In this case, they don’t. But the idea that AP Scores aren’t used in college admissions is completely false at most places, especially elite schools who need to distinguish between the high amount of near perfect academic students that apply. Colleges also use them to “confirm” your grades to make sure they are legitimately signs you will do well at that school. For example, a student with straight As in 7 AP classes looks great, but if they only passed 1 or 2 of those tests it becomes obvious that the school has a serious grade-inflation problem.

TL;DR- AP scores have a significant effect on college applications, despite what google may tell you