Advanced Placement
- What is “AP”?
- Why take Advanced Placement courses?
- What AP classes are available to students?
- What non-“AP” classes are available to help prepare students to take AP exams?
- Why take the optional Advanced Placement exams?
- What is the cost for the AP courses and optional exams?
- When is registration for AP exams?
- What are the dates and times for taking the exams?
- How do I know which exam to sign up for when more than one is offered for a particular subject?
- How can I prepare for an AP exam?
- Are there scholarship awards for students with top AP grades?
More information on Advanced Placement tests, as well as other standardized tests, may be found at Testing.
What is “AP”?
Advanced Placement (AP) is a program of college-level courses and exams created by The College Board (administrator of the SAT exam) and used by high schools across the United States. The exams are optional and not a factor in the course grade. Good scores on the exams may give bright, motivated students the opportunity to get ahead by earning credit, advanced placement, or both for college while they are still in high school.
Why take Advanced Placement courses?
- The rigor of the work is a better fit for the student’s ability than a class at a lower level (not true across-the-board for all gifted students in all AP subjects, of course – maybe AP Calculus is a great fit for a student but AP English Comp/Lit is not, for example).
- The class is more equivalent to college-level coursework, so is better preparation for college adjustment and success.
- AP-level courses are nationally recognized and valued by college admissions people (see #2), increasing a student’s chances to be admitted.
- The courses prepare students for the AP exams.
What AP classes are available to students?
Eden Prairie High School offers a number of AP courses, among which are:
AP Biology
AP Chemistry
AP Physics
AP Statistics
AP European History
AP Comparative Government and Politics
AP Computer Science
AP Calculus AB
AP Calculus BC
AP English Comp/Lit
AP Macroeconomics (in Senior Social Studies)
AP Microeconomics
**** Please check with the high school for current course offerings. ****
For other possibilities during the school year, check Northern Star Online offerings and Gifted LearningLinks. A number of summer options are available.
What "non-AP” classes are available to help prepare students to take AP exams?
Some courses at EPHS have advanced content and may help students prepare for the optional AP exams even though they are not technically “Advanced Placement” curricula as designed by the College Board. These would include the 2-year English/Social block (9th & 10th grade) that prepares 10th graders to take the AP U.S. History exam, Advanced Biology and “College in the Schools” courses such as French V, German V and Spanish V.
Why take the optional Advanced Placement exams?
- Many colleges will confer credits for the subject area and waive requirements, depending on the exam grade received, although many will have a limit on number of AP credits accepted. (Check with colleges you may be interested in attending.) AP grades are 1-5 with 5 being the best. As an example, the U of M will grant 4 math credits and waive the Calculus I requirement for a 3 or better on the Calculus AB exam.
- Admissions counselors like to see AP exam grades. An AP Calculus exam score at Eden Prairie can be compared to an AP Calculus exam score anywhere else because the exam is exactly the same. Colleges can’t as reliably compare a high school course grade at one high school with the grade at another, even when the course is an AP course, because use of curriculum content and grading procedures vary by school and teacher.
- A low AP exam grade at least indicates the student’s acceptance of challenge, which is a plus at some universities.
- Students who do very well on the exams may qualify for AP Scholar awards of recognition or Siemens monetary awards (see below).
- Students can take AP exams to show their knowledge of the subject matter to prospective colleges even if they haven’t taken the class. AP exam books are available to help in preparation.
What is the cost for the AP courses and optional exams?
Courses taken as part of the public high school schedule do not cost extra, including online courses taken through Northern Star Online. Minnesota legislation in recent years has granted partial subsidy for all AP exam fees, but this amount changes, so ask your g/t coordinator how much of the exam fee will be paid for by the state. In 2005 the cost was about $85 per exam, and costs went down considerably in 2006. In 2007 the cost is $10 per exam. Some financial help may be available through the College Board.
When is registration for AP exams?
Registration will be held at EPHS in March. Students will be notified of the registration dates in the daily bulletin. Fees are due at the time of registration. No late registration is accepted. Materials may be picked up in either Student Center South or Student Center East, but all completed materials MUST be returned to Student Center South. In addition, all properly registered students MUST attend one mandatory pre-examination meeting in April. At this meeting, students will be assigned their candidate number and given further specific information about the dates and times of chosen tests. Dates and times for these pre-examination meeting choices will be given to students when they register for the exams.
What are the dates and times for taking the exams?
All tests are held at the high school in May. These test dates and times are set nationally and must be followed. The schedule can be found at the College Board calendar webpage.
How do I know which exam to sign up for when more than one is offered for a particular subject?
There are two Computer Science exams: Computer Science A and Computer Science AB. There are two Calculus exams: Calculus AB and Calculus BC. There are three Physics exams: Physics B, Physics C: Mechanics, and Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism. Your best source of information as to which exam to take is the teacher of the particular AP course. If you want to plan ahead before you are in the particular course, you can go to the EPHS website and choose “departments,” the particular department of the class, “classes,” and then the particular class. This class description will often tell you the corresponding AP exam.
Be aware that you may not take both Calculus AB and Calculus BC in one year. So if you take all four terms of AP Calculus in one year, you should take the AP Calculus BC exam in May. The BC exam will also give you a subscore for the AB portion of the BC exam. If, on the other hand, you take two terms of AP Calculus at the high school one year and then two more terms the second year, you would probably want to take the AP Calculus AB exam the first year and BC the second.
You also may not take both Computer Science A and Computer Science AB exams in one year. In 2007 the AP Computer Science JAVA 2 course at the high school prepares students for the Computer Science A exam, but some students gifted in computer science have been able to cover the remaining content on their own and pass the AB exam with great scores. It’s possible that the course will be upgraded to cover all of the material for the AB exam; please check with the instructor.
While the AP Physics course at EPHS is intended to prepare students for the Physics B exam, students who are exceptional in math (and have completed four terms of AP Calculus or Calculus III) and very good at physics have taken the C exam in the past with great results. (The C exam used to be a single exam rather than the two separate exams it is now. C:Mechanics and C:Electricity & Magnetism are given consecutively in the same 3-hour time period, so students may elect to take one or both on the day of testing.)
How can I prepare for an AP exam?
The best preparation for an AP exam would be the class itself. In addition, many teachers of AP classes at the high school will offer outside-of-class review sessions. The high school also has a number of AP review books available for student checkout (provided through an EPCGT mini-grant award) through the g/t coordinator or Media Center, and a few review books are available for checkout through the Career Resource Center. Review books are, of course, available for purchase at your local bookseller. (Purchases at Amazon.com through our website will help us provide further mini-grant support to schools, as will purchases at Barnes & Noble during the EPCGT fundraiser.) Please donate any review books you no longer need to the high school Career Resource Center.
Students preparing for the AP Calculus exam may be interested in purchasing AP Calculus Problems and Solutions Part II AB and BC which is a compilation of 15 years of problems and solutions from previous exams. This book can be purchased through the Art of Problem Solving website. Click the "Bookstore" link.
The College Board website is also a good source of information. Helpful tips are listed for the different types of exams, along with many free-response questions from exams given in previous years. You can also purchase CD-ROM study helps there with test-taking strategies and practice questions for some of the tests. If you think you are interested in that option, check out the APCD Demo on the site.
Are there scholarship awards for students with top AP grades?
Students are recognized as AP Scholar, AP Scholar with Honor, or AP Scholar with Distinction each year – another admissions plus! (NOTE: Scholar Awards are announced in the fall following the exams taken in the spring, so students would need to achieve the award with exams taken no later than the junior year to be able to include the honor on college admissions applications.)
| AP Scholar | grade of 3+ on 3+ exams |
| with Honor | grade of 3+ on 4+ exams and average of 3.25+ on all exams taken |
| with Distinction | grade of 3+ on 5+ exams and average of 3.5+ on all exams taken |
| AP State Scholar | awarded to 1 female and 1 male in each U.S. state and the District of Columbia with grades of 3+ on the greatest number of exams taken (at least 3 exams), and then the highest average grade (at least 3.5) on all AP Exams |
| National AP Scholar | awarded to students in the U.S. who receive an average grade of at least 4 on all AP exams taken, and grades of 4 or higher on 8+ exams |
Calculus and Music Theory subscores are not used in calculating the above awards. The AP Scholar Awards listed above are awards of recognition only.
The Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement are awarded each year by the Siemens Foundation to 24 students, 2 females and 2 males in each of the 6 College Board regions, who have earned the highest number of top AP scores in seven specific AP exams taken in grades 9, 10 and 11. The exams are
- Biology
- Calculus BC
- Chemistry
- Computer Science AB
- Environmental Science
- Physics C (Physics C: Mechanics and Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism each count as half)
- Statistics
If multiple students in the same region have the same top number of AP grades of 5, each of these students receives a $3,000 scholarship, and composite exam scores are used to help determine the top male and female as National Winners. These students receive an additional $5,000 scholarship.
Teachers and schools can also win $1,000 awards based on the growth and development and improvement of instruction of AP science and technology. There is no application or nomination process for these awards, which are decided by the College Board. For more information, see Siemens Foundation.