Understanding Advanced Placement (AP) Courses and Exams

Each May, millions of students around the world sit down to take one or more of the 38 Advanced Placement Exams. Administered by the CollegeBoard, each exam in America costs nearly $100. Notable for their rigor, a good score on these exams actually may result in saving thousands of dollars in college courses (at some schools) and boosting a student’s college application. In this blog post, we will be going over what AP courses are, what they mean for college admissions, and whether they are worth the money. We will also discuss the option of “self-studying,” for students that are not offered AP Courses in their high school curriculum.

 

What are AP courses?

Advanced Placement (AP Courses) offer college-level curriculum to high school students in dozens of subjects. For this reason, these courses are often taken by the more high-achieving students at each high school, and look excellent on the transcript because of their difficulty. At the end of the school year, in May, students take the exams for all of their AP courses in a span of two weeks. Most exams are between 2 - 3 hours long, and the results of these exams are traditionally released in July. Each test is graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest possible score.

 

Do students have to take the AP Exam?

While it is possible for students to take an AP course without taking the exam, many high school teachers actually exempt students from the final for a course if they take the AP exam. Not only that, if your teen excels in the course, a good score on the exam can have many benefits, including college credit. 

 

Benefits of taking the AP Exam

At most public universities, a 3 or above on an AP exam usually offers some type of college credit. More elite private universities tend to require at least a 4 for some type of credit, and may limit the number of AP credits accepted. The credits that a college accepts drastically varies by whether they are private or public and the different majors and courses at the university. The requirements for transferable AP credits are often listed on each college’s website. Taking enough AP Exams and excelling in them could potentially save a semester, or even a year, of college. Different AP Courses have various curves and difficulties, so you can take a look at the AP Score Distribution for 2020 to see which exams have students scoring the highest and lowest.

While college credit is an added benefit, the real value of AP courses is their impact in college admissions. The University of Southern California, for example, lists on their admissions website that "Students should pursue Advanced Placement . . . whenever possible and if offered by high school." Essentially, if an AP course is offered by your teen’s high school, taking the course will improve their chances of being accepted into elite universities. Even if a student only takes AP courses in their career choice of interest, it exemplifies their passion and commitment to the subject.

For example, students that want to go on to pursue engineering or go into medical school often take AP Biology, Chemistry, Physics and/or Calculus. Political science or history majors benefit from taking AP Government, AP European History, or AP US History. These exams may fulfill some of their future major requirements. They will also demonstrate a student’s academic excellence and interest if they do well in the course or exam. AP Exams are offered for 6 different foreign languages including French, Spanish, and Chinese, and scoring at least a 4 or 5 on these exams exhibits fluency and may even fulfill future foreign language requirements in college. For students interested in music, AP Music Theory is an excellent choice. Art students can learn about art history in AP Art History, and can create an art portfolio that will be graded in the AP Drawing and AP Art & Design exams. As a reminder, a full list of available AP Exams is available here.

Students are not required to submit their AP scores on their college application, but some universities allow students to submit AP scores as standardized tests alongside or in replacement of the ACT/SAT. If your teen struggled with their AP course in school but scored well on the exam, a 4 or 5 may also make up for a subpar grade on their transcript for that subject.

AP courses, however, are not for everyone. The curriculum moves quickly, and students often have prerequisite courses they must complete so that they do not fall behind. Homework per night for each AP class usually follows the rule of thumb of 1 - 3 hours per night, and could be difficult to manage, especially for students heavily involved in extracurriculars or sports. 

 

Are AP exams worth taking for students that do not take the course? 

It depends. AP teachers spend an entire year of lecturing, testing and assigning homework to prepare students specifically for a test. Not only that, college admissions officers do not expect students to have taken AP courses that are not offered at their high school. Instead, they simply expect a student to take the most rigorous courses they can. If AP courses are not offered at your teen’s high school, it will not be held against them when they apply to colleges.

However, if your student does not feel challenged by their school curriculum, self-studying for an exam may be impressive. For example, if your student would like to be an economics major, but AP Microeconomics and AP Macroeconomics are not offered at their high school, self-studying can show initiative. If the student scores well on the AP exam anyways, their passion for economics, enough for them to learn it at a high level on their own, may shine through. This also works for students that cannot get into the AP courses at their school due to schedule conflicts or full classes. Taking an AP exam for a subject related to their prospective major helps students who have a clear academic passion build a narrative for college applications. 

 

How do you score well on an AP exam?

The best way to self-study or review for AP exams is by purchasing a review book. Barron’s and Princeton Review tend to be popular brands, but students may look around and find one recommended with excellent reviews. Albert.io is a website often used for AP prep, complete with practice questions and answer key breakdowns. Princeton Review has free practice quizzes and study guides, Khan Academy has free instructional videos, and AP Practice Exams website has a free compilation of official and unofficial practice tests. Timing is one of the biggest issues students face during AP exams, so make sure your teen takes a couple of timed practice tests. Reviewing their wrong answers and those sections to identify their strengths and weaknesses will help them improve their score. There are countless free and paid resources and videos available online to help make the self-study process easier, and if your teen makes proper use of them, they will have no problem scoring well on the exam.

In the end, AP exams are worth it for students that can handle it and have the time and motivation to do the work. They will be competitive in college admissions and be predictive of how well the student will handle coursework in college. AP exams may save entire semesters of college expenses, especially for students planning on attending a public university. For students that cannot afford the cost of AP exams, high schools usually have funds to provide financial aid. Information on federal and state fee reductions can be found here, on the official CollegeBoard Website. 

 

 

For additional insights, check out:

ACT/SAT Scores Still Matter In College Admissions

Best of Online Learning: SAT/ACT Prep

Guide to the Common Application

Are Pre-College Summer Programs Worth It?

 

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