Can You Cancel an AP Score?

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Yes, you can cancel an AP score, but the College Board only allows cancellation within a narrow window - by June 15 of the year you took the exam - and only through your school's AP coordinator (you can't do it directly in your account). After that date the score is permanent, though you have other options that don't destroy it.

Three separate actions, often confused:

• Cancel - the score is deleted permanently (by June 15 through your school). A cancelled score never appears on any report.
• Withhold - the score is kept on file but not sent to the colleges you designate. You can order a free score report for $15 per score per college, or use an automatic score-send once in April/June for a reported school.
• Not send - AP scores are only sent where you choose. Simply not reporting a low score to a college is the most common (and free) strategy.

In practice, cancellation surprises are rare because you approve every score send yourself. A smart plan: keep everything, use free or paid score reports to choose which scores colleges see, and only cancel if you truly want the score erased. A 2 or 3 doesn't damage an application if you simply don't report it.

Cancel vs. withhold vs. simply not send

In practice, cancellation surprises are rare because you approve every score send yourself. A smart plan: keep everything, use free or paid reports to choose which scores colleges see, and only cancel if you truly want the score erased. A 2 or 3 doesn't damage an application if you simply don't report it.

Which option fits your situation?

The cheapest option is almost always to simply not send a low score — the College Board never reports scores you don't request, so “doing nothing” is itself a strategy.

Canceling a score, step by step

1. Get the AP Score Cancellation Form from the College Board website (search “AP score cancellation form”).
2. Fill it in with your personal info and the exam(s) and year you want canceled. You can cancel one exam or several at once.
3. Send it through your AP coordinator or school before the June 15 deadline — this is the step students miss. The form has to go through your school, not your own account.
4. Confirm it was received. Ask your coordinator for confirmation; cancellation is permanent and irreversible, so make sure it’s actually done before you assume it.

If the June 15 deadline has passed, cancellation is no longer possible — your fallback is withholding the score from a specific college (about $10 per score per college) or simply not sending it at all, which is free and accomplishes most of what students want anyway.

One rule of thumb keeps students from overreacting: a low AP score is far more visible in your own head than on any application. Colleges don’t see scores you never send, and they have no reason to assume you took an exam you don’t report. The situations where cancellation genuinely matters are narrow — a school that asks for all scores, or a score you don’t want on file if a future report or scholarship review pulls your full record. For everyone else, “keep it, don’t send it” is the cheaper and reversible default, and it’s the option most counselors recommend.

Two deadlines trip students up even when they decide to act. Cancellation and withholding both run through your school’s AP coordinator by June 15 — if you’ve already graduated or your school is closed for the summer, you need to coordinate timing well ahead, because the coordinator is your only submission path. And the free score send (one recipient per year) is separate from all of this, so cancelling a score doesn’t free up a send, and a withheld score still counts against your send if it’s the designated recipient. Reading the three deadlines — cancel, withhold, and free send — as one calendar rather than three isolated dates is what keeps families from missing the one that mattered.

And a word on the “all scores” question that drives most cancellation panic: some selective schools and some scholarships request that you report every AP score taken, and for those, a score you’d rather erase is genuinely relevant. But that full-disclosure group is much smaller than students assume, and their requests specify exactly what to report. If a school hasn’t asked for all scores, the default — keep everything, send selectively — applies, and cancellation can stay in your back pocket for the one case where it’s actually required.

Bottom line: the tools on this page — cancel, withhold, and not-send — exist so you control what a score does, not the other way around. Cancel only when you need it erased; withhold only for a specific school; and for the everyday case, simply choosing not to send is free, instant, and fully under your control. That’s the whole decision, and it rarely needs to be more complicated than that.

Last tip: keep a screenshot of the confirmation from whatever you choose — cancel, withhold, or send. You’ll have a record if a deadline dispute ever comes up.

When is the deadline to cancel an AP score?

Cancellation is allowed until June 15 of the year you took the exam, and it must go through your school's AP coordinator - you can't do it in your own account.

How much does it cost to cancel an AP score?

Cancellation itself is free, but it's permanent and irreversible. Withholding a score from a specific college costs about $10 per score per college.

Can I hide a bad AP score from colleges?

Yes. Scores are only sent where you choose - simply not reporting a low score is free and common. The College Board never sends scores unless you request it.

Do cancelled AP scores show up anywhere?

No. A cancelled score is deleted permanently and never appears on any score report.

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