AP Courses – It's Not The Grade But How You Played The Game

AP Classes – Advanced Placement Classes. Not every high school offers AP classes, and that doesn’t negatively affect a high school student’s chances of being admitted to a college. But if a high school does offer AP classes, not taking AP Classes can hurt a student’s chances of being accepted by a college.

It may be hard to understand, but colleges look more at the rigor of the classes a high school student takes than the grades they get. Sure, a college may look at a high school student’s AP grades to determine placement, but for the most part a college wants to see that if a high school offered AP classes that the high school applicant endeavored to take those more rigorous classes.

College Prep and Honors classes are great and many high school students get great grades that look fabulous on their transcripts. Who wouldn’t like to see 80’s (B’s) and 90’s (A-) or even 100 (A) on a transcript. Unfortunately, for Prep and Honors students, colleges work on a 4.0 scale and they calculate grades a little differently when they put AP classes in the equation. Why? Because AP Classes are much harder….they are college level courses and colleges take that fact into consideration.

How? Because in high school it’s hard to get more than a 100 or an A in a subject, but working on a 4.0 matrix, colleges can always give a high school student who gets 100 on an AP Class a 4.6. Yup, a four point SIX.

Here’s a little breakdown of how colleges interpret the Prep Class and Honors subject letter or number grades a student receives and how a college evaluates the grades given when AP Classes are offered at a high school:

Now, here’s another startling fact for students who worked their butts off doing their best on their AP tests. Sure, colleges want to see that you took AP Classes if they were available at the high school and that you passed. However, the majority of colleges still look at SAT and ACT scores as a deciding factor whether or not to accept a student.

So, here’s the bottom line. If a student’s high school offers AP Classes, a college want to see that a student took the most rigorous classes offered by the high school, see that they did their very best, not necessarily perfectly, or even very well, more like they passed; and that the student did well on their SAT or ACTs. It doesn’t have to make sense to students, they just have to understand and accept how it works.

Lastly, to all those students who take AP Classes in their Senior Year...colleges will not see that a high school senior took AP courses let alone the grades they received until AFTER a student was already accepted to that college. So some goCAMPUSing advice, take all the major AP classes in 9th, 10th and 11th grades...but still save a couple of AP classes for Senior Year, because there is nothing worse than a college who has already accepted a high school student – slacking off in their senior year. Many colleges interpret that as a student doesn’t care about their education now that a college has accepted them...wrong. All too many times a high school student who goofed off or crashed and burned in their senior year have had their acceptance letters withdrawn. Read the fine print...students have to maintain their course rigor and grades to “officially” be accepted by a college.

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