What to Know about AP Score Reporting to Colleges

ByAimee Heller

Thinking about AP score reporting

This month, students all over the world are feeling the added stress of Advanced Placement (AP) exams and AP score reporting.

To relieve some of the stress, students should NOT request that their scores be sent to any college when filling out the registration/ answer sheet. Why? Because a student will not know how they did on the exam until July.
This year, when students sign into College Board’s My AP, they will see a pop-up window asking them to select the college(s) to which they would like to send their scores. The pop-up message says that students can not access AP Classroom without making a selection. However, in very small print on the bottom, there is an option to opt out. Students should click on this.
Already took the test? Even if a student asked that their scores be sent, it’s not too late to reverse this.

There are two ways to avoid having your score reported to a college: Canceling vs. Withholding

Canceling AP scores

The option to cancel a score helps a number of students. Perhaps some of those students took an AP course but found that the class didn’t cover all the information on the test, or they didn’t study for the test as much as they should have. (This happens more often than we’d like to think.)

To stop a score or scores from being sent to the college/s indicated on your AP registration/answer sheet, you must send the College Board a Score Cancellation Form — filled out correctly with your parent/guardian’s signature—and mail or fax it to the address on the form by June 15 of the year in which you took the exam.

If you request a score cancellation before you get your score, your exam will not be scored, and a score for that exam will never be available. If you cancel the score after you see the score, that score will be permanently deleted from the College Board records.

Withholding AP scores

Withholding a score means a student may opt not to send a particular score to the college/s you indicated on your answer sheet. Note that unlike a canceled score, a request to withhold your score does not permanently delete it. A withheld AP test score will still be sent to your high school. In addition, it will count in your AP average and will therefore affect AP scholar designations. You may later release the score to one college designated on the AP exam for no additional fee by sending AP Services a signed written request online or by mail/fax before the June 20 deadline.

To withhold a score, you must notify the College Board by sending them a Score Withholding Form —filled out correctly with your parent/guardian’s signature—and mail or fax it to the address on the form by June 15 of the year in which you took the exam. The fee to withhold an AP score is $10 per score per college.

We at International College Counselors suggest not sending your scores to any colleges at the time you take the test.

Our reasoning is as follows: with your test, as explained to our consultants by an AP representative, you only get to send your scores to one school for free; any others are $15. In other words, if you choose to withhold your scores from the colleges until you see them, you’re only “losing” $15. Ultimately, you only need to send an official score report to the college at which you enroll. At the application stage, you only need to self-report the scores, and you can pick and choose which ones you report. International College Counselors’ clients are guided by their advisor as to which scores to report in their applications.

Make sure you keep a copy of all your correspondence with the College Board.