AP tests - how long are they good for?

[Anonymous]

I am under the impression that you do not need to take an AP class in order to take the test. How long are they good for? What happens if you go beyond what public school offers?

[Anonymous]

Good for college credit? That gets sorted the summer before you enroll. My DS started taking APs in 9th grade so I guess those will be "good for" 4 years.

By going beyond the curriculum do you mean taking college classes while in HS? Usually colleges want the transcript and will go from there.

Some colleges give a lot of credit for APs, others not so much (more likely you will pass out of distribution requirements).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am under the impression that you do not need to take an AP class in order to take the test. How long are they good for? What happens if you go beyond what public school offers?

You are right. You don't need to take an AP class to take a test.

[Anonymous]

AP scores don't expire, but whether they will count for college credit and for how long after the test date they might count is up to the college. Some schools have straightforward policies. Other colleges have complicated ones.

[Anonymous]

All this is true. What do you want the AP score for? If to look good for college admissions, 5's on APs without a course might look good, unless it is in foreign language and your child is a native speaker (this is the case for SAT IIs in Chinese, which a lot of 1st gen Chinese kids take and get a perfect score on - not that impresive).

If you want to know how colleges will give credit for APs, then it depends on the college. Sometimes it just allows a child to place out of a lower class but does not count toward credit (same with taking a for-credit college class in HS), sometimes the college will not give anything, sometimes they may accept that credit, allowing your child to graduate earlier.

So, OP, can you be more specific in your question?

[Anonymous]

My kid can take AP tests end of 7th grade. Go for it or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid can take AP tests end of 7th grade. Go for it or not?

Depends on the class, but for most kids, no. They're just not doing high enough level/quality work (in most cases) yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid can take AP tests end of 7th grade. Go for it or not?

Unless you think he will get a 4 or a 5 there is no point. Wait until HS when he is better prepared. What subject?

[Anonymous]

We know kids who sent their 5s in as part of the college application process and got into Ivies, which shows correlation if not causation. But as PP said, only a 5 is useful during the college application process. Possibly a 4 is useful if DC goes to a high school with a really bad reputation and wants to prove the 3.9 unweighted GPA wasn't just a fluke.

For getting out of intro courses at college, again, only 4s and 5s are useful. Some competitive colleges don't give much credit for APs, so if DC is applying to some competitive colleges, the point of the APs will be admissions, not college credit. And there has been debate on other threads about whether you should use APs to skip intro courses in your major, as opposed to required survey courses in something you could care less about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid can take AP tests end of 7th grade. Go for it or not?

Unless you think he will get a 4 or a 5 there is no point. Wait until HS when he is better prepared. What subject?

And if it is for a language and child is a native speaker, not much help.