A station associates with an access point in a wireless local area network conforming to, e.g., an IEEE 802.11 standard. The station measures the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the downlink from each of the access points sending either a beacon or a probe response, and forms a first list of access points in decreasing order of received downlink SNR. The station transmits a link test request to each access point to query the access point for the SNR of the link test request received at the corresponding access point. Access points respond to the link test request with corresponding link test responses containing the corresponding SNR. The station i) forms a second list of access points in decreasing order of received uplink SNR and ii) compares the first and second lists to determine which access point to associate with based on overall quality of the uplink and downlink channels.