AP and IB Courses and Exams: What High School Students Need to Know for College Applications

Webinar Transcription

2023-04-27 – AP/IB Courses and Exams/ What High School Students Need to Know for College Applications

Hi everybody and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anesha Grant. I’m a senior advisor with CollegeAdvisor and I will be your moderator today. Today’s webinar is “AP/IB Courses and Exams: What High School Students Need to Know for College Applications.” Before we get started, I just wanna orient everyone with the webinar timing.

Our presenter will share some tips, resources, and a little bit of guidance around this topic, and then we will open up the floor to respond to your questions in a live q and a on the sidebar, you can download the slides under the handouts tab and you can start so many questions. Whenever you are ready In the q and a tab, please only submit your questions in the q and a tab.

Please do not chat us. It gets a little distracting during the presentation, but you can start so many questions in the q and A tab whenever you get ready. Now let’s meet our presenter, Maria. Hi Maria. How are you doing? Hi everyone. I’m doing well, thanks. I am Maria Acosta Robayo, and I graduated from the class of 2020 at Harvard where I studied sociology and global health policy and where I was also a pre-med student.

And awesome. We’re so excited to hear from you, but before we get started, we’re gonna do a quick poll of our audience. So let us know what grade you’re in. It will help Maria get some context on how to target today’s conversation. So please let us know if you’re in the eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th grade, or 11th grade, 12th grade, other if you are a parent.

And as we’re waiting Maria, I also went to Harvard, so I have to ask, and I think we went years apart, so it has changed, but I’m just wondering, and I feel like I’ve asked you this before, but what was your favorite kind of spot to eat at? On campus or off campus or around campus? Yeah, so I think one of my favorite spots was Cinca.

It’s a ramen place right next to there’s like this pretty famous like burger joint. Right on Mass Ave and across the street from it is, is the Cinco Ramen restaurant. And it’s fantastic. If you’re ever in Cambridge, you should definitely check it out. Okay. I appreciate that. I don’t know if that existed when I was there.

So I’m glad there’s a good ramen spot. There’s a lot of turnaround in Harvard Square though, so I feel like, or a lot of rollover. Yeah. Yeah. The only places that have remained consistent I know of it was like Pinocchio’s, which is pretty good pizza. Mm-hmm. That’s like one of my favorite spots. I was telling people I think it rivals New York Pizza and as a New Yorker, that was blasphemous.

But, you know. All right we are gonna go ahead and close our poll so we can get properly started in today’s session. Just so you know, the majority of folks with us are in the 11th grade, which makes sense about 36%. Or I’m sorry, the majority of folks are actually in the 10th grade, 39% and then followed by 11th graders.

With some ninth graders, some eighth graders who are being very early and very ambitious. We appreciate you. And other, which I’m assuming are parents, which about 7%. So I guess our conversation can be targeted around 10th and 11th graders tonight. I will stop talking. Hand it over to you. Someone just said they were having issues with the sound.

You might have to log off, log back in, or multiple people are saying that. Hang on, give me one sec to see. All right. Multiple people are saying they don’t have sound.

Are there folks who can hear us, or is, is it totally lack of sound for everybody? Yeah, that’s a good question. Could folks let us know if you can hear us okay? Some people can hear us, other folks may not be able to hear us. For the folks who cannot hear us, you might have to log off and log back in. I just checked all of our systems and things seem to be going, things are on on our side.

Okay. All right. Multiple people are saying they can hear, so sorry. I’ll send some messages. Thank you folks. All right, we’re gonna move forward. Hopefully the sound issues can be resolved. I will set some things in the chat. All right, I’m gonna keep it moving. I headed it over to you, Maria. That was great.

So we’re gonna chat today a little bit more about AP and IB courses and exams. And what that means is you’re looking into what class, what classes to take, and as you’re looking at, like how does this count for college. So we’ll first start off with just talking about what are AP classes, and then we’ll move over to IB and then talk about.

The differences, similarities in how they might play a role in college applications. So what are AP courses? So their college level courses offered by the College Board’s Advanced Placement Program. So that is kind of where they sit and where a lot of the curriculum comes from and the testing is from.

And they’re designed to challenge high school students and to prepare them for the college level coursework. So if you, if we take it like a, a step back you probably have some of like your standard classes, then you might have some honors classes, like high honors advanced, and then like above all of those, like kind like local high school specific courses.

There’s the, like the regional and like the national like AP courses and those. So those are offered depending on if there’s like teachers available to teach them. And again, sit under the college boards curriculum. So that is like one level above what you might see the rigor in your normal co high school classes.

And they cover a wide range of subjects. So at the end of like the course, you can also take a class that will test your knowledge on all of those different range of subjects. So you can have from like languages. So there’s like Spanish, it be French, lots of different languages. There’s like, in the sciences, there’s physics, there’s chemistry, there’s biology in the like language arts, you have like AP Lang, AP language, AP composition or AP language.

AP Literature. You also have like different type of history courses. So you can have like AP US History, AP Euro, or AP European History. So there’s a wide range of courses that you can take within the AP umbrella. And then depending on the score that you take at the end of the year students may be eligible for college credit or advanced placement in college.

And so that means that. You could either like completely skip having to take that class or it might mean like, for example, if you were thinking about being in like an economics major if you took AP Economics, maybe you’re able to either skip the, like one of the requirements or you’re able to just place at a higher level and you’re able to take a higher level course, which you’d open more doors for interesting classes that you might wanna take.

And I think a really important point, especially cuz this is geared towards college admissions, is to recognize that APS can help students just stand out on college applications. It shows high level of rigor in your academic work and a willingness to challenge yourself. And lastly, it also just shows like demonstrated readiness for college level work.

So now what are IB courses? So IB courses are part of the International Baula Baccalaureate program, which is different than the college board. So two different governing like boards and like standardized curriculums in these two. But they are pretty similar to the, they’re designed to provide students with challenging and comprehensive education.

And while it’s not just like specific courses and like a harder curriculum, it’s really embedded in like thinking about how do we help students develop more critical thinking skills, intercultural understandings and a global perspective. So I think like the values based approach And the more like the liberal arts approach of the IB program is pretty different than the ap IB courses are organized into six different subject groups.

So kind of similar to like what I said, you, you could break up the aps into like different kind of groups. But it’s not as formal as that. Whereas in IB you do have like six subject groups. There’s language and literature, language acquisition, individuals in society, sciences, mathematics, and the arts.

So they’re pretty defined. And then in addition to taking those individual IB courses, you could also pursue a full IB diploma program. And so this requires you to take classes in all six subject groups and to complete some additional requirements that might be re a research project or community service.

And then IB courses are assessed through a combination of different internal and exter external assessments. So that includes like, Exams, essays and projects. So that might play out similarly if you’re like in an AP class where your professor has like unit exams and then also like essay exams and then maybe you have some projects.

So there might be some overlap there and like how that plays out in the classroom. And then lastly the IB diploma program is recognized by universities around the world. And again, similar to the aps, just shows like a readiness for college level classes and and helps to get like gain shows like demonstrated desire to want to pursue higher level courses and pursue that rigor and top universities.

So I’ve kind of alluded to some of these already, but we’ll go a little bit more in depth into the similarities of AP and ib. So, The way that they’re both very similar is that they both have, they’re courses that are designed to provide high school students with some rigorous college level education.

So it is something that you would pursue if you’re really thinking about showing that you would like to challenge yourself. If you’re ready for the high level of rigor, probably a lot of content that you’d have to cover within a year and pretty rigorous assessments. They both offer courses in a wide range of subjects.

So there’s, like I mentioned before in those six subject areas for IBS and the sub many different type of AP classes. They cover wide range of subjects, so it’s not just like, you can only do it if you’re STEM or you can only do it if you’re interested in the arts or in the languages. They’re also similar in that they offer exams or assessments that will measure a student’s mastery of the course material.

And again, that’s really important because it could lead to advanced placement or or not having to take the class in college again, the college credit. And lastly, they also just help students stand out in the application process, both because it shows again that you are a student that likes to challenge yourself.

It shows academic like readiness for, for college level classes. And then a couple differences here, which I think is probably the most valuable part of this presentation because you might be thinking to yourself like, okay, well these two are really awesome opportunities to show. Again, like the academic, I like to challenge myself academically.

I I’m at a higher level in taking classes in like a specific area, but I think where the differences lie or this piece right here is where it might actually affect whether you’re going to pursue IB classes, an IB diploma. So the AP program, like I mentioned, is run by college board while IB is run by the International Baccalaureate organization.

And so that might affect, again, as you’re thinking about, do I want this to be more like a one-off, like I take an AP course that shows mastery over this subject versus like, I want to potentially pursue a diploma that shows I am a well-rounded individual that like wants to pursue this more in a value-based.

Again, as I showed in one of the previous slides, they’re more focused on kind of that liberal arts education of like, are you developing critical thinking skills? Are you thinking about this from global perspectives? And then the AP program is more focused on individual courses. So like I said, you can pick and choose what AP classes you’re gonna take, what AP exams you wanna take, but the IB program is more focused on that critical thinking perspective.

And then lastly, IB courses are assessed through. Combination of internal and external assessments while the AP courses are primarily just through the standardized exam. So as I mentioned with IB courses, like there might be components where like you’re having like to do research or where you might be doing some community service.

And then a couple other differences here that I think are more focused on like some of the benefits of the IB program is that it requires students to I guess I already touched on this before, but to do community service and other things that show that might overlap with like what you’re already doing with a college application.

Like you probably are doing some community service to show that you are someone who cares about your community and that’s something that’s already part of the IB program. It also offers an option of pursuing the full diploma program. And so that is an opportunity to not just show like, I’m picking and choosing different classes that I wanna show mastery over.

It actually shows that. You’re someone who is more dedicated to kind of this value-based approach to learning. And then the IB program is also recognized by universities around the world. While sometimes AP courses or like the recognition of AP courses can vary by university and by country. So a lot of students are, I know that we have mostly 10th and 11th graders, but there are some eighth graders and ninth graders here as well. And so you might be asking yourself, you know, if I’m gonna take AP and IB courses when should I start taking those? Which ones should I take? Should I do a mix?

So we’re gonna get into a little bit of that today, and then you can ask more questions in our q and a. So typically AP and IB courses are offered in high school, so you’ll need to wait until you reach this level of education to take them. But there are some pre-AP or pre IB courses that you might be able to take earlier.

So, for example, I went to a middle school where it was an IB middle school, and we took, we had to do like our IB portfolios and all these things, but obviously those classes I took too early on to account as a college credit. So all of those were pre IB courses. It wasn’t actually the IB program. Think about it similarly to like, when you take your s a t, your s a t actually counts towards like what you can submit toward for a college application.

Whereas if you take your pre s a t that you can’t submit to like a, a college as, as proof of like standardized test scores. So I think it’s similar in that it helps you, it doesn’t count towards college credit, but it does help you get a sense for, you know, what are courses gonna be like in high school.

What are, what’s the level of rigor. It helps you maybe develop some of that the work ethic and the different time management skills and strategies that you might find really useful in high school when you actually take AP or IB courses. I, I think that the best approach to taking these courses is to start with just one or two a p or IB courses and subjects that are really interesting to you.

And that align with your academic strengths. Because I think you have, especially if you start in the ninth grade, you have four years to take a lot of these courses. And something that can be really discouraging is if you just jump into a random AP or IB course that you’re not really interested in, that is really hard.

And then you just, like you, you’re kind of lost in being bored, but also like very challenged and maybe kind of lost. And so if you’re able to mitigate some of that by starting with a class that’s super interesting that you already maybe know a little bit about, and then starting with just one or two so that the workload doesn’t get too heavy it can just set you up to be more confident to take more classes later on.

So that’s, that’s actually what I did in high school. I ended up for a total of, I think I had 10 aps and I didn’t take an IB class in, in high school, but I take, I did take several aps, but I started out with just one. So my freshman year I just took I just took AP US History, and then my sophomore year I also was more focused on some of my other extracurriculars.

I think I needed a little bit more of experience under my belt and I just took one. In hindsight, maybe I would’ve, it would’ve been fun to take like maybe two, but I kind of took it slow and steady and then I was able to really have the confidence to say like, okay, I’m ready to take like three or four a year.

Again, like that’s not a hundred percent, that’s like not necessary and a hundred percent not like, assured that you would get you know, into like a, a top college doing that. But it’s just the strategy that I used of just having a solid time of confidence building and getting a sense for the work.

For the workload needed and then actually jumping into taking a lot of classes. And so I think that kind of hits on the third bullet here of like, because AP and IB courses can be challenging, it’s really good to just have a gut check with yourself and ask yourself if you’re ready academically and if you’ve already developed a bit of a of a work ethic around how you wanna approach studying for something that can be difficult.

And then lastly, I’d also consider your college goals when you’re deciding when to start taking AP and IB courses. Like I said, some of the top schools will just have a lot of applicants that will have taken AP and IB courses. And so you are competing against the pool of students who would have showed a lot of like academic promise in this area and showed it through taking a lot of AP and IB courses.

And so you might wanna start earlier on. I wouldn’t say like, You have to take like 10 or you have to take like a certain number. I think it’s very hard to quantify that, especially because all of this is the, the caveat to all of this is your school has to offer these or the easiest way to take this or to, or accomplish this is if your school is offering those AP classes or if your school is offering the IB program.

And so in, I’m not gonna, I don’t wanna jump the gun here too much, but in a future slide, I’ll talk a little bit more about like, what would you do if, like the, if your school doesn’t offer these, but again, keep in mind that when admissions officers are looking at your application, they’re also seeing, okay, what was offered at their school.

And if your school did not offer AP classes or IB classes, then they would know that and they would say, okay, the student didn’t have access to this. We can’t compare them to a student who had access to 20 AP classes and chose like, and was able to take 20 of them. So they’ll take that in that inequity into account.

All right. We are gonna do another quick poll for you all to give Maria a bit of a water break. So the question is, where are you in the application process, given that a lot of you are still sophomores and juniors, I’m assuming you’re still in the researching process, but there are might be some ambitious folks who are working on essays.

So let us know where you are in the process. Maria, as we’re waiting for the poll to come in, did you take AP or ib? And if so, and depending on which one, what was your favorite class? Yeah, so I did not take ib. I took the pre-B classes as part of my middle school experience, but I did take several aps.

My favorite is probably still AP u s history, which is actually the first AP that I took my freshman year. I just thought it was like fascinating. I had never taken a world history class and I just felt like it was. Really stressful in that it was like drinking out of a water hose like that.

There was a lot of content, but I think I, it’s a class that I’ve learned the most in. And I had a teacher who just made it really fun. I would say the same AP history. I know some kids like grumble about it and they hate, they like D BQs. But I, I really enjoyed it as well. And I think I had a pretty strong history teacher as well who made it really enjoyable.

So yeah, shout outs to eight push. I guess we’ll go ahead and close our poll. And just so you know, let’s see. The majority of folks, about 50% are researching schools until, again, looking at some of the requirements and trying to be sure that they can be competitive in those spaces. 31% haven’t started.

That’s totally okay. Right now is a good time to kick off things, especially if you are sophomore or junior. I’m working on my essays about 6%. 5% are getting materials together. No one is almost done, which makes sense. We are at the end of the school year. So everyone should be kind of restarting and in that researching and planning process.

Alright thanks y’all for letting us know where you are in the process and I’ll hand it back over to Maria. Thank you. So I think again, kind of picking up the thread of how does this apply to college applications and how you plan your high school time. A question that I’ve, I think I also see in like the chat is how many AP and IB courses should I take throughout your high school career?

And so as I mentioned before, I think it just depends on your college goal. Well, it, there’s several factors. The first is like what are your college goals? If you were trying to apply to some of these top universities, you should probably try to, to take several of these. Again, if your school doesn’t offer them, that’s not to say like, well, if you don’t take AP or B courses, you can’t make it to those top schools.

That’s absolutely not true. There’s, again, consideration for what’s available at your school. And as I’ll talk in a, in a slide coming up, there’s also other opportunities to show. Like the determination and perseverance of like, okay, these weren’t offered in my school, but I’m gonna go out of my way to do other things that show your like your level of academic interest.

And so there another factor that could also play into how many courses you take is the availability of the classes at your school and also your extracurricular and academic availability. So if you are someone who is like you know, plays a very, like a competitive sport, someone who is doing in music or doing another type of art form or has another extracurricular that you put a lot of time into, it might affect the number of AP or IB courses that you take.

And again, it’s kind of hard to figure out like, well, how many should you take and how should you balance it? Because for. Even though you wanna show a really strong academic application, your extracurriculars also help to make you stand out. And if you’re devoting a lot of hours to like a nonprofit, you’re starting or like competing at again competing at a high level for a sport or for music or for any other type of extracurricular, that is something that could also be a really big strength in your application.

Something you could put in your essays. And so I think it, the trick here is to figure out, like, okay, within the time that you have available, how can you like, keep growing these other elements of your application while also continuing to show a high level of rigor academically? So I would say, again, I, I don’t think it’s right to collect a specific number because no.

Schools don’t put like, or at least like especially the top level schools where students are like very concerned about if I have enough aps, they don’t tell you you need to have five aps or 10 aps. You do, I would say like, look, looking at your every year, I would say maybe freshman year is the one year where you could like, you know, kind of get away with like not taking an AP or IB if they’re available at your school.

But I would say definitely starting sophomore year, and again, even more like power to you, if you start taking them freshman year you should be taking at least like one or two a year. I think that obviously there will be some students who take three or four aps a year. And again, that’s like a tough competition, but.

It really depends on, like, if you are like a really competitive athlete and like you’re going out and doing like these crazy competitions, or you’re like in an orchestra that’s like doing really fantastic at like nationals or like, if you’re doing something like a, a nonprofit that’s touching the lives of a lot of people, like you can’t compare apples to oranges, but you do know that, like, that’s something that’s gonna help you stand out.

And so if you’re choosing between taking an AP and having to drop, like not participating in a competitive sport that like really helps you stand out that might not be the smartest thing for you to do. And so I would talk specifically with your CollegeAdvisor, with your college counselor to figure out what is the best balance for you specifically so that you keep on growing these extracurriculars or these things that help you stand out from a crowd of other folks who might be taking a lot of aps.

And then again, I, I would say. While the numbers are sometimes what we gravitate to, like how many do I need to check off the box? I think it should be more of a heart posture focusing on like, okay, what’s gonna show initiative? Like, is it a year where you’re just like slacking because you don’t wanna take class, like and like a rigorous class?

Or is it like, okay, this year I can justify taking just one AP because I’m really focusing on this, but next year, like the tables are gonna switch and I’m gonna take more ap. So again, focusing on that hard posture of showing initiative and making sure that admissions officers know you’re someone who likes to challenge yourself.

So this is a slide I kind of been alluding to a little bit, which is what if schools don’t, what if my school doesn’t offer AP or ib? And how can you stand out in college admissions? So there’s several ways to do this. So academically is the first thing that comes to mind. So if you are, if your school doesn’t offer AP classes, IB.

Then there’s other opportunities for you to show, again, the academic rigor and the fact that you wanna challenge yourself. You could take college dual enrollment classes, which can also offer college credit. It’s a boost to your GPA as well. And it’s just an opportunity to show like, Hey, I am, it, it shows like character of like a character of perseverance and of determination of being like, okay, on top of not being offered these, these classes at my school.

And on top of taking the highest level classes I could take at my school, I added more classes by going and taking college dual enrollment courses. And then again, the other thing that you could do if, like you don’t have a college that has a dual enrollment program near you is just take the highest level courses available in your school and in your college application.

Like there’s areas where you, there’s like an area where you could add additional information. You can say like, I took the highest level courses I could at my school because these others weren’t offered and I didn’t have the availability to take cultural enrollment courses. And so again, that will all be taken into account.

Other ways that you can stand out in college admissions again, if you don’t take AP or IB courses is and I would say this is true even if you have AP or IB courses, is to just deeply engage in your extra extracurricular activities. So that’s when I say that, I mean like both, like in terms of like longevity, so how long you do your, your extracurricular, like try to have a couple extracurriculars that span multiple years and that you have a lot of frequency in attending meetings and participating in it.

And then also on the side of just like having diving like deeply in it by engaging in like leadership and really eng grading yourself in or embedding yourself in the, in the club or in your sports team or in your musical group. So really focusing on trying to show that you’re someone who really cares, really passionate about this other thing that’s not just school.

And then I think across the board, whether you’re really focused on like academics or like sports or whatever your niche is for your extracurriculars your extracurricular clubs, you should definitely be doing community service. I think it just shows that you’re someone who cares about your community and someone that wants to go to college to learn about other people and, and serve others.

And I think that’s what every college, regardless of ranking wants to hear and the type of people they wanna have on their campus. And so I would definitely say to focus on community service and to try to maybe do a crossover with academics, especially again with the lens of how do I approach this if my school doesn’t offer AP or ib?

So that could look like maybe starting a tutoring program and like you could say like, this is an opportunity for me to help students maybe achieve. Like a higher level of understanding about their courses or to teach them new classes that aren’t available in our school. And so again, you can kind of put a, an academic twist to that.

And lastly is you can stand out in your essays. So even if you don’t have as rigorous of an academic background as someone who has access to an IB program or AP classes, I would say that essays are some of the most like, powerful elements of your application. So writing a really good essay can highlight your character, your values, and a really unique background that can help you stand out in a way that a test score can.

So some of you might be thinking, we keep on talking about like AP and IB classes, but maybe at your school you’re only offered honors classes or you’re starting to think about you’re an eighth grader and ninth grader, and you’re realizing, okay, as I try to choose my classes for next year, as I think about the curriculum, Like, what do these different levels mean?

So usually have like your standard like class level and then like a higher, a level above. You have like your honors classes, so that usually will mean that it’ll be like higher level coursework, but how does that compare to AP or ib and how do admissions officers look at them? So honors, AP and IB courses are all viewed favorably by college admissions officers.

So they all show like a student’s willingness to take on challenging work. So in general, anything above your regular classes shows like, okay, you’re challenging yourself academically. Now, the degree to which you do that can change between honors and AP and ib. So AP and IB have higher well first of all, just have a, usually a, a greater degree of content or greater, greater amount of content that goes into a year.

And so there’s a lot more that you’re learning. Also, it’s a lot more rigorous testing. And so again, it shows a higher level of academic challenge. And they’re generally considered, again, more rigorous than demanding. And then earning high scores on both the AP or IB exams can also demonstrate a student’s master of college level material, which is not necessarily true of honors classes.

So that those two, AP and IB are specifically made to show college readiness or college level readiness. Whereas like honors classes, like yes, it’s like more difficult. Yes. Like it’s something that still shows academic an academic challenge, but it d it doesn’t have that specific like association with it.

And then it also does not lead to college credit or higher placement, whereas AP and IV exams can.

And so how do AOS look at them differently? So Oh, I think this might be overlap from a previous slide. So again, just to kind of summarize the difference between the two are just like course rigors. So honors classes are more challenging. Oh, sorry. This is more specifically like how do honors classes change or are differing from AP and ib.

So actually, sorry, this is definitely maybe mess up in, in the slide, but this just summarizes what I just said before and so I don’t wanna waste too much time here. I’ll just leave it here in case this gets sent out later. So what are some things to consider when thinking about the quantity or of APS and IBS that you should take?

Again, a bit of a recap from a previous slide, but your college goals. So what, like what level of school or like ranking do you wanna apply to? And like what is the general pool of applicants who are applying? So how many. APS or IBS are folks usually taking when they’re applying to you know, a top like, you know, top 10 schools versus like maybe like top 50 school or like 50 to a hundred schools in, in ranking availability of classes at your school.

You might not be able to take all the aps and IBS that somebody who has access to all of this can. And then your extracurricular and academic availability. And then if you don’t have access to college dual enrollment classes, you could also take additional online classes. I went to high school in Florida and I knew I took a couple full of virtual school classes for classes that I couldn’t find at my local college and also weren’t at my high school.

And so that’s just another type of course that you could consider. And then I already mentioned college dual enrollment in a previous slide. And then before we jump into q and as, a couple final tips and best practices when planning, like when and which AP and i b courses to take, is to first plan out like what milestones and goals you’re planning to have across your high school years with your CollegeAdvisor and guidance counselor.

So I say that because, you know, maybe you really wanna make like a varsity team. And the way to do that is like, you need to train really hard your freshman year and you might not be able to take as many AP classes. Like that’s fine. Just plan out like, okay, well freshman year is gonna be a year of really prepping to be on the sports team that will also like, kind of launch my like athletic high school career that hopefully will either like, you know, allow me to play a college sport or will like help me with scholarships or will just help me as an extracurricular.

And like the way to do that might be. Focusing on that and not taking as many aps freshman year, but then you compensating for that sophomore year or junior year. But being very conscious about like, this is a strategy. It’s not just like, well, I’ll just do what seems right this year. It’s better to have like a long-term vision for when you’re doing what trade-offs.

Other ones might be like, you might be thinking about you know, your junior year might be really busy applying, or sorry, your senior year might be really busy applying to schools and your junior year might be really busy applying or taking your SATs or prepping for your essays. And so maybe you wanna take a lot more aps your sophomore year so that you’re not as squeeze your junior year.

And so maybe you take. You plan to take four class, four aps your sophomore year, because then following year you wanna just do two or three to be able to practice for your SATs or your other s standardized tests. And so just having a vision for what you’re gonna do each year is really helpful. Yeah.

And then the other thing is it’ll also help you plan the number and the type of class you should take each year to balance out. So you might fi like, figure out like, okay, I really I don’t wanna take a class that’s taught by like a teacher. Like there’s a class that’s like if you speak to students who already took a class and you’re like, okay, this teacher doesn’t teach this class very well.

Like, the course material is really interesting, but like it’s just not the class to take. Not the AP class to take in the school. Like that’s happened to me before. It’s happened to some of my friends before. And maybe the goal there is taking it with a, with a professor that you, or a teacher that you really like and maybe over compen or compensating for that by taking, still taking an ap, but maybe in a course that wasn’t as interesting for you, but with a better teacher.

And so again, these are different types of strategies that where you can pick and choose which class to take and when to take it.

All right. Thanks so much, Maria, and thanks to you all for all the questions that you’ve been submitting. Before we get started, I just wanna note that that is the end of our formal presentation that we will be moving into the live q and a. I will read through your questions that you submitted in the q and a tab, and then I will send them to the public chat so that others can see them and read them aloud so that Maria will have an opportunity to answer.

If your q and a tab isn’t letting you submit questions, you might have to double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not through the webinar landing page. You might have to log out, log back in. And also just know that the webinar is being recorded so you can view it at a later time if you’re not able to access the website right now, or sorry, the q and a right now.

All right. The first, I just wanted to address two quick questions that are not related to AP exams, but I know I have a quick answer to, which is someone said, how are colleges assessing the 2 20, 24 students regarding the pandemic and where your application can you explain certain classes that you weren’t able to take?

So, I just wanna note for folks that there is an additional information section in the college application where you can provide any additional information that. You feel like if context or clarification for your application. And then there’s also a covid essay section on a lot of applications. So if the pandemic significantly impacted you, you will have two opportunities in the additional information section and in the covid essay specific section of the application to discuss any challenges that you ran into.

All right just wanted to address those two questions, but the first question I have for you, Maria, is does it help or hurt taking AP classes in areas that you won’t be pursuing in college? So if I’m taking AP courses in history or language, but I’m applying for STEM schools. Yeah, so it’s totally, it, it’s doesn’t hurt you at all to take class aps that aren’t associated with like your future major.

I would say you should, you should take, if they’re available to you, you should take classes or AP classes that are that do align with your intended major. It, it shows like, I think it, it shows a more cohesive story and student profile if you ever to sh if you’re able to show like, hey, I am applying because I’m really excited about, or I’m really passionate about, like science or STEM or, you know, biology, chemistry, whatever major that you’re intending.

And like, you can show proof of that by like, through your, through your transcript. And that might also tie in with some of your extracurriculars. And so again, it’s a more cohesive story. And it shows more evidence of that passion in your decision to pursue that major. I would say like, don’t it, it actually is to your disadvantage to only take science AP classes.

Like I think if you have the availability, it’s better to share that you’re a well-rounded student who has a mastery of several different types of courses. You’re gonna like be able to offer more diverse perspectives to the campus. And so I would think about it less as is it gonna hurt me to take a class that’s not in my major?

And more so have I taken several classes or at least like. One or two that show like, that show evidence for my passion in this major. And what are other ones that I can sh that I can use to show like I am a diverse individual interested in a wide range of academic topics? I think the question gets a little bit more murky or, or the answer gets a little bit more murky if you’re deciding between like, okay, I plan to to study like chemistry in college, but the chemistry class at my high school is like taught very poorly and like I might do really badly in it.

And like, what if I choose another ap? I think that’s a conversation to have with like your guidance counselor and your CollegeAdvisor to figure out is it worth it for you that year or do you have enough time to like do the outside studying that you’d need to do to do well in the class? So I think there’s like different types of consideration depending on different contexts.

Thanks for that. I think you spoke to this, but I’m gonna ask it again just in case. Well, I know you spoke to this, but just to clarify, do you think that sophomore year is too late for considering ab, ab, IB or AP classes? Especially if you’re trying to go to a highly competitive institution.

Yeah, absolutely not. It’s not too late. Like I said, I took one AP my freshman year. I know there’s, and, and I, like, I wouldn’t, I ended up being accepted by Harvard and I know there’s students who took like three or four freshman year and like got accepted as well. And so clearly, like, it just wasn’t like the defining factor.

And so it, it’s not too late to do that at all. And also, it’s okay if you don’t take AP classes in sophomore year. There are a lot of schools specifically I know in bigger cities that don’t actually allow sophomores to take class with, to take AP classes unless you’ve done some prerequisites.

So again, it’s important to know what’s possible at your school and if your school does have one of those types of requirements where you sophomores are literally not allowed to take AP classes. One question. The next question is, how much do AP scores matter in the college admissions process? So AP scores are, I would say they matter as a point of evidence in like your academic, your level of academic rigor.

So yes, like you want to do well, and I think it matters. It, I think it would say, I would say it matters more if like you fail them in or like you do really poorly in them. Because I would say that’s like, that reflects, yeah, like that. That reflects poorly on, on like academic rigor, level of academic rigor.

Rigor. I would say for folks who are like really stressed about like, okay, I got a four, like am I not gonna get into a college? Like, I would say, yes, it’s great to get fives. Like that is the like, you know, I, you’re like working hard towards this class and doing well in the class. In the final, in like the final AP exam.

Like you, yeah, shoot for the five, but if you get a four that’s perfectly okay. Like I know several students at Harvard who got four Zen exams. I know some who got three Zen exams and so I would say it’s not, I wouldn’t think of this as like an ultimatum or like an all or nothing. I would just say like, think about it as if you are an admissions officer and you’re wanting the student that comes into your school to be ready for a college level, especially if, if you’re thinking about a top school, like a very high rigor like academic environment, someone who shows that they’ve like consistently like done poorly on AP exams.

Are gonna reflect that maybe they’re not ready for the college ready, that that level of college rigor. And so that, again, that’s, that’s gonna be a consideration that the admissions officer officer has. Whereas like someone who consistently gets fours and fives on their exams shows that they’re like ready to like excel in a high rigorous like college environment.

And so it’s just kind of the signals that it shows to an admissions officer to do poorly or to do well. Is there a way Nope, that’s not the question. How do grades factor into I think there are a lot of questions about like, how like, do it, is it better to do get a B in an, in an AP class versus getting an A in a regular class?

And so a combination of things of like how do grades factor into the more rigorous courses and what are admissions expectations for regular classes versus honors versus AP versus ib. Yeah. So I would say I think that like, There’s a couple like different themes to this. There is again, no like hard and set rule.

Like, and I, there’s, I can, I know several people who’ve defied like these rules and expectations. So there is not something like very specific. But I would say some common themes are if you have the opportunity to take AP or IB level courses at your school and you’re not taking them, that is not seeing that that’s not a pro.

Even if you get all A’s in your like standard level or honors classes, but your school. But the a AO which will research your school, like they will know what high school you went to if they know that your high school offered AP classes and you consistently got A’s, but you never challenge yourself to take AP or like I b’s.

If they were offered in your school, like that’s not gonna reflect positively on your desir, on your like, willingness to be chall challenged academically. It’s gonna show like, yes, like you were a really great student. Like you worked hard, but like you didn’t challenge yourself. And so that is something that is gonna be like a consideration.

Another consideration theme is like trying to be strategic about like, what if you need like the GPA bump. And so if you know, like, okay, yes, AP maybe bumps my grade by a higher degree, but like, this class is really hard and like, you know, do you wanna take AP physics to try to bump your grade? Maybe you wanna take like a, a class where you know, the professor is like, or the teacher is, is really great and like, is like a lot of students, like, I would say pretty generally, like there are some aps that are easier than others, like AP physics.

AP calculus is just like, It just experientially has been harder than potentially like AP Human Geography or like another class that might be easier to take to get that grade bump. And so that’s a consideration, like which if you, if you talk to your guidance counselor to other students who’ve already taken the class, like which AP class at your specifics high school is easier than another and you might use that one to bump your grade.

So I think that those are like two things covered. The third one is like maybe like the more granular, like, I think I’m gonna get a B in AP versus like an A in honors. And I think like, that’s just hard. It depends on like, like do you, have you taken a lot of other AP classes where like you don’t have to take that extra AP and potentially get a B?

Is this maybe like, you know, one of your only aps and you really wanna show. Your acade academic rigor. And I think something that’s kind of hard about this question is like, it’s coming in with the assumption that like, you’re, you’re gonna get a B in this AP class. Whereas like, maybe it’s more of a mindset shift of like, I wanna get an A and like there’s a potential, I might get a B, but I’m shooting for an A and like I will work extra hard, I will take, like, I will do some tutoring and more of a perspective of like, there’s a chance I might get a B, but there’s also a chance you might get a B in honors.

Like, that’s like a reality, like stuff happens. And so it’s better to kind of come with the perspective of if I can challenge myself and I’ve, I have a shot at getting an A, like, and I think everyone, like everyone does if they just find like what might work for them and what are some of the barriers that they’re afraid are keeping them from that.

So I think that mindset shift is important as well. So there are com, a couple of like combinations of score versus grades. So what is the benefit of the ap? If I do well on the AP exam, but I don’t do well in the class? Yeah. So if you do well on the AP exam, a lot of times what determines whether you can get college credit for it or whether you can like have higher placement is your college, is your AP exam score.

Obviously like your GPA matters as well and if you took a hit like through your, like if a lower like class grade lowered your gpa, that could negatively affect like kind of the academic portion of your application. But when it comes to like your college credit, if you got like, like three, four or five, I think, and depending on on colleges, some of them only take four or fives.

Or fives. Like, you’ll get like the college credit, depending on, again, like Harvard, didn’t you, you couldn’t skip a, like you didn’t, you still have to take all your college credits, like even if you got fives on ap. So again, it’s not a for sure thing but it is your scores that determine that more so that like the grade you got in the class.

Similarly and last question, we’ll ask about scores or tests. If you don’t do well on the AP exam and don’t report it, is it going like what colleges still ask for your score? So you don’t have to report your ap your AP score, but a college will know that you took it, that you took an AP class not that you took the AP exam, but they know you will, you would have taken the AP class because they’ll have your transcript.

And so it’s more of a game of like, if you don’t wanna report it because you got a four instead of a five, I would say you’re running a higher risk of an admissions officer thinking this person’s trying to hide their score because they got like a one or a two. Yeah. Instead of them thinking like, oh, they just got a four.

And so I would say like, the only reason, like, and again, this is like more of like a, a personal opinion. Like I, when I work with students, it’s like I would only decide to not report a score if it’s like a one or two. And again, with, with like talking to like an, a college counselor, a guidance counselor at their school, To make sure that’s like the right, the, the right decision for them.

All right so my camera’s being a little weird, so I’m gonna go off camera real quick, but while I’m doing that, I am going to give a quick PSA for anyone who is in the room and isn’t currently working with us. You all have a lot of questions. A lot of your questions are very you specific and your situation specific.

And so we would definitely encourage you to connect with our team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts who are ready to help you and your families navigate the process through one-on-one advising sessions. You can take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 45 to 60 minute strategy session.

With an admission specialist on our team, you can use the QR code that is on the screen. And during that meeting we’ll review your extracurriculars, your application strategy, discuss your college list, and outline any tools that you need to stand out in the competitive admissions world. All right, so please definitely take us up on that free advising session, and we’ll get back to the q and a.

There are a few questions on how grades are weighted, and so, I don’t know, I know you’re not an ao but you might know how to speak to this of like, is there a way to know how colleges convert weighted classes for iv and how do you, how do you, how do students, how can students determine where they stand in terms of GPA for their application?

Yeah, so I don’t know the specific yeah, like you mentioned, I’m not, I’m not an admissions officer, so I don’t know the, the specific weights, but I do know that like an a in an honors or standard class is not as, doesn’t have the same weight as an AP or ib. I, again, I am not sure about this, so if you can definitely fact check me here, but I think AP and IP have similar weights if not the same weight.

And again, just helps, definitely like to have the GPA bump if you get an A in that class versus an A in honors or, or a standard class. I was gonna mention something else about that. If, if I remember, I’ll bring it back to this question. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you’re correct in that there. Yeah. I don’t know what the specific waiting is.

And the only thing that I would add to your answer is that every college does it separately. So you can honestly have a different GPA at each college that you apply to because how they choose to weight it or they might give additional weight based on the major that you select. So it really is a school by school process and, and the schools typically aren’t going to tell you what their formula is.

And so would, the advice that I think we would all give is just to do as well in your classes as you can and to make sure that you’re taking. Rigorous and a competitive course load based on what is available at your school. Yeah. And then, then go ahead. The additional thing I was gonna say there is, there’s also, if you’re looking at this as like, how will it increase, like, my GPA for, for high school, remember that there’s a weighted and an unweighted gpa and so weighted gpa, like it will change like, you know, how high you can get on that GPA scale.

Like it might be higher than a four, whereas like if you have straight ass, regardless of what class you take, you’re gonna get a 4.0 weighted un unweighted. And so you’re unweighted score is a little bit more of like leveling the playing field and just showing like what grade you got, period.

It’s a weighted u p the, yeah, the unweighted is, is that one and the weighted u p shows more of, or gives. More visibility into the factors of like what class you took. Is there, okay, so the next question is, is there a smart strategy for what aps to take considering what colleges are likely to give you credit for?

So I think you were so speaking earlier about like Harvard does not take, give you college credit for a lot of things. So is there a strategy to it based on what you know, you can or cannot get college credit for? Yeah, so I think it also depends on like your college goals. Like for example I went to a high school where we had, like you, if you stayed on track, like you were getting your associate’s degrees, you were doing your first two years of college.

And so many of my peers like decided to go to like like a Florida like state university. And they were able to only like pay for two years of college and they were able to just go to like to college for two to undergrad for two years and. For those who were pre-med like me, they, they started medical school two years after graduating high school, or I guess like the fall after that, which was like crazy to me.

Like they’re starting medical school at like 21. Whereas like I obviously there was a part of me that was like, wait, that’s awesome. That sounds like effective and like fast tracked. But then when I actually got to Harvard, I realized like, this is a really special place that I wanna be in for as long as possible.

And so I obviously with some limits, but I wanted to be there for four years and I realized like even if I had been offered to just be there for two, because they took my two years of like like my local college I probably would have wanted to stay there for longer. I think that one of the things that I did not like really maximize, which I, I should have is like there’s opportunities that if you do Like, for example, Harvard used to have this like advanced standing option where you could finish in three years and do like more graduate level courses and potentially get a master’s.

And so that’s something that was really interesting that I just didn’t know too much about. And then there’s other, like, schools that may have like like a program where you can like, like jump to medical school earlier if you show like proficiency in like a certain number of aps. So I think this is a long-winded answer to say yes.

Like you should be more strategic. You should be strategic about what are your goals? Like, do you want to just have, you know, a, a like faster college experience where you’re able to knock a lot of things out? What is your financial situation like? Do you want, like if you’re on full financial aid, for example, I was on full financial aid at Harvard.

Like I didn’t have to worry about, oh, I wish I, they would’ve counted my two years of college credits because now I wouldn’t have to pay two years of crazy high tuition. Like that wasn’t on my mind. Whereas for some of my other friends who got into schools that didn’t offer full financial aid for them, taking schools, taking their college credits was huge because they didn’t have to take out loans.

And so that’s a consideration that you should take in figuring out what schools you wanna apply to and also whether you want to take a lot of aps IBS that, or college dual enrollment classes that would offset some of the cost of college. So yeah, those are like a couple considerations to take or to make.

But I think at the core, like there’s also something really special about like going to college and like hopefully like, or I guess like you only go to college once, you might be able to spread it out through several years, but your college experience or undergrad college experience is one. And so I would say think very critically about what type of college experience you want and apply to schools that you think you’ll really like, love and enjoy the time that you’re there.

And if that means like you don’t get college credit, like. You know what that meant for me. I wasn’t getting college credit, but I wouldn’t trade a year at Harvard for like any of like my college credits. And so again, think, think critically about what are your goals, what do you design? Then like also just take a step back from like the the race that is high school and it could just feel like I just need to do everything more efficiently and take as many classes and do this as fast as I can.

And I think college is a time to slow down and figure out, okay, now that like I’ve made it, I’ve like, I’m in college, I’ve made it to college, which was like the goal I guess for all of you here or are. And in CollegeAdvisors like, okay, now do I take a step back and figure out like how do, what are other opportunities I can pursue while I’m in college?

Like, yes, you really well in school, but like maybe spending an extra year is the opportunity to meet like a future employer that you might otherwise not have. Or to meet a group of friends who like challenge you intellectually in a way that changes like your career trajectory. So those are small things that.

I think it’s harder to think about in high school when you’re again, struggling to like make ends meet with like all the different classes and all the different time demands, but it’s something that you have the chance to think more about in college. And I guess speaking to that, if you could kind of refine the point, so when question was, are state and public col colleges more likely to accept AP and IB credits?

And that someone was saying, will private, will private schools accept AP colleges? So if you could, I guess, speak to what you were just sharing, but how it might apply differently given public or private institutions. Yeah. So I would say public institutions are more like, I think there’s a greater number.

I, I, I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head. I, I wouldn’t be able to tell you like this school does and this doesn’t. But I do think a greater number of public schools do accept your aps and ibs. It’s also, I guess like to their advantage as like federally funded or like government funded schools as well, whereas private institutions are more likely are, are less likely to.

Except some of those, again, a lot of that means like they’re spending a lot of private money, like their endowments in like students educations. And so they wanna ex like again, there’s, there’s also different like, factors around it, but I would say broadly speaking, private universities are less likely to take them.

And I would say that is higher, especially at top colleges because I, I think the primary reason is because they don’t like, they don’t wanna equate a high school class that you took and like who you were in that moment of time versus like a college class that they’re offering, especially with like a expert professor, someone who’s like, probably like an expert in their field across the world.

Like you can’t compare your AP class with like, learning about it from like an ex, a current day expert in that field. And so the, the inability to be able to like put those two on the same scale and measure in the same way is like probably one of the biggest reasons. So I think just wrapping up or continuing with the point you were just making, do you think that AP or IB classes prepare you for the rigor of college?

I think that they are really helpful in developing the work ethic that you’ll need. Like obviously you have to work really hard to do well on AP and IB classes and like you’ll have to work hard to take college level classes. And so that’s super helpful. I would say like I took AP AB and BBC Calculus and I was still like, and I got fives on both of them, like I did well on those.

And then when I got to Cal, like Harvard level calculus, I was like, oh my goodness, what is this? Like, I need to study more. And like definitely challenged me. And so it, I would say varies. Like I, and then there was, I took like other college dual enrollment, like anatomy and physiology and I was like, so ready to take anatomy and physiology at Harvard.

So it just depends on the course and the, and the university that you go to. But overall, I think they, it is very helpful in preparing, getting you one step closer. All right. Well, we will have to leave it there. Thank you so much, Maria. Thanks you all. Thanks. Thanks to you all for joining us. We hope that you gained some tips and strategies for selecting AP and IB classes and some context on how those courses are weighed and the admissions process.

Until next time, take care and have a great evening. Goodbye everybody. Bye.