Advanced placement tests are here

By Sharon Schladow
Special to the Bonanza
May 2, 2008

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It’s AP season, College Board Advanced Placement testing begins Monday. AP tests are only given over a two week period each May. How important is AP testing? A high test score can translate into college credit, depending on the institution the student enters.

AP testing, like all standardized testing, is another tool for colleges to evaluate students against their peers at other schools, but with scores only ranging from 1 to 5, the AP score is not as informative to admissions as an SAT or ACT score.
Nevertheless, a top score of 5 on an AP test is always impressive. AP tests can reinforce a student’s application to a particular program or major. The AP course and test are strong prep work for a SAT Subject test or ACT.

Students often find the AP tests more difficult than the corresponding SAT Subject Test.

Does AP coursework matter to admissions? AP courses are where the strongest students congregate within a high school, and colleges know it.

College admissions evaluate students within the context of their own high school. Admissions officers usually work a region or territory and are familiar with a high school from the school’s online profile, personal visits, counselor phone calls and past applicants.

Admissions like to see students taking advantage of everything their high school has to offer. Does the student take demanding coursework? Is there an upward trend in GPA? Does the student participate in high school clubs, performing arts and/or athletics? Does the student display leadership within their school and community? Transcripts, test scores and class rank are the three most important components to college admissions. All are all supplemented when college bound students take AP courses.

Often it is parents that have the hardest time understanding the role AP coursework plays in a student’s transcript. This is especially so if an overcommitted student fears he or she will not do well on the AP exam.

Some high school juniors choose to take a full load of AP courses with an eye toward pumping up their GPA. Remember, an AP course is graded on a higher scale than the 4.0 of a standard course.

Students, who have knowledge of the teacher, homework level and type of student who takes a particular AP course, are often the best judge of whether the course should be on their schedule.

On the other hand, some parents place too much emphasis on AP coursework. In a world of honors, AP and international baccalaureate classes, Admissions is rarely impressed by a student who has been hot housed by taking a multitude of AP courses online or in external programs. The exception is students seeking higher level math courses not available at their own high school.

Most public colleges will give AP scores of 3 or higher, college credit.
At the University of California, Berkeley for example, it is possible to gain as many as eight units in each, of more than 15 subjects. AP credit helps students avoid taking general education and entry level courses, the very classes that are the most impacted at public schools.

AP credit can also save on tuition costs. With public schools averaging five years-to-graduation, entering with several terms of credit can reduce overall time on campus.
The downside is that many students find they must retake AP courses once they enter college. The AP prerequisites only allow you to skip entry courses if you can actually remember enough to not fail the next level.

This tends to be a problem for students in majors requiring a math or science sequence, particularly if these AP courses were taken in the sophomore or junior year in high school. The UC system, like most public colleges, does not allow credit for high school AP coursework if the course is retaken after entering college.
University of Nevada, Reno, unlike UC, does allow students to apply AP coursework to major requirements, as do many public colleges.

The private colleges vary greatly when awarding credit for AP scores. The most selective colleges, as a rule do not award any college credits for AP scores. At most, a score of 5 will allow you to skip an entry level course.

As many of these colleges have students graduating in four years, there are few financial advantages to AP awarded college credit. Some colleges will award credit but not toward graduation or required coursework for a major.

Students are evaluated by their ability to excel within their own high school and community. They are expected to strive for excellence through demanding coursework, leadership opportunities, volunteer activities, special skills and extracurriculars.

This also includes taking advantage of the AP courses offered at your high school campus. As an independent college admissions adviser, I find this is one of the hardest concepts for parents to accept and yet, every college campus in America will agree.

There is no special off-campus or summer program that will supplement a student’s application as much as excelling in their own high school.

The specific AP classes offered at your high school are not nearly as important as whether a student took advantage of the coursework that was available and ranks among the stronger students in their school.

Sharon Schladow is a college admissions adviser from Davis, Calif. Questions? Schladow can be contacted by e-mail at collegeadvisingss@yahoo.com.