Should I be worried about a 4 on an AP test?Answered
The top schools I want to go to are in the Ivy League or on par with them. I want to be a corporate lawyer, and to do that I can apply for a 3+3 year program that shaves off a year of college, or I can take the traditional 4+3 path. To get into the 3+3 program many schools require you to be a political science, pre-law major or something along those lines, but I want to have a safety net in case I change my mind but also to keep a broad mind. So I want to double major in econ and political science, but the schools I want to go to are extremely competitive and the 3+3 year program is even more competitive. I got a five and two fours on the three APs I took as a sophomore. Should I be concerned about the fours, and should I report them?
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2 answers
I am a rising senior and here is what i know:
AP courses and scores work pretty much the same regardless of your major. I am not sure if you know this, but if you are trying to skip one year of college through your AP scores (which you can) then you need to check what scores you need to get the credit for your colleges (they are all different for different colleges) on College Board. But you also need to know that you can only get a specific amount of credits and not as many as you want (you cannot just take all the possible AP exams there are and try to skip as many college years as possible) the max credits possibly given also depends on your specific college. If you want to skip at least one year of college, then that's usually around 8-10 AP exams.
As for getting accepted by the colleges, the scores have little to no value here. You can hide the scores and never show them to any of the colleges you are applying to ever. What matters during the application is how many AP courses you've completed and how did you do in them (usually passing grades being A or maybe even B).
In short, using AP scores to get college credits: check college board and you probably don't need to worry about the 4s.
Doing AP courses to get accepted or to strengthen your application: might wanna consider taking more courses (you mentioned the colleges are competitive)
hope this helps :)
I am striving for similar goals to you. I would recommend not worrying about the 4s you have. Generally, colleges, even the most prestigious ones, will not reject because of 4s on a (or even multiple) AP tests. Do submit them, especially if you get more, because nothing is a larger red flag than an unsubmitted AP score (as long as you pass). There is not a situation in which colleges will use a 4 instead of a 5 as sole justification for rejecting you. Keep taking AP classes, keep your grades up, and make your application as strong as possible. Unless you want hard-to-get college credit, a four will have no effect on you in the long run.
Hopefully this helps,
IJR
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