Got a 2 on my AP World Exam?

Question

Great. 1 whole year of hard work and I get a 2.

I will admit the class was rigorous with packs of information

that you had to sort out, especially sorting them from different eras.

I took AP World my soph year, and it was my 1st.

many people say "its better to take the class & get at least a 2 to show you worked hard then taking the class but not the test"

Is that true at all? And do i still have a chance into getting a good college?

Answer 1

The AP tests have no weight on your getting in to college. The only reason to take the AP tests is to get college credit for that class. Colleges would rather you didn't take the test because they lose money if you get those credits. They don't care. I took the AP BIO, LIT and Gov tests, and I got a 1 and two 3's. Colleges don't care. I just didn't tell them I took the test, so they don't even have to worry about it. If you take the class and got a decent grade, that's all they care about. The test is just extra BS.

Answer 2

It depends on how 'good' the college you're aiming for is, but I'll try to answer you in a generally-speaking sort of way.

In general, your AP exam grades are not supposed to hurt you if they're bad, and they're supposed to help you if you're good. However, try putting yourself into the shoes of a college admissions officer who is looking through a huge pile of applications and happens to be reading one that says 'High School AP World History: A/ AP exam: 2'. Can you try to imagine what would go through his head?

If it were me, I would ask two important questions: 'Does this high school really teach AP history properly, seeing that this A-student got only a 2 for the test?' and 'Why didn't this student retake the test if he really knows his material? Could it be that he has financial circumstances or is simply not confident of improving his grade?'

This might sound harsh, but given that American high schools are extremely different in the way they teach and grade AP classes, the AP exam is the BEST indicator of the student's mastery of the course material, because the only other measure - the course grade - has a significant degree of uncertainty to it.

Now, if you want to play it safe, you might want to consider retaking the exam next year. After all, there is simply no sense in leaving that '2' alone if you've already invested so much into your course, right? You might want to cancel the grade, but that's up to you. What counts is that you dispel any POSSIBLE, even nasty doubts the officer might have with respect to your academic potential. The best way to prove it is to submit BOTH good course grades AND Exam grades.

In general, such a situation wouldn't hurt you for most schools. But at elite institutions such as MIT, they might ask some questions and come up with answers that you don't want them to have, right or wrong.

In short: don't hurt yourself by introducing uncertainty into your application. Eliminate it by PROVING beyond reasonable doubt that you ARE good. Retake the exam, and replace that '2' with a '5'.

If my experience with non-science subjects is any guide, reading through a single, extremely thick, authoritative textbook is more or less enough to get you 5s on such exams. I find textbooks more reliable than classes anyway. In my case, self-study of selected authoritative textbooks over 2 weeks before the exam got me 5s for Human Geography and Comparative Government. You might be able to do it for World History too! (Just spend more time on it - the content volume's a few times that for the subjects I did.)

Good luck, dude.

Answer 3

A 2 definitely wont hinder your chances at getting into a good college but it wont help either.

I found that AP classes were veryyyy useful because they were good prep for college classes. because i already learned a lot of college level material in my ap classes (especially science classes), i did not have to study as hard my frosh year in college which let me have more time to have fun. =]

the reason admissions check ap scores is to show that you can work at a college level-- so try to prove yourself next time with a 3 or higher. but more importantly than the ap score is the info you learn becuase it will become invaluable in college.