Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take the APs. You don't have to take the class seriously. About half of AP tests are failed, and most of the rest are not mastery 5s. Colleges know AP courses are BS.

Which is why when you show 5s on all of your AP exams college love it. I think only like 10% of kids score 5s on some of them.

My kid had 5s on all of his and got in everywhere. Also had straight As and high ACT, but I think - at least for T1-20 schools it did further differentiate him from grade inflated kids.

NP. I think the PP was referring to senior year AP, as senior year AP exam scores are only for credit, not admissions.

We were told this, too. But you can list AP scores on your application. I tend to agree now that the 5s helped.

I agree that AP exam scores might help. But, my point was that only junior year AP scores can possibly help, simply due to timing. Senior year AP exams do not even occur until after the student has been admitted to and enrolled in a college.

Unless your kid has applied to Oxford or Cambridge or another overseas University where they may wait to see the AP exam results before accepting, i.e. have given out a "provisional" offer on the basis that certain grades are met.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does it look if your child decides to do DE instead of AP ? Is that considered a step down?

AP courses are more of a known quantity compared to DE. So, colleges may prefer to see AP. Still, DE counts for rigor. I'm not sure I'd say it's a step down, hard to say and may depend on the course.

It is hard to say. Our student did take one DE (history) with all others being AP. Didn’t impact admissions for Tech, UVA…
I think she enjoyed the class after two AP histories.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the flailing around trying to get students’ profiles to be razor sharp is for a tiny % of the colleges in the country. The vast majority—including some schools everybody has heard of—would be just fine with a kid taking 2 APs senior year.

Please name a few of these colleges. I don't know of any that my junior is considering that would be OK with what you describe.

NP. Most colleges outside the top 50 are ok with two APs.

Be careful-- there are plenty of other threads in this forum about surprisingly high rejections among 'high stats' kids. I, too, lament the arms race that APs have become. But I'd be willing to bet that the people complaining that their 1500+ SAT 4.0 UW GPA kid didn't get into University of Maryland are referring to a kid who had a less rigorous courseload than peers in the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the flailing around trying to get students’ profiles to be razor sharp is for a tiny % of the colleges in the country. The vast majority—including some schools everybody has heard of—would be just fine with a kid taking 2 APs senior year.

Please name a few of these colleges. I don't know of any that my junior is considering that would be OK with what you describe.

NP. Most colleges outside the top 50 are ok with two APs.

Anonymous wrote:All of the flailing around trying to get students’ profiles to be razor sharp is for a tiny % of the colleges in the country. The vast majority—including some schools everybody has heard of—would be just fine with a kid taking 2 APs senior year.

Please name a few of these colleges. I don't know of any that my junior is considering that would be OK with what you describe.

All of the flailing around trying to get students’ profiles to be razor sharp is for a tiny % of the colleges in the country. The vast majority—including some schools everybody has heard of—would be just fine with a kid taking 2 APs senior year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^(to clarify, obviously, AP exam scores from earlier years can also help. My point is that senior year AP exams occur far too late to be included in college apps.)

Adding yet again, the student can include in the Common App the AP exams they plan to take for senior year, but they cannot include a score for those exams because they do not have one.

k

Yes. My kid reported 4 “5s” from all completed exams by fall of senior year and that he was taking 4 more post senior year.

I do think this helped and submitting high ACT scores.

Scores are becoming important even at TO schools.

Anonymous wrote:How does it look if your child decides to do DE instead of AP ? Is that considered a step down?

It shows interest in a subject and is a good choice if you have a scheduling conflict. But choosing a DE class over an equal AP class looks less rigorous. Most kids take DE classes in topics that aren’t not offered at their high school so they can expand their knowledge or for conflict reasons.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is on track to have the following number of AP classes:
9th— 0
10th— 3
11th— 5-6
12th— 4-5

My question is: if a kid is not playing to major in science/engineering, do they need to take at least one AP science class to get into a decent college? What if they have 10-12 APs, but none are science? With AP science taking two periods, scheduling becomes difficult.

Take one AP science. AP Environmental Science is not 2 periods.

APES is 2 periods at Yorktown

Anonymous wrote:^(to clarify, obviously, AP exam scores from earlier years can also help. My point is that senior year AP exams occur far too late to be included in college apps.)

Ah, yes, sorry I misread the string.

Anonymous wrote:How does it look if your child decides to do DE instead of AP ? Is that considered a step down?

AP courses are more of a known quantity compared to DE. So, colleges may prefer to see AP. Still, DE counts for rigor. I'm not sure I'd say it's a step down, hard to say and may depend on the course.

Anonymous wrote:^(to clarify, obviously, AP exam scores from earlier years can also help. My point is that senior year AP exams occur far too late to be included in college apps.)

Adding yet again, the student can include in the Common App the AP exams they plan to take for senior year, but they cannot include a score for those exams because they do not have one.

^(to clarify, obviously, AP exam scores from earlier years can also help. My point is that senior year AP exams occur far too late to be included in college apps.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take the APs. You don't have to take the class seriously. About half of AP tests are failed, and most of the rest are not mastery 5s. Colleges know AP courses are BS.

Which is why when you show 5s on all of your AP exams college love it. I think only like 10% of kids score 5s on some of them.

My kid had 5s on all of his and got in everywhere. Also had straight As and high ACT, but I think - at least for T1-20 schools it did further differentiate him from grade inflated kids.

NP. I think the PP was referring to senior year AP, as senior year AP exam scores are only for credit, not admissions.

We were told this, too. But you can list AP scores on your application. I tend to agree now that the 5s helped.

I agree that AP exam scores might help. But, my point was that only junior year AP scores can possibly help, simply due to timing. Senior year AP exams do not even occur until after the student has been admitted to and enrolled in a college.

How does it look if your child decides to do DE instead of AP ? Is that considered a step down?