school and nationally. There’s a point of diminishing returns, sure. The courses taken matter, Calculus is important for stem, some classes are 1 semester, others are 2, etc. By no means 3-4 is competitive to Top 20, when literally over 1 million kids have the stats.

We have the same amount of evidence. One school each. But you discard one in favor of the other because you so desperately want this to be true so you can just tell your kid to load up on APs.

And when they’re rejected you’re the same ones that whine about how hooked everyone else is.

So in your view, what should a student do to prepare for top colleges? Take no more than 3-4, APs drop down to regular classes transfer to selective private feeders?