AP Test Passage By High School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges preach diversity, equity & inclusion.

In reality, they only want kids who were lucky enough to go to “good” high schools that teach to the level of AP exams.

So, I’ve actually read that some colleges use the delta between your average AP score and your high school’s average. Which means a “4” at JR is more valuable than a “4” at GDS. It’s a decent substitute for class rank, too, in a world where more and more high schools are refusing to rank.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t know of any college that takes 3. I went to a state school and they only took 4 or 5.

It’s not elite only schools that take 4 or 5. This is the norm.

There are outlier schools who might take a 3 but not common and likely bottom of the heap.

Tons of schools give college credit for 3 but, sure, they are not T25 schools or anything close.

UCLA is a T25 school that gives credit for 3s.

https://admission.ucla.edu/admitted-students/ap-credit-the-college

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/ucla-1315

I stand corrected. UCLA is tied for #20 with UC Berkeley and both gives credit credit for 3s on AP tests.

In contrast, if you look at (say) NYU (#25) you need at least a 4 on an AP test to get college credit.

I guess the advice is: if your kid is bad at AP tests and wants to graduate in 3 years, he or she should apply to one of the UCs.

Good luck getting into UCs out of state with a bunch of 2s and 3s on APs. Those schools are incredibly competitive.

This. It’s laughable to even think a kid is going to have a chance with 3 on AP. Seriously.

Colleges care about class rigor, SAT scores & weighted GPA. AP scores don’t really matter for admissions purposes.

Depends on the college! Some colleges care plenty about AP scores. I worked on an Ivy admissions committee for two years a decade back. Submit 3s on APs and the application wasn't read in full.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apropos of another thread, does anyone know where to look for AP test passage (3 or better) for any given high school for any recent year? Any chance it shows which tests?

You should really look at scores of 4 or 5. Forget 3.

I disagree. Lots of brilliant kids get a 3 on tests here and there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges preach diversity, equity & inclusion.

In reality, they only want kids who were lucky enough to go to “good” high schools that teach to the level of AP exams.

So, I’ve actually read that some colleges use the delta between your average AP score and your high school’s average. Which means a “4” at JR is more valuable than a “4” at GDS. It’s a decent substitute for class rank, too, in a world where more and more high schools are refusing to rank.

Colleges do not see the vast majority of test scores before admissions. Only AP courses you took before senior year, which is not a lot for most kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College credit for AP scores seems to vary a lot.

For example, Harvard only takes 5s while Princeton accepts 5 or 4, depending on the course.

Almost no one is going to be attending those two schools, so it is not a useful measure.

[Anonymous]

When are AP scores for this year given to students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apropos of another thread, does anyone know where to look for AP test passage (3 or better) for any given high school for any recent year? Any chance it shows which tests?

You should really look at scores of 4 or 5. Forget 3.

I disagree. Lots of brilliant kids get a 3 on tests here and there.

huh? This makes no sense.
My kid left DCPS for private and her current school has 95% of kids getting 4s and 5s on APs exams without even taking the corresponding AP classes.

No "brilliant" kid is getting a 3. Any kid who was taught the content should honestly get a 5, maybe a 4 if they're having a bad day.
These tests are far from rocket science. Have you actually looked at an exam?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apropos of another thread, does anyone know where to look for AP test passage (3 or better) for any given high school for any recent year? Any chance it shows which tests?

You should really look at scores of 4 or 5. Forget 3.

I disagree. Lots of brilliant kids get a 3 on tests here and there.

huh? This makes no sense.
My kid left DCPS for private and her current school has 95% of kids getting 4s and 5s on APs exams without even taking the corresponding AP classes.

No "brilliant" kid is getting a 3. Any kid who was taught the content should honestly get a 5, maybe a 4 if they're having a bad day.
These tests are far from rocket science. Have you actually looked at an exam?

BS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apropos of another thread, does anyone know where to look for AP test passage (3 or better) for any given high school for any recent year? Any chance it shows which tests?

You should really look at scores of 4 or 5. Forget 3.

I disagree. Lots of brilliant kids get a 3 on tests here and there.

huh? This makes no sense.
My kid left DCPS for private and her current school has 95% of kids getting 4s and 5s on APs exams without even taking the corresponding AP classes.

No "brilliant" kid is getting a 3. Any kid who was taught the content should honestly get a 5, maybe a 4 if they're having a bad day.
These tests are far from rocket science. Have you actually looked at an exam?

Do you know that nationwide less than 50% of students pass the AP exams with a score of 3 or higher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know of any college that takes 3. I went to a state school and they only took 4 or 5.

It’s not elite only schools that take 4 or 5. This is the norm.

There are outlier schools who might take a 3 but not common and likely bottom of the heap.

Tons of schools give college credit for 3 but, sure, they are not T25 schools or anything close.

UCLA is a T25 school that gives credit for 3s.

https://admission.ucla.edu/admitted-students/ap-credit-the-college

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/ucla-1315

I stand corrected. UCLA is tied for #20 with UC Berkeley and both gives credit credit for 3s on AP tests.

In contrast, if you look at (say) NYU (#25) you need at least a 4 on an AP test to get college credit.

I guess the advice is: if your kid is bad at AP tests and wants to graduate in 3 years, he or she should apply to one of the UCs.

Good luck getting into UCs out of state with a bunch of 2s and 3s on APs. Those schools are incredibly competitive.

This. It’s laughable to even think a kid is going to have a chance with 3 on AP. Seriously.

Colleges care about class rigor, SAT scores & weighted GPA. AP scores don’t really matter for admissions purposes.

Depends on the college! Some colleges care plenty about AP scores. I worked on an Ivy admissions committee for two years a decade back. Submit 3s on APs and the application wasn't read in full.

Well, the high school I attended (public) did not allow you to take AP classes prior to junior year, nor was it going to facilitate kids “self-studying” for exams on their own. It also did not pay for exams for non-FARMs students, and most kids didn’t pass AP exams. It was very common to not submit the score or even to not sit for the exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apropos of another thread, does anyone know where to look for AP test passage (3 or better) for any given high school for any recent year? Any chance it shows which tests?

You should really look at scores of 4 or 5. Forget 3.

I disagree. Lots of brilliant kids get a 3 on tests here and there.

huh? This makes no sense.
My kid left DCPS for private and her current school has 95% of kids getting 4s and 5s on APs exams without even taking the corresponding AP classes.

No "brilliant" kid is getting a 3. Any kid who was taught the content should honestly get a 5, maybe a 4 if they're having a bad day.
These tests are far from rocket science. Have you actually looked at an exam?

Most kids get below 3 on AP exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apropos of another thread, does anyone know where to look for AP test passage (3 or better) for any given high school for any recent year? Any chance it shows which tests?

You should really look at scores of 4 or 5. Forget 3.

I disagree. Lots of brilliant kids get a 3 on tests here and there.

huh? This makes no sense.
My kid left DCPS for private and her current school has 95% of kids getting 4s and 5s on APs exams without even taking the corresponding AP classes.

No "brilliant" kid is getting a 3. Any kid who was taught the content should honestly get a 5, maybe a 4 if they're having a bad day.
These tests are far from rocket science. Have you actually looked at an exam?

Some poorer high schools do not teach to the level/rigor of the AP exams. Kids at such schools generally have significant out of school responsibilities, like jobs & taking care of siblings. Kids there have to basically teach themselves all the content to get a 4 or a 5.

I wouldn’t expect a private school parent like you to understand that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The 2021-22 AP/IB performance numbers are in the OSSE school report cards for the individual schools. https://osse.dc.gov/dcschoolreportcard. They include charters. And they’re broken down by race. The schools with a 90% pass rate or better for white students are Basis, Walls, DCI, Banneker, and Latin.

Not sure where you are getting that.

If you look at white students, Basis is at 94%, Walls 93%; Latin and DCI are just below 90%; and Banneker has too few white students to provide a percentage.

Plus, just looking at white students is misleading given how diverse the above schools are.

When I follow the link, I get a white AP/IB performance number at Banneker and DCI of >=90%. There are too few students to report an AP/IB participation rate at Banneker. At DCI the participation rate is reported as 89.47%. Are you sure you’re looking at the right number? (The performance number at Latin is technically just under 90% but it’s over 89.5 so I rounded up.)

And I agree, it’s not like only white students matter. But OSSE doesn’t give us data based on parents’ education or middle school, two factors beyond the control of any high school that are strongly associated with AP/IB performance. Since the white population of DC is not very socioeconomically diverse, it’s a decent proxy for students from college-educated homes who attended decent middle schools.

It should not matter what the education level or SES of the families are. You are taking a test based on the content and curriculum of a course being taught.

If the course is rigorous and covers all the relevant material then the kids should at least score a 3 minimum which is not hard to do. But 4 and 5 is what your standards should be.

I took a number of AP courses, did not study for any of the exams and easily got 3 no problem, some 4’s. Just walked in and took the test.

No offense but why should I set standards for my kids based on your personal, subjective experience with AP tests back in some random high school somewhere?

Set whatever standard you want. You want lower standards feel free. But you won’t be getting any college credits with a 3. Their standard to mastering the course and getting credit has always been a 4 or 5.

3 is mediocre and if that is the standard you want to set, go for it.

Huh?

NP but I think PP is saying a 3 doesn’t really mean much. And they’re right. It doesn’t get college credit, doesn’t indicate mastery of content, etc.

The people who write and score the tests set a "3" as the score needed to show "mastery of content." It may not matter for getting credit at every college, but that is not the same as "mastery." Colleges want you to pay them to take the course so they set a higher bar than mastery, which is also why some won't even accept a 5 for credit.

"This percentage shows the proportion of the graduating class—beyond just students in AP classes—that demonstrated college-level mastery through AP during high school. Each graduate who scores a 3 or higher “counts” only once toward the percentage, regardless of how many AP Exams they take or how many scores of 3 or higher they receive."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know of any college that takes 3. I went to a state school and they only took 4 or 5.

It’s not elite only schools that take 4 or 5. This is the norm.

There are outlier schools who might take a 3 but not common and likely bottom of the heap.

Tons of schools give college credit for 3 but, sure, they are not T25 schools or anything close.

UCLA is a T25 school that gives credit for 3s.

https://admission.ucla.edu/admitted-students/ap-credit-the-college

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/ucla-1315

I stand corrected. UCLA is tied for #20 with UC Berkeley and both gives credit credit for 3s on AP tests.

In contrast, if you look at (say) NYU (#25) you need at least a 4 on an AP test to get college credit.

I guess the advice is: if your kid is bad at AP tests and wants to graduate in 3 years, he or she should apply to one of the UCs.

Good luck getting into UCs out of state with a bunch of 2s and 3s on APs. Those schools are incredibly competitive.

This. It’s laughable to even think a kid is going to have a chance with 3 on AP. Seriously.

You don't have to submit AP test scores to get admitted and, if you do, the UCs don't count them against you.

So, if you otherwise have a high GPA/SAT/ACT plus good extracurrics plus hook(s) you could get in regardless of whether you had some 3s on AP tests.

What do you mean they don’t count them against you? Come on not submitting indicates a low score. Submitting low scores is an indicator of lack of mastery or shows that the A you earned was probably inflated.

Exactly, not submitting implied that you got a low score. If the transcript shows an A in the AP course, then it absolutely correlates with grade inflation or lack of rigor in the course.

The colleges are not stupid. They have been around the block a few times with this show.

Reality is the UC especially UCLA, the kids getting in are not mediocre kids getting 3 on AP. It’s ultra-competitive even within the state and lots of stellar applicants are not getting.

The test is solely for college credit. If you took the class and got an A, that's what they look at. You can take the test without even taking the class so why should the schools care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apropos of another thread, does anyone know where to look for AP test passage (3 or better) for any given high school for any recent year? Any chance it shows which tests?

You should really look at scores of 4 or 5. Forget 3.

I disagree. Lots of brilliant kids get a 3 on tests here and there.

huh? This makes no sense.
My kid left DCPS for private and her current school has 95% of kids getting 4s and 5s on APs exams without even taking the corresponding AP classes.

No "brilliant" kid is getting a 3. Any kid who was taught the content should honestly get a 5, maybe a 4 if they're having a bad day.
These tests are far from rocket science. Have you actually looked at an exam?

Do you know that nationwide less than 50% of students pass the AP exams with a score of 3 or higher?

That tells me that the courses were not taught well or that the kids really should not have belonged in the AP class.

AP exams test basic course content. It’s not like it’s testing things you should not know. I walked in taking the AP test with no prep, nothing, cold Turkey and easily got 3 and some 4’s.