Benefits of Taking AP Exams

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Your AP exam grades, if sufficiently high, could earn you credit, placement, or both at thousands of colleges and universities in the United States and around the world, enabling you to move into upper level courses in your field of interest, pursue a double major, or gain time to study or travel abroad.

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Taking an AP exam also lets you experience a college level exam. Your work will be evaluated by college and university professors and AP teachers using college level standards. If you’re worried about how well you’ll do, remember – you risk nothing by taking the exam. You control which colleges (if any) receive your AP exam grade.

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Finally, taking AP exams allows you to earn an AP Scholar Award. Each September, the College Board recognizes high school students who have demonstrated exemplary college-level achievement on the AP exams. These academic distinctions will strengthen your applications, resumes, etc. Unfortunately, you will not receive any monetary reward from the College Board. For additional information about award criteria, please visit the College Board website.  www.collegeboard.com/apstudents

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Earning College Credit or Placement

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With qualifying AP exam grades, you can earn credit, placement, or both at more than 90% of 4 year colleges and universities in the United States, as well as colleges and universities in 40 other countries. At many of these institutions, you can earn as much as a full year of college credit (sophomore standing) once you’ve attained a sufficient number of qualifying AP exam grades.

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Individual colleges and universities, not the College Board or the AP program, grant course credit and placement. You should obtain a college’s AP policy in writing; you can find this information in the institution’s catalogue, its website, or by using the AP credit policy info search atwww.collegeboard.com/ap/creditpolicy 

If you are interested in applying to a college or university outside the United States, you can find information about AP recognition policies at www.collegeboard.com/apintl

Colleges that receive your AP report will typically notify you during the summer of any placement, credit or exemption you have earned. You can also contact the college’s admissions office to find out the status of your AP credits.