Each year, hundreds of thousands of high school students take the College Board’s Advanced Placement courses. Their aims are to receive college credit, to skip introductory courses in college or impress admissions officials. A reasonable schedule might be to take one AP class in the sophomore year, two in the junior year, and two or three in the senior year. Most students aspiring to the very best colleges and universities graduate with five or more AP courses on their transcripts.
Advanced Placement classes are college level courses using college textbooks and exams. They are also a preview of college-level work. If anyone had any doubts about doing well in college, an AP course can confirm them or set their mind at ease. The classes are more challenging and stimulating, but they take more time and require more work. They require a lot of reading, writing and problem sets. Selective colleges use student’s enrollment in the program as an indicator of whether applicants have taken the most challenging courses available to them.
There are benefits to taking AP classes. You can earn some college credit while still in high school. The amount of credit that is awarded depends on the college. Some give three, and sometimes six hours of credit per test. They could also save you a lot of time and money. They can give you an edge in the applicant pools of highly selective colleges and universities. Taking the exam cost approximately $75, that’s a lot cheaper than paying for a class in college. You can’t take a college class for that amount of money. Students who succeed in AP courses generally do well in college as a result of rigorous academic preparation.
If you are taking AP courses specifically to reduce the amount of credits you’ll have to take once in college, or to have specific classes “waived” during your freshman year, be aware that every college treats these classes differently. Taking AP English does not necessarily get you out of taking English 101 at a particular school. Not every college will promise an exact equivalency between the AP course you take and a specific class necessary to graduate–or even an elective, for that matter. Two things to remember. First, at most colleges the faculty (not the admissions office) decide how an AP course is treated in light of all credits needed to graduate. Ask the college department that seems the most likely to review the AP course (History, Math, etc.). Second, most colleges now have a common first-year experience, many with a predetermined set of core classes all freshman must take. -College Confidential
The exams for the AP course are taken in May. The College Board doesn’t require that you have to take the course in order to take the AP exam, even though students who take the course tend to score higher than students who don’t take the course. The College Board urges students who have not taken the course but plan to take the AP exam to study the kinds of skills and subjects outlined in the Course Description for each subject.
The scores for the exams range from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. Each college determines the scores that are accepted for college credit, but most consider a score of at least 3. Some students might wonder if getting a bad score on an AP exam will hurt their chances of college admission, but it doesn’t really matter. If you take an AP exam in your senior year, colleges wouldn’t even receive your score before July. Overall, approximately two-thirds of all AP test takers get a score of at least 3.
Overall, taking an Advanced Placement course depends on the student. It could help you get into the school of your dreams. If you want to take the class, go for it. You might benefit from it in the long run.
Here are the links to the websites for the information used: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/about_faq.html http://professorlamp.com/ed/TEA/AP.html http://www.ncpa.org/iss/edu/2002/pd021502b.html http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/atd_AP_classes.htm
