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Recently I posted a message asking whether or not it was necessary to report AP exam scores, even if asked for on the college app. (Sqandhi & Mark were kind enough to respond.)

I asked the College Board this question: "When you release AP scores to the colleges, do you release all the scores, or just the ones we ask you to?" (We had not chosen "withhold.")

Their reply was that it is possible to withhold grades...apparently even if you did not chose that option earlier. It costs, tho'. "For each grade withheld from a given college, there is a $5 fee."

You have to write to: AP Exams, PO Box 6671, Princeton, NJ 08541-6671 and give them full name, address, year exam was taken and name of exam, name/address of college. (All exams will still be reported to you and HS.)

This info came from Bill O'Neal, AP Services at APExams@info.collegeboard.org

By sgandhi on Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 02:07 pm: Edit

Did your son request that his AP scores be sent to a certain college when he took the exam?

By NYmom on Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 03:39 pm: Edit

No.

By the way, the answer I got also included the sentence, "It is unlikely that a submitted AP grade, no matter how low, will hurt you." I can't see, however, how that is.

By sgandhi on Monday, July 15, 2002 - 10:08 am: Edit

As long as your son did not release his score to any college, no college will see the score. When you release scores, all that means is that the scores are available to be sent to or read by colleges, for a price, of course. So, as long as you do not pay College Board to send the scores to a college, no college will see them. Most colleges allow one to self-report one's AP scores.
In response to your second statement, I do not agree with that answer, in my opinion. If someone received a poor score on an AP exam, it could imply to the admissions officer that the person took a college class, yet was unable to do well on an exam over that material. It could tell the college that the person is unable to handle college-level material. Again, in my opinion, your son should only report AP exams with scores of 3 or above.

By Hopeful on Monday, July 15, 2002 - 04:17 pm: Edit

A low AP score can definitely hurt you, but it's one of the collegeboard's "party lines" to say that it's unlikely. Another way it can hurt you is that it can point up grade inflation at your HS, e.g., if you got an A in the class but a low score on the AP exam.

By NYmom on Monday, July 15, 2002 - 05:10 pm: Edit

I agree that one shouldn't report AP scores less than 3. But I wonder about something else. (And I will pose this question to the CB also).

Now that I've discovered a grade from a few years ago can be withheld, for a fee, I'm wondering how, or if, this shows up on the CB report sent to colleges. For instance, will it say, "European History - grade withheld?" Or will there just be no mention of "European History?"

And here's another question (not answerable by the CB, but by individual colleges, I guess. Let's say a college asks for AP scores on the app, but, say, only allows 5's to exempt classes. And let's say the applicant puts down 3's and 4's as scores, will the college request these scores from the CB (or ask the applicant to see that this is done) at the end of the process, or at any time? Or will the college just ignore them, because 3's and 4's are not qualifiers?

By NYmom on Monday, August 19, 2002 - 09:29 pm: Edit

This is just an update to my July 15th note, above. Re the second paragraph, I posed the question to the college board and wanted to share the answer I got.

"The report that goes to colleges will have no reference to the scores or names of exams that you had withheld. The copy that is sent to your home will still have those exams listed, with a message of 'grade withheld by student request.'"

This comes from Sherry McGuire, Advanced Placement Program at APExams@info.collegeboard.org.

Thus, it appears that even years later, if a student wants an AP exam score to "disappear," it can happen.