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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Doesn’t really matter due to advent of TO, the point of the APs is not the test score, it’s the GPA boost[/quote]

NO.

It's not, and never has been, about the GPA boost. [b]Colleges look at UNWEIGHTED GPA, not weighted GPA. This point has been repeated over and over again on this thread, and over and over on DCUM for at least since my oldest kid was applying five years ago, in the pre-TO era. How many more times before you get it?[/b]

For kids going to state schools and many SLACs, a 4-5 on an AP will let them skip and get credit for the intro, 100-level course, which could save them tuition or being bored for a semester. Ivies generally don't allow this and only use APs for credentialling.

The point of APs is credentialling for public school kids, where the quality of teaching may be more uneven and colleges want assurance that A in AP Statistics reflects a solid understanding of the material.

Result: A kid who scores 4 or 5 on an AP will send in their scores, TO or not. [/quote]

Rather than just repeating this claim over and over, it would probably be more effective if you could get state flagships to make public statements explaining this. Because right now many of them say they give bumps for APs, or use your school’s weighted GPA. And no one is going to trust some anonymous comment on DCUM when the schools themselves are issuing official statements that say the opposite.

This is the heart of the problem these kids are facing, by the way: the privates are so optimized for getting hooked kids into T15s that when a kid strikes out in the T30 and decides to go for a state flagship, they wind up falling pretty far down the list. [/quote]

Nobody is disputing that a 4 or 5 on an AP will give your kid a bump. The whole point is that colleges use it to make sure your kid's A in chem is for real--if your kid scores high on AP chem, it's clear they actually know the material, regardless of the quality of the class or the teacher. So that's a strawman right there.

So have your kid take the AP test even if their class wasn't labelled "AP." Although a tutor might help, I know kids who have done this, and done well, even without tutoring--like my kid. It was actually only a few week's work to figure out the material that wasn't covered in the class but could be on the AP test. Buy the relevant AP test prep book. Maybe it's too late for private school kids in this round, but going forward private school families might consider this.

[/quote]

You misunderstand me. Flagships are admitting by formula, or at least using a formula to narrow the pool. And that formula includes GPA. And for many schools, that GPA is either the weighted GPA as calculated by your high school (Georgia does it that way) or a recalculated GPA that weights for an official AP course, but not for a private school’s proprietary “advanced” course (the UC schools do it that way). Yes, the exam scores will help too—if the kid’s private school GPA is high enough to make it past that first cut.[/quote]

If this is true (and I'm not 100% convinced), then you need to bring it up with your private school admin. They'd need to develop a credible way to weight some classes higher. That is, weigh the advanced math classes higher, don't just say "we're Sidwell."[/quote]

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