Getting ready for the college admission process can be a hectic and stressful thing for all students around the globe. The whole stuff about high school coursework, financial aids, and even the maze of standardized tests and applications can be intimidating for everyone. Furthermore, due to the pandemic, tests like AP exams were held online. It is an important question whether AP exam preparation are crucial for college applications or not.
It’s good news that the whole process of college admissions doesn’t have to be so confusing. If you invest enough time to conduct some research and read up, you will feel more confident about it. There is a lot of information about essays, grades, extracurricular, and financial aid packages online.
Will AP exams even weigh much in your college applications or is it not a deciding factor at all? In this article, we try to give students a concise idea about college admissions; so that they don’t have to refer to too many resources.
The first thing to reveal is that your dream college admissions might be some probable than you think it is. Right below, we will tell you some of the lesser-known facts about admissions and conduct a discussion about relevance of AP exams in the article of EduQuest.
Is it more difficult than ever?
It might not be! If you had to guess the fraction of students that get into colleges, which were their first choice, what would you say? Believe it or not, the actual answer is almost two-thirds of students get that opportunity. The number of people applying to schools is indeed going up, and as a result, the acceptance rates of the in-demand colleges are going down.
But, a student doesn’t apply to one college only, even though they attend only one. The processes of college admissions are getting more volatile, but that might increase your chances!
Where is the crowd heading?
According to trusted statistics, the University of California-Los Angeles is the school that gets the highest number of applicants. The number goes up to almost 114,000 applicants that flock to UCLA every year!
Be boring?
College essays are mostly 650 words or even less. They matter very much in college admissions because this is the only piece of content that informs the institution about who you are as a person. Fooder for college essays does not have to be extremely special, only authentic.
You have a unique voice, make sure to use it. College can detect fake sophisticated content because they have seen before, so try and be unflinchingly real. Want an incentive for this? Someone actually got into Yale and, she wrote about her love of taking showers.
Money matters
The majority of the students and their parents are worried about financial aid because colleges are unmistakably not getting cheaper. According to a survey, a huge number, almost 85% of the applicants are being awarded access to financial aid for their college admissions.
How much?
There are a lot of strategies that you can follow to maximize your gain, but the average figure for financial aid stands at $15,000.
Don’t neglect tests!
One of the strategies of getting appropriate financial aid lies with standardized testing. So it will be foolish to neglect the SAT or ACT exams.
How important are they then?
Almost half of the aid funds, that is, they are awarding 43% of the funds according to merit. And that is not all; the percentage is increasing along with time.
Take a guess!
Another interesting fact about the process is that there is no penalty if you guess at SAT, ACT, or AP examinations. You should include this information while strategizing to maximize your scores.
Don’t forget your GPA!
The most important factor for college admissions remains the GPA awarded in your high school, so factor that in too.
No Social media?
Social media can indeed distract us from our goals but not always. There are cases where social media has helped students in their admission process.
Burden of debt
There are direct ways to lessen your college financial burdens but also unconventional ways exist. Students should look for grants and loans, which is obvious to people. There are a lot of programs and tests that you can look into for advantage.
Did you ace The AP exams or not?
Now, let’s get into more details about the level of importance that AP tests should have for college admissions.
AP scores are not a part of a student’s college application as they are not a part of GPA or transcript. But, that does not mean that you cannot choose to self-report. Self-reporting also permits the student a choice of which scores he or she wants to submit in applications. Fives on AP tests get more preference, while fours do not matter that much, but it still represents a good understanding of the material.
If you have threes on your AP exam preparation tests, do not bother with reporting them to avoid less positive outcomes.
What is the final answer?
In truth, AP exams may not seem like a big deal with classes relating to AP exams in your high school that are not completely useless. The fact is that college applications are getting more competitive as time goes by, and little factors like scores of AP exam will matter when the college is considering applications for similar candidates.
If a student wants to apply to specialized programs, they can show off their AP exam scores for that area. Even if they apply for a general studies program, scores from a variety of AP exam preparation will work as proof of academic prowess.
Good scores may give you the choices to skip pre-requisite classes too. Ultimately the importance of your AP exams also depends on which school you are applying.
Most of the time, colleges recommend the students to self-report their scores from AP exams, and the crucial decision is deciding which ones to report. Taking the AP exams seriously is not going to harm your chances for good college admission at any rate.