Will Your AP Scores Even Matter!?

AP scores are in. If you took an Advanced Placement class in the last school year, it likely ended with a great big AP exam scored on a scale of 1-5. And your teacher probably told you that if you got a 3 or higher, that’s good enough for transferable college credits. But that’s not always the case. Less competitive colleges are typically happy with a 3, though they might require a 4 for specific classes. But more competitive colleges very often require a 4 or even a 5 in certain classes for you to transfer those credits in.

A good place for you to start looking to figure that out is a website called BigFuture.org. That’s the College Board’s college website, and that’s the same company that makes the AP exams. So if you go to the academics tab of any college profile, you can scroll down and you can see every AP exam and what score that college requires for how many credits for which comparable course.

But it’s very important for you to understand as well that if you’re going to be going to college and majoring in that subject they may want you to take that class at their college. So they might only apply those credits toward an elective instead of that class. And also, if you’re taking any class in college it’ll be the next level above. Let’s say you’re doing the AP class and you have to do level 2 in college. You’re really better off repeating that class for the level 1 while you’re in college as well, so that when you walk into the level 2, you definitely know what that college is expecting of you, and not just what the College Board on their AP exams thinks a college will expect of you.

Ultimately, most colleges don’t care what scores you got on your AP exams when it comes to admissions. They mostly care about the grades you got in your classes and that you’re challenging yourself with academically rigorous courses like AP classes. So if you’re doing well there the score is just icing on the cake, though certainly a handful of colleges will consider your AP scores in their admissions process, especially ones that historically use the SAT II (later the SAT Subject Tests) in order to determine admissions. Now they’re replacing that with the AP scores. But those schools are few and far between.

Ultimately, the best place to find out about transferability is for you to go directly to the college website and find out from them. And sometimes they have a neat little page just like on BigFuture.org that has a little table and you can figure it out. But some colleges won’t do your credit evaluation until after you’re accepted and after you committed. And that might be frustrating because part of your decision about where you commit may depend in part on how many credits you’re walking in the door with. So it can be a tricky minefield to navigate.

One extra bonus of taking a number of AP classes is you might qualify as an AP scholar. Meaning, if you took three APs or more and got at least a 3 on each of them, you’re an AP scholar. If you took four APs or more and scored 3 or higher with an average 3.25 or better, you are an AP scholar with honors. And if you took five APs or more, scored 3 on all of them or better, and have a 3.5 average across them, you’re an AP scholar with distinction. There’s a spot on the Common Application in most other school specific applications for any award you may have received and that’s one of them.

Now, being an AP scholar is not necessarily going to get you accepted by a college, but it certainly isn’t going to hurt. And if other students you’re competing against have that, it’s better that you include it as well so they don’t have an advantage over you.

Either way, keep hitting the books, keep taking challenging classes, and if you have questions, call us at 732-556-8220. We are here to help.