Yes, you can retake an AP (Advanced Placement) exam if you're unhappy with your score. The College Board lets you sit the same exam again in a future year's May administration, and there's no cap on how many times you can retake, though you can only sit each exam once per year. Both your original score and your retake score stay on your record, and you can choose which one to send to colleges (or withhold either).
What isn't true, no matter how many times you see it repeated, is that AP scores get superscored the way SAT and ACT scores sometimes are. Colleges see the score you send. If you send both, they see both. Below is how the retake process really works, when it's worth doing, and what to do instead if you're not happy with your result. If you're specifically weighing a retake in AP Biology, AP Psychology or one of the other AP subjects, the mechanics are the same across all of them.
The rules: How retakes work
AP exams are only administered once a year, in May. That means if you want to retake, you're waiting until the following May, roughly a year after your first attempt. There's no summer administration and no rescheduled retake window for students who just want a second shot.
To retake, you register the same way you did the first time. Through your school's AP coordinator if you're still in high school, or as an external candidate at a testing school if you've graduated. You pay the same fee. The exam itself will be a different version because the College Board writes new exams each year, but it's marked on the same 1-5 scale to the same standards. The full AP exam registration process walks through both school-based and external options.
Both scores stay on your permanent record. The College Board doesn't average them or drop the lower one. When you send scores to colleges, you send whichever you choose (or all of them), and the college sees exactly what you sent.
The superscoring myth
A common misconception is that AP scores work like SAT superscoring, where colleges combine your best sections. They don't. Each AP exam produces one overall score on the 1-5 scale, and colleges evaluate that whole score, not sub-components.
What is true is that most colleges care about your best score for credit purposes. If you scored a 3 the first time and a 5 the second time, and the college awards credit for a 4 or higher in that subject, sending the 5 gets you the credit. But that's not superscoring, that's just choosing which score to send.
Some colleges ask you to self-report all AP scores on your application. If your college does, you'd list both attempts. Others only look at the scores you officially send through the College Board, in which case you can control which appears. Our guide to whether AP scores matter for admissions breaks down when colleges use scores for admissions decisions versus just credit.
If you're planning to retake in the hope of getting college credit, check the target college's AP credit policy first. If they award credit for a 3 and you already have a 3, retaking might get you nothing extra. If they need a 4 or 5, the extra work has a clear payoff.
When retaking makes sense
A few situations where a retake is genuinely worth it. First, if you scored a 1 or 2 and you need a specific score for college credit at the school you're heading to, a year of extra prep can move you into the 3-5 range if you weren't ready the first time.
Second, if something specific went wrong on exam day (illness, a family emergency, a technology issue) and your score doesn't reflect what you know, a retake can be a way to show your real level. Colleges tend to weight the higher score if you send both.
Third, if you're a sophomore or junior sitting an AP early and you have time before applications, the pressure is lower and a retake in senior year can be a low-risk way to improve.
And fourth, if the specific subject matters for your intended major (a low AP Chemistry score if you're applying to premed programs, for example), a retake can be a signal you took the subject seriously and improved.
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When retaking probably isn't worth it
Retaking has real costs (time, money, headspace) and it often isn't the right move.
If you already scored a 4 or 5, retaking rarely helps. The upside is small and the downside is a lower score on your record that admissions officers may or may not see.
If you've already been admitted to college and the college accepts a 3 for the credit you want, there's no benefit to going for a higher score.
If you're a senior with applications submitted, a retake won't affect admissions decisions. It might affect the credit you receive after enrolling, but only if it clears the college's threshold.
And if the year of extra prep would come at the expense of other subjects, activities or your general wellbeing, one score is rarely worth burning yourself out over.
Cancelling scores versus withholding scores
The College Board gives you two ways to control who sees a specific score, and they're often confused for each other.
Cancelling a score permanently removes it from your record. Once cancelled, it's gone, and no college will ever see it, but neither will you. You use the cancellation form and there's typically a deadline early in the summer after your May exam. Cancellation is permanent, so it's usually a last-resort option for scores you're certain you don't want anywhere.
Withholding a score keeps it on your record but blocks it from being sent to specific colleges. It's per-college and per-score, so you can withhold a 2 from one college while sending your 5s. Withholding is reversible; you can release a withheld score later. The College Board charges a small fee for each withholding request.
For most students, withholding is the more flexible option. Cancel only if you're certain you don't ever want the score to exist.
| Action | What it does | Reversible? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retake next year | Sit exam again in following May | N/A | Serious score improvement, credit-driven |
| Withhold score | Blocks a specific score from a specific college | Yes, can be released later | Selectively hiding a low score |
| Cancel score | Permanently deletes score from your record | No, permanent | Certainty you don't want the score to exist |
| Do nothing | All scores viewable when you self-report or send | N/A | When your scores are already where you want them |
How to prepare for a retake
A year is a long time, and the way most students who retake successfully use it is by shifting how they study, not just by studying more of the same. If your first attempt fell short because of content gaps, work through the full Course and Exam Description (CED) and identify the units you scored lowest on. If it fell short because of free-response question (FRQ) technique, spend most of your prep time on timed FRQs marked against real mark schemes.
Don't wait until March to start. Retakes that go well tend to start in September or October of the year you're going to retake, with a slow build over the school year. That gives you time to work through past questions, get feedback, and go back over content that never fully clicked.
Cognito covers the full CED for AP Biology, AP Psychology and other AP subjects, with practice questions in the same style as the real exam. If you're preparing for a retake without a class to sit in, structured notes and past-style practice questions with mark schemes are usually where the improvement comes from.
