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To The Media: End the College Application Nightmare Stories

Posted on August 3, 2021 by Patrick O'Connor

It figures that August 1 landed on a Sunday this year.  What used to be just another beach day took on special significance a few years ago, when Common Application chose August 1 to launch its updates for the coming school year.  It’s exciting to be sure, but with a hint of melancholy, as a few overly enthusiastic parents use the occasion to tell their high school seniors “Summer’s over”, while the seniors meekly head towards the nearest computer, even on a weekend, muttering “But what if I don’t want it to be?”

Happily, more than a few colleges agree with the seniors.  While there was a stream—OK, a torrent—of colleges Twittering students on Sunday to hurry up and apply, more than a few colleges said “Start today if you want to, but our deadline isn’t until January.  Take your time.”  I had planned on thanking each of those colleges for posting such a message in the face of application mania.  I’m pleased to say there were too many to do so.

But this is just the start, and here’s hoping more colleges get on board.  The last two years of schooling have left this year’s seniors in pretty bad shape.  Day after day of waking up to find out if school is in person, online, both, or neither may have left them flexible, but it has also left them exhausted.  Students who fit every element of one (and certainly not the only) likely college-bound profile—from the suburbs, in a college prep curriculum, with two well-off parents who went to college—are saying out loud they just don’t think applying to college is worth the hassle.  That’s not because of the Delta rebound; it’s because their last couple of years of school have left them unsure of themselves and their ability to control their destiny.  Since any college admissions rep will tell you the key to a successful application is to let the student drive the bus, this is a huge problem.

Part of the solution lies with us.  August is peach and melon season in Michigan, a time when very rational people who never eat fruit feel a swelling in their taste buds that can only be satiated by interaction with produce that is truly a little slice of heaven.

This same thirst wells up in the media every August, but it isn’t for fruit—it’s for stories about the confusing, terrifying, uncertain world of college admissions.  With a new crop of high school seniors every year, journalists eagerly seize on their newness to college admissions, highlighting profiles of bright young people who find themselves flummoxed over how to apply to college, and when to apply to college.  Curiously, these stories rarely display a student’s confusion over where to apply to college, since the media only covers students who are considering the same 25 colleges ever year that admit about 5 percent of their applicant pool.  “She’s a National Honor Society president, but she can’t get her arms around Yale’s application.” Of course, these same students would be equally baffled by using a plumber’s wrench for the first time, and they easily get the hang of this college thing two weeks into the process.  But apparently, that’s not the point. The very first time they do something new, they don’t completely understand it.  My goodness.

The impact of this approach to college application coverage can’t be understated.  Thousands of students have already had to give up most of their summers at the insistence of parents who have caught the angst early, eager to make sure that college essay sparkles, unaware that the number one cause of weak essays isn’t underwriting, but overwriting.

Parents who haven’t been on their seniors about college since Father’s Day read these August articles and panic, fearing their child is now “behind”.  They plop their senior in front of a computer screen and tell them they can’t come out until an application is finished—for a college that doesn’t even start reading applications until January 10.

Parents whose children really understand themselves, and had no intention of applying to these schools, now feel their child is “losing out” on something, and suddenly insist that an application or two to the Big 25 is a good idea, “just to see what happens”, even though their student is well aware of what will happen.

This brand of media attention has never served high school seniors well, and it’s likely to make matters even worse for this year’s seniors, who are looking to gain their footing after two years of scholastic uncertainty.  In the interest of their well being—or, to use a phrase that is on the verge of becoming unimportant due to its overuse, their mental health—how about a few less media stories on the impossibility of getting into college and its excessive expense, and a few more stories about the 75% or so of colleges who admit more than 50% of their applicants, and the many colleges who are forgiving institutionally-based student loans?  Could the media finally discover the urban and rural colleges whose buildings have not a hint of ivy that are turning around the lives of students who didn’t have the opportunity to take 7 AP classes in high school, students who are shining academically?  How about the students who are making community college work, earning a degree that costs less from start to finish than one year of Harvard, all while the students typically work about 30 hours a week?

It’s certainly true many people turn to the media to read stories that will fuel their dreams—that’s why so many people follow the Olympics, and replay the video of the woman who was reunited with her dog after two years.  But stories about the uncertainty of the college selection process don’t feed students’ sense of the possible; they nourish their nightmares.  They’ve had enough of that these past two years, and may be headed for more.  The best thing the press can do for them, and for our society, is to admit there are more than 25 good colleges in this country, and wake the students to a better vision of how to apply to college, other than run a gauntlet that, at the end of the day, is largely of the media’s own making.

AP Exams Aren’t Worth the Hype and Hysteria

Posted on July 5, 2021 by Craig

Taking and doing well on Advanced Placement Exams could earn you some college credits, but they shouldn’t influence the grade you earn in your AP Classes and they rarely are factored into college admissions decisions.

Sadly, many high schools pressure students to freak out about these exams; yet, the exams themselves have limited utility to the vast majority of high school students. These exams do make the College Board and schools a lot of money.

2017 Advanced Placement scores are now available

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Nancy Griesemer

Virginia Tech students are allowed to use up to 38 hours of AP credit towards graduation.

In case you missed the email, the College Board rolled out Advanced Placement (AP®) scores for tests taken this past May earlier this month.  And by now, most AP students should have already received their scores—for better or worse!

For the record, old fashioned snail mail reports were discontinued several years ago in favor of an online arrangement that requires you to have a College Board account to access scores. In other words, to obtain scores, students must have

  • an online College Board account requiring registration
  • a username and password
  • 2017 AP number (the number on the labels in the Student Pack) OR student identifier (student ID number) if provided on your answer sheet

Unless there was a problem with identification, scoring or test administration, your scores should now be available and will be added to a cumulative report of all AP tests you have taken to-date (you actually have to pay an extra fee to have any scores removed from the report).

If you’re unlucky enough not to have a score report, feel free to contact the College Board at [email protected] or 888-225-5427 (toll free) or 212-632-1780, especially if you haven’t received scores by September 1.

And what do the scores mean? AP scores are a “weighted combination” of results on the multiple-choice and free-response sections.  The final score is reported on a 5-point scale, as follows:

  • 5:  Extremely well qualified to receive college credit or advanced placement
  • 4:  Well qualified
  • 3:  Qualified
  • 2:  Possibly qualified
  • 1:  No recommendation

You can also think of the five-point scale in terms of letter grades, with 5 equating to an “A” and 1—well, you get the picture.

And what are they worth? The awarding of credit and placement status is determined by individual colleges or universities. You can check directly with the school or on the College Board website to research this information, but note that the latter is neither as specific nor as accurate as what you are likely to find on individual school websites.

In most cases, a student who scores a 4 or 5 may receive college credit. In rare cases, a school will require a 5, and almost no colleges will accept a score of 2. In fact, the most selective colleges will not accept a 3 for credit.

For example, George Mason University will accept a score of 3 for 4 credits in an entry-level environmental science class. For 8 credits, the student must earn a 4 or 5 on the exam.  Neither Georgetown nor GW will award credit for any score below a 4. In fact, Georgetown awards no credit for AP Capstone, AP Computer Science Principles, AP Comparative Government, AP US History, AP Human Geography, and AP Physics 1 or 2.

The University of Virginia generally awards credit for scores of 4 or 5, but for French will dip as low as a 3 for some entry-level exemption. The University of Maryland takes a different approach and awards credit for scores of 3 or better in Art History, English Language and English Literature but requires at least a 4 to receive credit in a foreign language.

Keep in mind that wise use of AP credit can reduce the total number of credit hours needed to graduate. At Virginia Tech, students are allowed to use up to 38 hours of AP credit towards graduation, while Vanderbilt University will only award up to 18 credits. And Dartmouth College will accept no AP credits toward graduation.

AP exam scores may also be used to meet standardized test requirements in the admissions processes of several colleges. Fair Test keeps track of this evolving trend on its Test Score Optional List and includes Colby College, Colorado College, Drexel University, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, NYU and the University of Rochester among those colleges and universities allowing APs to be submitted in place of ACT/SAT scores.

Teachers and AP administrators will also be receiving scores this month, and many high schools include score distributions in the school profiles they send to colleges along with transcripts (see Montgomery Blair High School’s profile for a good example). This is so admissions offices can put individual scores reported on applications in context with those earned by others in your class. But note that some high schools are extremely reluctant to make this information public and will routinely deny requests from families interested in evaluating a particular class or teacher.

For those new to the process, the online reporting system seems like an efficient, environmentally-friendly way to get scores. But be aware. The College Board can now connect your AP scores with PSAT and SAT scores as well as any grade, career interest or family income information you provide in the course of test registration or on their net price calculators. 

And the College Board is all about mining for data that can be sold to postsecondary institutions, scholarship programs, or any number of organizations willing to pay for lists it aggressively markets.

These connections can be both good and bad. If you haven’t graduated from high school, expect to receive recruitment materials from colleges purchasing name and contact information anxious to get to know you. At the same time, don’t be surprised to hear from questionable honor societies or other organizations hoping to con you into paying for something you don’t want.

Check back tomorrow for a sneak preview of AP test results as tweeted by College Board executive, Trevor Packer.

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