How To Register For Ap Exams Without Taking The Class

Wondering how to register for AP classes and tests? Get a complete guide to AP registration here—even if you're homeschooled or your local school doesn't have the AP program.

How to Annals for AP Classes

The AP Registration process varies from school to school. Typically, you become through the regular course sign-up process to take APs, as long equally yous have taken the necessary pre-requisite classes. For instance, many schools crave students to take an introductory biology grade before they can enroll in AP Biology. Your school's course catalog should list the necessary pre-requisites for each AP class.

In some schools, you accept to laissez passer a placement test to register for an AP course. For instance, my school required students to exam into AP Calculus BC as well as AP Calculus AB – even if they had taken math up through Pre-Calculus. Based on your test score, you were placed into either Calculus BC, Calculus AB, or regular (not-AP) Calculus.

We recommend asking one of your current teachers or the guidance counseling office almost how to sign up for AP Classes at your school. They can let yous know if at that place are any specific protocols exterior of your school's typical registration procedure, similar placement tests or form size limits.

If y'all attend a school without AP classes or you're homeschooled, yous don't have to officially register for an AP grade. Y'all simply need to register for the AP Examination subsequently in the year (more on that below). Information technology'due south up to y'all to either take a class that teaches most of the aforementioned textile (eastward.grand., taking a United States History course if you want to take the AP Us History exam) or to self-study during the twelvemonth.

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How to Annals for AP Tests

If You lot Attend a School with AP Classes

If you're taking AP classes, your AP instructor typically alerts you to your schoolhouse's AP test sign-up process. They should inform you of the deadlines to register for the test. Some even walk you through the registration process!

If you haven't heard anything from your AP teacher yet or are just curious virtually your school's AP test sign-upward protocol, rail down your school's AP Coordinator to find out the dates and deadlines at your schoolhouse.

AP Coordinator? Who'due south that? Each school that offers AP classes has a staff member (often a guidance counselor) who is given this title. Information technology'southward officially their job to handle AP test registration and coordinate with the College Lath. If you don't know who this person is, either check in with your guidance counselor or one of your AP teachers, they should know.

Keep in mind you have to register for AP exams through your school, at that place is no way to register online. (Some students get dislocated because other College Lath tests, similar the SAT and SAT Subject field tests, have online registration.)

As part of your registration, y'all'll turn in the $94 exam fee to the AP coordinator. And that price is per exam, past the fashion. (Encounter our post on AP Examination costs to larn about getting financial aid for AP tests!)

If You lot're Homeschooled or Your Schoolhouse Doesn't Have AP Classes

If you're homeschooled, or you attend a school without the AP plan and are self-studying, you tin nonetheless arrange to take AP Exams at a nearby participating AP schoolhouse.

To do this, y'all'll contact the AP program itself. Contact AP Services no later than March 1st of the twelvemonth you lot desire to test, and they'll give yous the names of local, participating AP schools willing to test outside students, as well as the phone number of the AP coordinator at that school.

This is the contact data for AP Services. Recollect, you take to contact them to get the contact info of a local school that will give you the AP exams:

Phone: 888-225-5427
International callers: 212-632-1780
Fax: 610-290-8979
Email: apstudents@info.collegeboard.org

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Gear up a list of the AP Exams you are interested in taking before you phone call — this will help College Board find a school you tin examination at.

In one case y'all become their info from AP Services, call the AP Coordinators at the local school no later than March 15th to ready your testing.

When calling Coordinators to suit testing, brand sure to tell them the following:

That you got their contact information from College Board.
That you are trying to discover a schoolhouse that volition give AP exams to homeschooled students or students from schools that do not offer AP Exams.
The AP exams you desire to take.
If you have a documented inability that requires accommodations.

In one case you lot locate a school that will host you, that school's AP Coordinator is responsible for ordering your exam materials, telling you when and where to report for the exams, and collecting your fees (which may exist college than the typical $94 to cover the school'southward additional proctoring or administration costs).

Ane last matter: your host schoolhouse must administer the exams for you. The school cannot forward the AP exams to you or your school. That means on exam days, you'll accept to travel to your host school (and be absent from your regular classes).

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Plan Your Course Schedule

Some Additional Guidelines for Signing Upwardly

Signing up for AP classes and tests is ordinarily straightforward. Plus, there aren't restrictions on how many classes you can have each yr (unless your schoolhouse has its ain rules). You can have as many AP Exams as can fit into your schedule. The AP Program doesn't even crave y'all to take an AP form before taking an AP Exam.

The only restriction on registration from College Lath is that you can't have both Calculus AB and Calculus BC within the aforementioned yr. This is because Calculus BC includes all of the cloth in Calculus AB — you fifty-fifty get an AB Subscore when you accept Calculus BC!

AP Calculus BC is essentially two math classes in one!

If two of the exams you want to take are scheduled for the same time, enquire your school's AP Coordinator for information almost taking one of the exams during the late-testing catamenia. The tardily-testing flow occurs in late May, to accommodate tests that overlap or students that run into concluding-infinitesimal bug like an injury.

In general, popular AP exams don't tend to overlap, so you lot're more probable to run into this problem if yous're taking a more than niche exam similar Art History or Japanese.

On Exam Day

Keep these guidelines in mind to make sure you lot are ready to test in May in one case you're registered!

You lot have to bring a valid government- or schoolhouse-issued photo ID with you to the examination. Fifty-fifty though the examination is administered past your school, and all your teachers know you, yous have to follow this rule. You'll be turned abroad without your ID, so don't forget it!

If you lot have approving from the Higher Board to exam with accommodations, y'all have to bring your Student Adaptation Letter.

If you attend a school that doesn't offer AP, you should non employ the schoolhouse lawmaking for the schoolhouse where you are testing. Instead, make sure to use your own school's code and so your exam score(s) will exist reported to your school. This ways you need to get your school'due south six-digit code from your principal or school counselor earlier test day.

If you are home-schooled, use the state or international home-school/cocky-study code that volition be given to yous on the day of the test.

What's Side by side?

Which AP exams should you take? Learn about the hardest and easiest tests, as well equally exactly how many AP classes y'all should have.

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Going for the Act instead? Nosotros have exclusive guides to studying for Act Science, Reading, and English language.

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Near the Author

Halle Edwards graduated from Stanford University with honors. In high school, she earned 99th percentile ACT scores as well as 99th percentile scores on SAT subject tests. She also took nine AP classes, earning a perfect score of v on seven AP tests. As a graduate of a big public high schoolhouse who tackled the college admission process largely on her ain, she is passionate most helping loftier schoolhouse students from dissimilar backgrounds get the knowledge they need to be successful in the college admissions process.