Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Scores
Perhaps the easiest and most effective way to override a mediocre AI and to stand out academically is to score well on Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams. Even though these AP and LB tests are not factored into the Al formula (they are not offered by all high schools and therefore cannot be required by colleges), they are in many ways more useful for the highly selective colleges than SAT H scores.
Unlike AP courses, the 113 offers not only individual courses, but also a comprehensive course of study that culminates in a full international diploma recognized by all the finest universities around the world. All the highly selective colleges I mention in the introduction recognize and give credit for LB course work. For example, a student who completes the full LB diploma could be accepted to Harvard with sophomore standing.
If your high school offers either AP or IB courses, you should be taking as many as possible so that it appears you are choosing the most challenging curriculum possible (more about this in chapter 9). Remember that these AP and LB tests are the only tests that are considered to be truly collegelevel—in fact, just about every highly selective college grants college credit for very high scores on these tests. In contrast, only rarely will college credit be awarded for SAT II tests.
AP tests are scored on a scale of I to 5, with 5 being the highest, and IB tests are scored on a scale of I to 7, with 7 being the highest. The IB program is not as common in the United States as it is overseas, so typically most highly selective colleges see many more AP scores than 1B scores, although they are both treated the same. After taking an AP course (many high schools offer them as early as sophomore year), the College Board (the same folks who bring you the SAT Is and Hs) offers AP exams in May in a variety of subjects, the most common ones being AB calculus, BC calculus, biology, chemistry, physics (several different subconcentrations are offered), American history, European history, English (both language/grammar and literature), Latin (two levels), French (both language and literature) and Spanish (both language and literature).
Teachers who teach these courses follow the College Board Advanced Placement curriculum in order to be sure to cover all the topics that will be included on the test. Before the May test, some teachers will give their students practice tests so they can familiarize themselves with the topics covered. How are these AP tests different from the SAT Ils? In short, they are much more similar to college-level tests. That is, they are not primarily multiple-choice tests; they are writing-based, or problem-based in the science and math area. In the calculus tests, the student is asked to solve real calculus problems, showing all intermediary work, which is then graded. In history tests, students have to evaluate actual historical documents and extract meaningful conclusions in the form of coherent essays (these tests do have some multiple-choice sections, but not nearly as many as the SAT IIs). For students who are at an advanced level, these tests can be easier than SAT Its because those who are good writers and thinkers can excel without necessarily having to memorize large quantities of seemingly irrelevant information.
So what effect can these AP or IB scores have on your application? A big one. Let's say I'sm reading a student in the 5 or 6 range who has mid-600 SAT I1 scores (let's say a 670 biology, a 650 math level 1, and a 660 Spanish listening comprehension), which are certainly not weak, but as is, the student does not stand out academically. Then I turn to the student's AP scores and I see that he has a 5 on the AP biology exam, a 5 on the BC calculus exam, and a 4 on the Spanish literature exam. Let's look at each area individually. In the case of Spanish, I know that the listening comprehension test score is hard to judge, since a student has to listen to a tape of a native speaker and answer questions, which is not necessarily an indication of how smart the student is, but rather of how well he hears and how good he is at one small part of language comprehension. But to score a 4 on the AP exam, a student actually has to have read and comprehended literature by five major authors (Ana Maria Matute, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel Unamuno, and Federico García Lorca) and then has to be able to write at length in Spanish about various works of literature by these authors. Clearly the 4 is more indicative of ability to do strong college work than the SAT II listening test.
Looking at math ability, admissions officers know that the SAT II math level 1 test is basically geometry and algebra, and fairly low level at that. A score of 650 is not great, but if I see that the student has reached the second year of calculus study (AB calculus refers to the first year and BC to the second year) and scores a 5 on that AP test, I immediately know that the student is very strong in math and has reached a level few high school students in the United States ever reach. Most high schools in the United States do not even offer the BC calculus curriculum. At Dartmouth, this exam is the one you can get the most credits for out of all the AP exams—a 5 on the BC exam earns entering students two full credits (which is equal to two full classes), an award that allows them to take an extra term off and save a third of the year's tuition and room and board—not bad for an afternoon's work taking the AP exam.
Finally, an SAT II score of 670 on the biology exam is strong, although not exceptional in the Ivy pool. But the 5 on the AP exam represents a strong grasp of college-level biology; not the high school level reflected by the SAT II test. So in the example discussed here, even if the student's Al placed him in the academic 5 or 6 category, the officer would probably boost the academic rating to a 7 because of excellent AP scores. In addition, if the student didn't seem to be that exceptional academically, a number of high AP scores could suddenly change the picture dramatically.
Remember, it is even more remarkable to have a few strong IB/AP scores, because it means that the student took these exams as a sophomore or a junior, not a senior, since the application is read by offices in the fall of the senior year, well before May IB/AP exams. In many high schools, it is impossible even to take IB/AP classes until senior year, so the scores would be too late to be helpful for admissions purposes (although you still might be awarded credit once you are admitted to the school and colleges will see that you are taking a challenging course load). All the more impressive, then, to see a string of high 1B/AP scores. I recall some of the strong magnet high schools and excellent private high schools in Florida, one of my regions, from which I'd see students with solid SAT II scores, but then as many as four to eight AP scores in the 4 to 5 range. If you score three or more APs over 3, you are designated an AP scholar by the College Board, a meaningful academic award for any highly selective admissions committee.
Needless to say, if you score is, 2s, and 3s on the majority of the tests, the scores can be used against you, even though they are not required. In most cases, low AP scores reflect low SAT II scores, since it is unusual to do extremely well in one area and horribly on the same subject at the next-higher level. All of what I have said for AP scores is valid for 18 scores: 6s and 7s are all considered excellent scores on these tests.
Now that you are intimately familiar with the Ivy League formulas for calculating the Al, how AP and 1B tests are used, and the implications of these different areas on admissions, you are ready for a full discussion of how a folder is actually read by a highly selective admissions committee and how the office divides the daunting task of reading several thousand folders.