Knowing what happens if you fail an AP exam can actually help your students be prepared for consequences. Learning all about the impact of failing an AP exam can stop stress from taking over. Paradoxically, it might help prevent failure.
Students work towards the AP exam for months. It can be overwhelming for students and parents. So it’s quite normal to be scared that a little slip here would lower the GPA or negatively impact college admissions.
In this blog, we’ll break down what happens if you fail an AP exam. We’ll cover what counts as a failing score, how it affects your GPA and transcript, and how it impacts admissions and college credits. We discuss what happens if you pass the class but not the exam. We conclude with the next steps for students, and practical guidance for teachers and tutors.
Officially a student can’t ‘fail’ an AP exam because there’s no pass/fail defined by the College Board. Here’s what the range of AP exam scores mean:
While scoring 1 or 2 might feel like a big failure to your students, remind them that more students than they’d believe get this score. Check out the official numbers below:
A failed AP exam does not affect your high school GPA. AP exam scores are completely separate from your course grades. Your GPA is calculated using the grades you earn in your classes over the school year, not your performance on the AP exam.
Your transcript reflects the AP course you took and the final grade you received in that class. If you earned an A or B in the course, that grade appears on your transcript regardless of how you scored on the exam. Many high schools also weigh AP classes more heavily than regular courses, which can raise a student’s weighted GPA.
Colleges review transcripts to understand academic rigor and consistency. They want to see if students challenged themselves and performed well across time. An AP exam score does not replace your class grade.
The key distinction is simple. Failing the AP exam does not lower your GPA and does not harm your transcript. Failing the AP class itself is what impacts grades. As long as you pass the class, your academic record remains intact.
In most application processes, AP exam scores are self-reported. If a score does not reflect their ability, a student can choose not to submit it.
AP exam scores don’t impact college admissions. Let’s see how colleges view these scores.
If your student scores well in an AP exam, colleges view it as a signal of consistency. They believe the student is ready for demanding college-level work. But that’s only one of the many things colleges examine.
A handful of colleges, including a few extremely competitive ones, sometimes look at AP scores quite closely. However, a single low score is not a deal-breaker and admissions officers will look for patterns.
All this makes more sense if you step into the admissions officer’s shoes. If a college uses only a single criterion to select students, the quality of students it accepts would be lower. Subsequently, that’d lower the reputation of the college.
This is one of the most common AP outcomes. If you fail the AP exam but pass the class, the situation is far less serious than it sounds.
Your performance over the entire year is far more reflective of your academic abilities than a single exam that lasts a few hours. When you fail the AP exam but pass the AP class, your high school GPA and transcript remain unchanged. The AP exam has no impact on your course grade.
Against that, failing an AP exam impacts what happens in college. Colleges typically offer course credits based on your AP exam score. A minimum score of 3 is required for earning course credit, and many colleges require 4 or even 5.
But a score of 1 or 2 doesn’t go in vain. Even with such a score, students will likely find the transition to college-level work easier than a student who never studied for an AP exam.
Yes, you may retake an AP exam. The College Board neither limits your number of attempts nor stops students from retaking the AP exam based on their previous scores.
Against this, there’s an important thing to remember: the AP exam is conducted only once a year (mostly in May). A student who doesn’t get the desired score this year and wishes to sit for a retake will need to wait until next year. There’s no provision to retake the AP exam the same year.
A student will need to register and pay the requisite fees every time they sit for the exam.
A retake makes sense in some situations and not in others. Besides, it’s a serious commitment.
If you’re aiming for college credits, advanced placements, or a niche scholarship, a retake might be a good idea. However, a student who’s scored 1 but now aims for a 5 will need to make huge changes. They’ll need to upgrade their study style and the guidance they get, and manage busy schedules better.
And many aspects will be shaped by workload, other academic priorities, and extracurricular activities. In short, the impact of failing an AP exam must be considerable enough for the student to consider a retake.
As a student, you can choose to cancel or withhold your scores. Cancellation means your exam paper will not be graded. If you’ve already been graded, the score will be permanently and irrecoverably deleted.
Under withholding, you can stop a college, university, or a scholarship-awarding body from receiving your scores. These scores aren’t deleted, so you can request to release the scores later on, if you wish.
Each attempt is treated as a separate exam, and every score remains on your official AP record.
Although the College Board doesn’t officially use the term ‘Fail’, the score of 1 or 2 is considered inadequate for college credits. Hence, getting a score of 1 or 2 may be termed as failing the AP exam.
If you fail the AP exam, consequences happen in the form of college credits. Except for rare instances, you will not get any college credit if you fail an AP exam. As mentioned earlier, most colleges will ask for a score of at least 3 (some may ask for 4 or even 5) to be eligible for credits and advanced placement. In other words, if you fail an AP exam, you won’t be able to skip some college courses.
College credit policies vary by institution and by subject. So before stressing over a low score, it is always wise to check the specific credit policies of the colleges you are interested in.
While absorbing the impact of failing an AP exam, students should remember they’ve learned something that will help them in college. A low score can be quite disappointing, but it’s important to not let it overwhelm you.
Take a short break and then focus on four things:
1. Withhold: Do not rush to report the score. AP scores are usually self-reported, so you can choose not to send a low score to colleges.
2. Look back: Done well in AP class? Celebrate that. A strong grade in the AP course matters far more than the exam result.
3. Introspect: Did you put in your best? What were the likely gaps? If you go for a retake, will you be able to change things that will really matter?
4. Discuss: Talk to a teacher or tutor. They can help identify whether the issue was content gaps, test strategy, or exam-day pressure.
After this, you can decide whether a retake is the right option for you or whether you should move forward and focus on the coursework ahead.
When students struggle with one or more AP exams, the role of teachers becomes critical.
When students fail the AP exam, consequences appear much larger than they really are. Scoring 5 would’ve been great, but a score of 2 isn’t going to shoot down a student’s admission chances. So tutors should firstly explain that the scores will impact college credits, but not much else.
So teachers and tutors would be the right people to help students see where an AP exam score matters and where it doesn’t.
Many students don’t fully realize that the answer to the question ‘what happens if you fail an AP exam’ begins way before the exam.
Following certain exam best practices diligently can ensure a better score. Here’s what can make a substantial difference:
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