Too bad the college board doesn’t report useful statistics about this. It would take them about 40 minutes to put together this report if they wanted to. Instead the info is obscured.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Helpful, yes. Rare, not really, no; not as rare as, say, 1550+ SAT.

No, it's far rarer to have a "wall of 5s" than it is to have a 1550.

Depends on how many, and which, APs we are talking about. The percentiles are vastly different, 99+ for SAT, but somewhere between 5% and 25% for the AP exams, which involve some self-selection, not equivalent pools.

lots of kids from our HS only report 5s, not 4s. so it's a matter of having four 5s vs eight 5s

Anonymous wrote:Helpful, yes. Rare, not really, no; not as rare as, say, 1550+ SAT.

No, it's far rarer to have a "wall of 5s" than it is to have a 1550.

It's pretty rare. I spend way too much time on the "chance me" threads on reddit and college confidential and AP scores are surprisingly low even among kids with 4.5s and 1550s.

Most kids score high on 75% of the subjects but across the board is rare.

Also, most schools have a crappy teacher or two. And kids rarely have the time to prep on their own. I know my own kid was barely functioning by spring of junior year between sports until 6 or 7pm daily, extracurriculars, SAT prep, AP class work, etc. They had zero time to be studying intensively for AP stuff. So in the class where my oldest had a crappy teacher they got a 4.

Helpful, yes. Rare, not really, no; not as rare as, say, 1550+ SAT.

Not helpful at all. Focus on perfect grades, SAT testing because they check off boxes. Then invest heavily in extracurriculars related to your area of interest.

It is one of many types of indictators that kids are strong academically.

People post this stuff, almost like, “my kid is amazing, right?”

Not sure where you are going with this OP. Of course it is good, but you knew that. I am sure schools vary regarding how much weight they put on AP scores.

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering how rare this is and if helpful with T25 admissions? All 5s across disciplines - like BC calc, APush, lit, foreign language , chem ….if you report all 5s for exams taken through junior year

It was easy for mine but not helpful with HYPSM.

It gets murky in here with the way some use terms like “top scores” without clarifying exactly what that means to them. In the context of the SAT and ACT, I’ve come to expect that most don’t mean 1600 or 36 (much less in their child’s first attempt).

With respect to AP tests, I’ve never seen definitive data, but I’d estimate that 10+ AP tests with scores of 5 (with nothing lower) probably occurs as often as a super scored 1600 or 36. 14+ probably as often as a one-and-done 1600 or 36.

What I can say with confidence, however, is that a wall of 5s definitely DOES seem to matter to most T25 schools.

It's discontinued, but there was the "National AP Scholar: Granted to students in the United States who receive an average score of at least 4 on all AP Exams taken, and scores of 4 or higher on eight or more of these exams." (https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/exam-administration-ordering-scores/scores/awards/scholar-awards)

There were about 39,000 students at that level in 2020 (last year they reported it) - https://reports.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-scholar-data-2020.pdf

So I'd guess the number with all 5s would be much smaller - but whether it's, for example, 3,000 or 15,000, I don't know.

It's relatively common in this area, with so many high-achieving kids, but of course it helps. Presuming high stats across board, plus good ECs and leadership.

Common.
Inflation here too.
Check out YCBK podcast. There was a recent segment on this.

Not sure how anyone not working in college admissions would know that data. But yes, some kids do get all 5s and that helps for admissions.

Just wondering how rare this is and if helpful with T25 admissions? All 5s across disciplines - like BC calc, APush, lit, foreign language , chem ….if you report all 5s for exams taken through junior year