Q:  I was wondering how colleges view AP classes.  My son will be a high school senior this fall.  In sophomore year he took one AP, junior year he took four APs, and he is registered for four more senior year.  His classwork and course load have been extremely difficult and time-consuming; however, he has chosen to challenge himself and take all these classes.  Will the grade my son received in these classes be weighted when sent to the colleges, and if not, will the college add on points on their own? Will they appreciate the fact that my son chose challenging classes instead of those where he could have earned a high grade more easily?

A:  AP stands for Advanced Placement -- these classes have been given for decades, and are college-level courses taught at high schools all over the country.  In May each year, standardized AP exams are administered, and scores on these indicate the level of mastery a student has achieved when compared with other test-takers around the United States.  The scores range from 1 to 5.  Most colleges grant course credit for scores of 4 or 5; some grant credit for scores of 3, while others grant no credit at all, even for 5s -- this is totally up to each college.

If your son is aiming to apply to selective colleges, he has made the right choices in his curriculum.  When college admissions’ staff see his transcript -- and they will see all courses he has taken in grades 9 through 12  -- they will undoubtedly be impressed with nine AP courses.  That is an unusually high number.  Of course, they will also look to see that he has been successful in these courses.  While selective colleges want to admit students who have chosen to challenge themselves intellectually -- those willing to take a chance on getting a B in a tough class rather than an A in an easier one -- they also want to see success.  Taking lots of AP classes, in itself, is not a guarantee of admission.<!--more-->

When an application is reviewed, admissions staff look at each high school's profile, which explains the curriculum given at an individual school.   If a high school such as your son's offers a wide variety of AP classes, they are going to expect to see a certain number of them on an applicant's transcript.  Admissions officers look first for the most challenging courses offered -- these may be International Baccalaureate classes, AP classes, honors classes, or have another designation.

Not all high schools offer AP courses, so students will not be penalized if they do not take courses that are not available to them.  They will be judged by what they did choose to take out of what was available.  Grades -- by themselves -- do not mean much out of context, and each case is individual.  Therefore, in some cases, an 88 GPA will appear stronger than a 92 GPA.  The difference lies in the strength of the courses.

Some high schools "weight" honors and AP classes because they are more challenging, thereby adding points to a base grade. Depending upon the high school, a 91 in Chemistry might become a 95 if it's AP Chemistry.  All the extra weighting can get out of hand, and the result is a school with dozens of students getting GPAs of over 100. The June 26 article in The New York Times about schools with multiple valedictorians underscores this.

It is never the GPA alone that is important:  what matters is what goes into the GPA.  And do colleges re-compute high school GPAs when they are reviewing applications?  Do you think they even have time for this?  No -- they are going to assess the type of curriculum applicants chose out of what was available, and how well they did in those courses and others.

My concern about your son is whether he has built enough free time into his schedule, or at least time to devote to non-academic activities that he values.  Simply racking up a huge number of AP classes on his transcript is not going to create admissions magic for him if he does not appear multidimensional.  Worse, if he burns himself out he may not enjoy what he is learning!  I hope he is wise enough to balance his academics with other things.