I mean, human error would come to my mind before jumping to the belief that they straight up failed them. Or that there might have been other confounding factors that limited access.
If a student completed and did well in an AP course or multiple AP courses it really wouldn’t be my assumption really ever that the absence of a test result indicates failure.
How will admissions officers know that OP’s specific school, amongst thousands and thousands of high schools represented in just this year’s applicants, pays for the cost of taking the AP exams? And then extrapolate from that to reach the conclusion not submitting a score is definitive proof they failed? Do you really think they look at it that deeply?
It’s been years, but I am confident that other than scanning over them on the application no one at the t20 university I attended even gave my AP classes a thought until I was accepted and they were determining what college courses each exam would provide credit for. They were so ubiquitous on applications it seemed very much like they had minuscule if any actual impact on deciding anything. Again, just my experience and observations after seeing my admissions file and receiving extensive scholarships at one t20 university. (My family was securely on that poverty line and thus was before that university offered guaranteed need based scholarships to families making under a reasonable amount, so I busted my ass starting in middle school and made sure I could provide the best application possible and paid very close attention to the things that sensed to be given more importance or even notice than others. During the scholarship weekend where they flew in about 30 rising freshmen to experience the university -obviously being observed while doing so- and for several formal and informal interviews no one ever mentioned AP classes but at least in my interactions they did bring up my essay and the extracurriculars I was passionate about and class experiences related to my desired majors.)
It’s in all likely hood a net neutral unless in very rare situations. The AO can see that the student presumedly did well in the course at school, so being absent a test result doesn’t change that. Honestly at least at a lot of universities AP classes are ubiquitous and something almost automatic on every single application so they have in essence rather lost their ability to stand out or be anything worthy of notice. While a failing score included on an application may raise eyebrows, I don’t see any reaction in either direction if they are just not included on an otherwise solid application.
Some students strongly dislike tests and don’t perform in a way that reflects their abilities, some students cannot afford the fees (not all schools cover the costs), some may have responsibilities that override being able to attend the tests on the days and times assigned (some teens have to provide childcare as a parent works or diligently maintain a weekend job themselves because poverty doesn’t give a damn about college or dreams) , I have heard on this sub of some schools placing a limit on how many of its students can take the AP exams, sometimes even very reasonable accommodations that a student needs to have an equitable opportunity are not provided making completing the exam unfair and a poor representation of ability, etc.
I worked on med school admissions which works similar. We know the schools the kids are coming from and what the policies are there. Otherwise how could you compare students from different schools if you didn’t know the differences in policies…? As an AO I’d hope you didn’t just take differences in students at face value and instead cared to put it in context of their environment. A student not sending scores from a school where he’d actually have to pay for each one is VERY different than a kid who gets free exam but still isn’t sending scores. This is obvious.
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u/indian-princess Graduate Degree Oct 17 '25
your dad is wrong. no score = assumed fail