When most students finish taking their AP exams, they begin to anxiously await their test scores. After all, earning a three or higher on these exams can help students earn college credit and improve their chances of college admission.

Although it is natural to be excited to see how well you performed on your AP exams, it’s important that you know that it will be a while before your AP scores come out.

While AP exams will be administered during the week of May 2- May 6 and the week of May 9- May 13 this year, according to the College Board, AP scores won’t be released until July. As much as you’ll want to see your scores, you will have to wait a couple of months before you’re able to receive them.

Fortunately, when scores are eventually released, you will be able to view them online on the AP student website with your College Board account login and your AP number instead of having to wait for them to arrive in the mail.

Why does it take so long to receive AP scores?

Although two months might seem like a long time to wait to receive your AP scores, this delay is for good reason. Remember, each year students take a total of over 4 million AP exams, and these exams aren’t all multiple-choice anymore. They also include free-response questions that take a lot longer to grade.

These free-response questions aren’t graded by a computer, but rather by teachers and professors at a multiple-week AP Reading conference. Here teachers are trained on proper, uniform grading practices and given the opportunity to read and grade all of the free-response questions that students complete for various AP exams.

Because the free-response graders are teachers and professors, this conference is typically held in June when these instructors are on their summer breaks, delaying the grading process by a few weeks.

Once this conference is over, the College Board takes the free-response question scores and the multiple-choice question scores for each student’s exams and uses these scores to determine a final AP exam score between 1 and 5. This accounts for the additional time that it takes for the College Board to report AP exam scores.

With the College Board responsible for grading and scaling millions of exams each year, it is actually quite impressive that students are able to receive their AP scores after just two months.

Waiting for your AP scores

While you are waiting for your AP scores to be released, there are many steps you can take in the meantime to make sure your application looks impressive to college admissions officers:

Study for the ACT or SAT

Now that you have your AP exams out of the way, you will likely have more free time to study for the ACT or the SAT if you’re not already a senior.

Spend time developing a study strategy and learning tips that will help you earn a high score on these standardized tests. Work with a private tutor or sign up for an ACT or SAT prep course to help you gain a solid understanding of the material that will be on the test.

Remember, your AP scores are not the only scores that matter to colleges and universities. Your SAT or ACT scores are another way to show admissions officers that you stand out among your peers and that any high AP scores you receive are not a fluke.

Maintain a high GPA

Just because you’ve finished your AP exams does not mean that you can just kick back and relax in your AP classes.

You still need to work hard in these classes so that you can learn the content and maintain a good GPA. The last thing you want is for your grades to slip in your AP courses and decrease your chances of earning scholarships or getting into your top schools.

Earning a high grade in an AP class is a feat in and of itself. Your grades are just as important as your AP scores. In fact, sometimes your grades in your AP courses are weighed more heavily than your AP exam scores because your exams are a single data point and your grades represent cumulative knowledge over a longer span of time.

Don’t lose sight of your AP class grades while you are waiting for your AP exam scores to be released.

Finish out the school year strong when you sign up for private tutoring through Prep Expert today!