Advanced Placement (AP) exams are the culmination of a year’s worth of rigorous study. There are 43 Advanced Placement courses, ranging from History and Literature to Cybersecurity and Calculus-based Physics (Physics C). Most high schools support between 15–26 AP courses. If you have read online, or looked at our GPA materials, you will know that usually AP courses confer an extra grade point on students’ weighted GPA so long as they receive a passing grade (so an A is 5.0, B is 4.0, C is 3.0, D is 1.0).
The AP exams always occur during the first two full weeks of May each year. The schedule varies year-to-year, but students can take up to 2 exams per day (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). Exams are scored on a 5-point scale, and a 3+ is usually considered passing. Some schools incentivize students to perform well on the exams by promising an extra grade boost for strong exam performance, and high exam scores promise college credit, enabling students to save time (and money) on college. The college credit guarantees have been eroding over time, as not all colleges confer credit for a 3. Some only give “elective credit”, meaning that you may not skip the course that the exam was for (AP Calc BC may not allow you to skip Calc 1–3 in college). Other colleges only give credit for 5s, or even with a 5, they may only give elective credit if the course is critical for your major.
Given that AP exam scores are less valuable to colleges than they used to be, that leads to the obvious question:
Do AP exams still matter as much?
The answer is an absolute yes.
Most people are aware of “grade inflation” to some extent. For the uninitiated, it is what it sounds like: average grades (and therefore average GPA) in high school and college have been steadily climbing. Yale is notorious for its lax grading standards; Princeton pushed back against grade inflation only to have students and families protest, leading to the policy’s revocation in 2014. More recently, UCSD released a report that showed 12% of its undergrads needed math remediation, despite an average admitted GPA of 4.2 for incoming freshmen. This isn’t new.
You might be wondering, “what does grade inflation have to do with AP exams?” The answer is in proving your child’s subject mastery. For better or worse, standardized tests are seen as providing a more data-driven, “objective” measure of subject mastery than a grade from any particular teacher at any individual school. In a world where average GPAs have steadily climbed to rest in the high A- territory (~3.7), colleges see AP exam scores as providing more context and nuance. We live in a time when 70% of students are receiving As in their AP courses, but only about 13% of students score a 5 on an AP exam.
Providing evidence of your child’s aptitude becomes doubly important if your student does not submit an SAT score (or applies to a school that does not accept SAT scores, like the UCs). The University of California only uses SAT/ACT scores for Math and English placement, not for admission; they do, however, look at AP exam scores. And their AP exam scores can be a reliable indicator of a student’s actual academic performance.
Looking at the AP scores of students admitted to Ivy and Ivy-equivalent institutions, their average AP score is 4.7, and they tend to have an average of 6 exams. Students admitted to schools outside Ivy-and-equivalent institutions, but still highly selective ones, have an AP score average of 4.1. In concrete terms, that’s the difference between earning five 5s and one 4, and earning five 4s and one 5. It is a wide performance gap that can illuminate a student’s aptitude in a way that GPA no longer does.
Can my child take an AP exam without taking the class?
The true answer to this will depend on your high school and what they will allow you to register for. But generally speaking, yes, many students self-study for AP exams each year. They either already have profound exposure to a subject (usually a foreign language), or they have taken college-level coursework in a subject and want to also take the AP exam to “prove” their proficiency. Many more students take AP courses through online providers like UC Scout and then take the AP exam in some other testing environment.
The better question is: should your child self-study for an exam? The answer is usually no. And not because your student might not be capable of self-studying for an exam and scoring well. But AP exam scores without the accompanying class are sometimes disregarded by colleges, or those scores looked at as having less weight because they do not see the student’s performance in the course alongside it.
What should my student and I do?
Prepare for these exams. Do not leave them to chance. And do not rely solely on your school’s teacher for exam preparation. Some teachers insist that their preparation is enough, but most students do additional prep work outside of their teacher’s classes anyway. And the score distributions tell the story: I already mentioned that only around 13% of students receive 5s on most exams, but 40-49% receive scores of 4+. Over 50% of students receive 3+ on most exams. The achievement gap widens the higher the score becomes.
So the best thing you can do is sign up for some sort of tutoring support in February or March ahead of exams to help your student prepare to earn the highest score they can. Having a tutor can provide structure, accountability, test-taking advice, along with subject-matter expertise. Just as you might hire a coach to accelerate your student’s growth in athletics, having an expert tutor can accelerate your student’s score growth before test day.
Even if you do not invest in test prep support through a tutor, your student should create a preparation plan and begin seeking out testing materials online and spend a couple hours each week practicing for their exams. For each exam the student has to take, they should spend at least 20 hours preparing. That’s 2 hours per week for 10 weeks. The earlier they start, the more flexibility they have to spread the preparation out.
Summary
Grade inflation has wildly damaged the value of grades as an indicator of academic performance. A 3.7–3.9 GPA no longer separates the high fliers from the vast majority of other students. When a college is test-blind (meaning they do not accept the SAT/ACT), AP exams are the one area in which your student can differentiate themselves from their peers academically, and almost all colleges will accept AP exam scores. Do not leave these exams to chance; go into spring with a game plan, either by hiring professional help or having your student deliberately organize their test prep strategy and then execute it with fidelity at least two months before exam day.
Citations:
[1] Amelia Nierenberg, “Nearly Everyone Gets A’s at Yale. Does That Cheapen The Grade?”, the New York Times (2023: Dec 05). https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/nyregion/yale-grade-inflation.html. Accessed: March 15, 2026.
[2] Lisa W. Foderaro, “Type-A-Plus Students Chafe at Grade Deflation”, the New York Times (2010: Jan 31). https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/education/31princeton.html. Accessed: March 15, 2026.
[3] Anna Esaki-Smith, “UC San Diego Finds One In Eight Freshmen Lack High-School Math Skills”, Forbes (2025: Dec 11). https://www.forbes.com/sites/annaesakismith/2025/12/11/uc-san-diego-finds-one-in-eight-freshmen-lack-high-school-math-skills/. Accessed: March 15, 2026.
[4] UC Scout. https://www.ucscout.org/. Accessed: March 15, 2026.