A Discussion About AP Classes

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

I’ve seen people on CC with a ridiculous amount of AP classes and/or exams and I wonder, at what point does it not matter how many anymore? On the rate my schedule thread, people with 6-7 AP classes in one school year get a “9/10” or the people who take 4 get a “8/10.”

So I ask you, in your opinion: Does it mean more to take the difficult AP classes rather than load up on the easier ones? Is self studying for an AP “Lite” exam beneficial and at what point does it no longer matter? How many APs are too much? Too little? Are there requirements for certain AP classes at your school? Do you think you need a certain amount of AP classes to be a competitive applicant at top colleges? Why do you think of AP v Dual Enrollment? And other related questions.

I think that the amount that a student should take shouldn’t be determined by college admissions, but rather an interest in the subject as well as a student’s own capabilities. The amount doesn’t matter, but rather the rigor of the exams taken.

2

Yes

If for personal interest, OK sure. Otherwise, no.

The moment you ask yourself, “does this matter?” LOL Also, to be clear, self studying will offer no boost in the admissions process. None. Zilch.

IMO, once an applicant is at 6-8 AP classes over 4 years the law of diminishing returns sets in. The 9th AP class will not provide any significant boost over the 8th.

Yes. Generally grade achieved in prereq course and/or teacher rec.

In general, no, but this will depend on the context of your school. A top college will not fault an applicant if his/her HS offers few/no AP classes. However, if the HS offers 25 AP classes and the applicant has taken 2, that would raise an eyebrow. For that reason, the Secondary School Report has a box for the GC the rate the rigor of the schedule.

3

@skieurope I agree with the diminishing return point. You should have enough Ap’s to look good, but also have enough time to improve yourself on things you enjoy.

You don’t actually need a set amount of Ap’s. For example’s if you had world class EC’s you could get by with only 5-6 total in hs.

4

My first recommendation is to take classes based on your interests and intended college major(s). Other than that, core subjects are more important than elective subjects. Here is a very approximate classification scheme.

Core Academic AP Classes
Biology, Calculus (AB & BC), Chemistry, English Literature & Composition, Physics 1, Physics 2, Physics B, Physics C: Mechanics, Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism, U.S. History, U.S. Government & Politics

Elective Academic AP Classes
Art History, Comparative Government & Politics, Computer Science A, Computer Science AB, Computer Science Principles, English Language & Composition, Environmental Science, European History, Human Geography, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Psychology, Statistics, World History

Foreign Language
Chinese Language and Culture, French Language, French Literature, German Language, Italian Language and Culture, Japanese Language and Culture, Latin, Latin Literature, Russian Language and Culture, Spanish Language, Spanish Literature

Other
Music Theory, Research, Seminar, Studio Art (2-D, 3-D, & Drawing)

There’s no reason to self-study unless you want college credit for a class your school doesn’t offer or that doesn’t fit in your schedule. If your school offers a given AP class, colleges want you take the class and the test rather than just the test. If your school doesn’t offer it, colleges don’t expect you to take it, and you’d be better off working on your ECs or studying for the SAT or something.

Colleges judge you based on what your school offers. My school only had four AP classes when I went there, so it would have been unfair to expect more than that.

It’s important to keep in mind that advanced classes are beneficial for lots of reasons other than college admissions. My advice is to take the hardest classes possible while keeping your unweighted GPA above 3.5. Obviously, it can be lower if you go to a difficult high school where you’d be the valedictorian with a 3.5. :slight_smile: You need to challenge yourself if you want to be prepared for college, but some universities have hard GPA or class-rank cutoffs for scholarships, honors programs, etc.

Most of them have prerequisites.

AP is better if an AP equivalent for a course is available at your school, especially if the dual-enrollment class is taught in your high school building, because AP exams are standardized and college classes aren’t. Otherwise, dual enrollment is fine, though it can be logistically difficult if you have to run back and forth all the time.

In most cases it’s also easier to get credit for an AP test score than it is for a dual-enrollment class, but it’s not like you can never get credit for dual-enrollment classes. Some colleges have weird rules about how you can’t get credit for a dual-enrollment class if you used it to meet a high school graduation requirement, or if it shows up on your high school transcript. Check with the colleges you want to apply to.

[url=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/17052213#Comment_17052213]Here[/url] is a longer post I wrote about the benefits and drawbacks of dual enrollment.

5

@halcyonheather This is an old post, but here you mention “Russian Language and Culture”. As far as I know there isnt an AP Russian test…do you mean the AP Russian Prototype?
I am wondering because I am interested in placing out of language req’s with my native language, Russian. Thanks!

6

AP Russian is [under development](AP Central - AP Russian Language and Culture Course Home Page). I just listed it because it might be offered in the future.
Are you referring to high school or college requirements? You could probably place out of them without an AP test.

7

I have to be honest, but this AP loading for no reason annoys me. As I’ve mentioned many a time before, my school’s block schedule makes for some pretty crazy scheduling, which meant that I basically take two years worth of choir classes in a year and therefore have only tiny room for electives. With this, I take classes that pertain to my major, which as a performance art are not AP (with the exception of a partially self studied AP Music Theory). However, so many students are using their extra block periods to just take non sensical AP’s just to boost class ranking without having interest in the topic. For example, there was a contingent of at least 5 people who took both AP Env Sci and AP Euro as electives simply to boost their GPA with 0 intended intellectual benefit. These students may not even have gotten A’s in these classes, but because they took these and “honors” band (discrimination against vocalists but that’s another story), I have a straight 4.0 in all AP core classes and a schedule related to my major and sitting at 17th on the ranking scale. It’s kind of annoying because it pushes me out of the “Top 3%” that apparently I’ve seen as covetable while I know that just loading up on elective type APs will not help me with singing in college. Oh well, such is life.

8

High school kids don’t usually have well-defined interests, though. They might take AP Environmental Science for a bad reason and then discover that it’s their life passion.