My high school (in the early 1990s) did not offer AP classes (it offered its own “accelerated” equivalent classes, while not being bound to the AP curricula), so this was commonly done. I took several AP exams and scored 4s and 5s on them.

My kids are history nerds, and while
both took the AP social sciences, they jave expressed confidence that they would have scored 5s on the exams in Gov and US History even without having taken the classes (both are taught poorly and in a shallow manner in their MCPS high school).

Also, my nephew took the AP physics 1 exam as a freshman because his MCPS hs would not allow him to take the class as a freshman and scored a 5.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My high schooler is telling me that some students are challenging AP exams, which means they take a test without having taken the AP class. My understanding is this is happening with a handful of exams for which the school doesn’t offer that AP class, but students want to try to see if they can still score well on the exam.

Has anyone had a child do this?

Almost all of the AP tests are easily crammable (to get a 5) if you have a smart kid that is good with memorizing things. Seriously, the AP curriculum needs to either be corrected or half of the courses/tests should be eliminated or renamed.

I think AP exams are becoming or have already become that national testing standard for colleges so they can compare apples to apples. But some of the new courses coming out make me scratch my head---AP Business with Personal Finance?

My school did not offer any AP classes, but they would let one sit the AP exams.

I took the AP US History exam in May of the year I took their only US History course. No additional study or preparation. I gor a 4, which was worth 8 credits at college.

Both my kids got a 5 on the AP exam in a common foreign language (their mom’s native language) without ever having taken any sort of class in that language, & no self-study at all.

My DC self studied two AP exams and did well on them - for one, they spent 2 1/2 days watching college board videos right before the exam, and the other one took probably 100 hours spread over many weeks. So it depends on the exam - content was all new for both of them. In our case, it was because the school didn't offer AP classes. In retrospect, it was a pain and took time away from an already busy schedule of regular school stuff. I’m not really in favor of piling even more work onto our overscheduled kids. But felt we had to do it because of the same concern as above, that colleges won’t really fully take into account that their school doesn’t offer APs when they are competing for admission against kids who have taken many of them and have a much clearer standardized profile.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, my senior is sitting for the AP Chem and AP Drawing exams without an in person class because her private school isn’t offering them this year.
Her school is arranging the testing at school. She is studying by taking the AP Chemistry module through Acellus and an Outschool study group.
In retrospect, trying to find an evening Chemistry class she could have taken through dual-enrollment May have been easier. She is hoping to attend MacGill for Chemistry so she needed the AP Chem. The AP Drawing was something she wanted to do.

We will see if this was a good path or not soon.

Acellus is not good. There are much better YouTube channels