AP Classes - Which Ones? How Many? When?

Applying to College
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As students prepare to enroll in classes for the upcoming academic year, a thread dedicated to the details of AP courses seems timely. An introduction regarding published statements from Colleges and Nuance will hopefully help many HS students.

Issue 1 - Does taking AP classes help with College admission?

  • There are strenuous opinions that AP classes are irrelevant for admission. Frequent quotations include MIT and Stanford’s statements that performance on AP exams are not solely required for admission or that AP scores are not part of an admissions “formula”. Does that mean AP’s are not important? Or does that just mean there isn’t a “formula” where a student can “plug in” any achievement? Fitzsimmons testified that AP tests AND scores are the strongest predictors of grades as an undergraduate at Harvard College.

  • There are strong opinions that students should only take AP’s offered in their high school as some selective colleges cite “challenge in the context of their schools”. In the age of edX, MIT Open Courseware, Coursera, Khan Academy and widespread use of DE classes, is that “context” broadening? At least in terms of standardized test prep, student access to online resources is assumed by colleges. Where is the line between being a resourseful student and being a “boring, academic drone?”

  • Should anyone self-study AP material? Is a person who studies a subject in the auspices of an AP class curriculum independently wasting their time in terms of showing curiosity or initiative?

Issue 2 - Which AP courses should I take?
In terms of student curriculum planning, there are cross currents. On the one hand, we are told that “every AO knows which AP classes are the easiest!”, so is taking those AP courses a waste of time? Down with AP Computer Science Principles? On the contrary, if a student tackles the most difficult AP courses, is that a fool’s errand?

Here is a chart that ranks AP’s by perceived difficulty in subject material and scoring.

2023-24-Easiest-APs-bubble-chart-980x598
2023-24-Easiest-APs-bubble-chart-980x598980×598 89.5 KB

Overall, my lean would be: 1) Take AP’s where you have a great chance (based on the teacher, material and your preparation) to get a high grade in the class and a high score on the AP exam. 2) Take a significant proportion of the AP’s offered in your school. 3) Take the AP in your area of greatest interest earlier if possible (given #1 above), even by self-study, to improve your foundation in the subject and increase your chances of more advanced study. 4) Don’t feel that you need to take every AP class offered by your school. 5) Don’t feel that an independent study of an AP class not offered by your school is a waste of time as long as you can maintain balance.

Senior year seems like a great time to take AP’s that are intellectually interesting but, by vagary of the testing rubric, are difficult to score well on as far as AP exams. Specifically - AP English Literature, AP European History, AP Computer Science A and others. If the goal is a “5”, the Albert.io site has a score simulator, and the College Board itself publishes a spreadsheet of the percentage of students earning each score level. Using these data in coordination can give students an insightful read on how tough AP’s are and how precise their performance needs to be to get top marks.

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And at least when I say it, which is often, it’s in response to the question, “Which are the easiest AP’s for me to self study so that I can impress HYPSM admissions?”

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There isn’t a one size fits all model to AP courses because of the variation in high school curriculums and structure.

Issue one: Rigor matters for competitive college admission. Whether that is by taking AP courses or not depends on the context of the student’s high school. There are some schools that gate keep AP numbers, others that have their own curriculum that isn’t AP but still rigorous, IB schools, DE programs, etc…

Issue two: IMO, students should take the most rigorous course load that they can manage, as directed/recommended by their HS teachers and guidance counselors.

My D actually felt that the APs not in her area of interest were most helpful because they got her out of her university gen ed requirements and she could use those spots for courses and certifications that she really wanted to take. APs in her area though helped her start in higher level courses so it was a balance.

GCs at my D’s college prep high school actively discouraged self study. They felt the time was better served in developing depth in ECs and volunteering.

0 APs were allowed freshman year, 1 allowed sophomore year (AP Euro), and then 3 allowed junior and senior year. AP science classes could only be taken after a year long honors class so that restricted AP chem and physics to senior year only. Limited DE classes were allowed starting sophomore year. High class grades and test scores were required to get permission to take an AP or DE class.

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Completely agreed. I honestly do not think this is all that hard in terms of overall strategy, and I think your summary seems dead on.

It is just implementing it given your particular interests, aptitudes, and choices available that can be tricky. And no generic formula or recipe is going to help you answer such questions, you just have to work it out in your individual circumstances. And for that purpose, you can seek out help, but that help will also have to work to understand your individual circumstances.

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The chart is also misleading. Using AP Chinese as an example, it appears to be the third “easiest” on the chart which >75% passing rate. And CB’s own website lists it as having the highest percentage of students getting score of “5”.

I can say with confidence that even after 12 years of Chinese school, my non-native speaking kids will not be able to pass that test.

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It’s misleading because the students in some of these courses are self-selecting. Chinese is skewed by a large percentage of native and heritage speakers.

Generally only the most gung-ho stem kids are taking Physics C and, to a lesser extent, Calc BC.

The tests in these subjects are not easy, so the percentage of 5’s is misleading without context

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Only misleading if you don’t think that for many AP language exams there might be selection bias. If you think the chart has no value, “It’s Misleading” that’s your opinion. For many, my opinion would be that it is helpful. You want an obvious example? A student considering taking AP US History and AP Chemistry. Both are listed (rightfully) as requiring more study time and with moderate to difficult subject matter. Time management and resource management are key to success for high school students (at least according to most guidance department). That’s where I disagree with your statement that the chart is simply “misleading”.

And AP scores do matter for some students who don’t wholly believe that their perceived “authenticity” according to an alumnus interviewer is the only thing that is going to affect their chances at college. For those students, the provided references for the distribution of grades on AP exams in concert with the provided chart of difficulty can add value. If you think AP’s and scores and anything else don’t matter for admission, I would wonder whether the institutions that people here claim to have “inside information” or are “AO’s” for would want to be quoted as pushing that message. Admissions messages from Universities is nuanced and deliberate. Would that admissions office want to take the position that it dissuaded a kid from taking a class she found interesting because it “wouldn’t matter anyway?” Doubtful.

My feeling is that a kid should be able to take any or as many AP’s as he or she wants without the wagging finger of someone professing to have all the information straight from the College telling them that it’s futile, useless, irrelevant or unauthentically strive-y. What happened to believing the best in people you haven’t met and know nothing about? Maybe that kid thinks taking AP macroeconomics on Khan will help his admissions chances. He didn’t pick that course out of a hat. There is some degree of interest there. Maybe it’s 2, 3, 4 AP’s. Maybe the kid knows their strength is his brain, and he wants to show that off. Maybe the kid wants to get a jump start on his prerequisites. Maybe the kid wants a jump start on some things she’ll learn about in college so she can take more advanced classes when she gets there or simply have more time to hang out with friends over pizza. Why snipe at these efforts? Trust me, everyone knows at this point admissions is holistic. They don’t need “AO’s” here to tell them that academics the the exclusion of everything else is not good.

The information provided above is intended to help those kids. The curious ones, the sincere ones. Not the one we’re assuming for some reason is just doing everything “for admission”. If someone loves to play lacrosse and also thinks that might help them get into college, do we slam them as hard?

I guess for everyone here who thinks AP selection is so easy (or irrelevant), my opinion is that feeling is out of touch with many if not most HS students who attend schools offering an AP curriculum in the USA. And it’s really those students who this site is for, no?

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We have the perfect example. Our school has historically had a good number of kids taking physics C and a very high average on the test(4.5ish) However, the teacher who had taught that class for years is no longer teaching and last year the average was in the 3s and this year my S who has a high 90s average in the class asked me to not send his score for the EM part because he is unsure he even got a 3. There are half the number of kids signed up for the class next year than there have been in the past. This is a highly self selected class and teacher quality is vital.

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If I am not mistaken this is the source article for that chart:

It is actually pretty informative when you read through the whole thing, explaining its methodology. They specifically explain why looking at just outcome statistics can be misleading, including because, “AP languages classes are taken by students who already speak some of that language, and will be far harder to pass if you’re a beginner,” and they also add a relevant footnote to AP Chinese:

[1] AP Chinese is often taken by people already familiar with the Chinese, which perhaps explains why it’s considered so easy (3.9 / 10), so quick to study (3.4 / 10) and why the average score (3.9) is the highest of all AP classes. You’ll likely find AP Chinese much harder work if you’re new to the language!

There are lots of detailed notes like that. Like, they explain why the Physics C exams are rated as particularly hard, but also explain:

[6] AP Physics C – Mechanics and AP Physics C – Electricity & Magnetism are the top-2 hardest of all AP classes. But if you can get your head around the material, there’s potential to score really well (73% pass and 23% get a 5 in Mechanics; 68% pass and 31% get a 5 in E&M).

Obviously that analysis is consistent with the above account of why teacher quality can matter so much to classes like that.

Anyway, my point is that article in depth is actually quite nuanced and caveated, and in that sense another illustration of how this issue really cannot be reduced to a formula. Indeed, when it gets to the “Which AP Classes Should I Take?” section, it goes through a number of different goals you might reasonably have, and makes some different suggestions about different courses to consider for different purposes.

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Agreed. It’s not a formula. Not sure why many here want to characterize it as a “one size fits all” and then reject that. A bit of a straw man thing. There is good information out there that can lead to smart guidance. And that’s a way we can all add value to kids facing a dizzying array of demands (rigor, extracurriculars, grades, test scores).

Let’s say you’re a very intuitive STEM student who may be prone to some careless mistakes possibly due to some degree of immaturity. AP Calculus BC might be a good choice (if you have good preparation). Big margin for error to get a “5” but tough concepts. Like Physics C, it’s a test for whether you “get it” not how perfectly. On the other hand, if you’re pressed for time because of your piano competitions and squash tournaments, maybe taking AP Chem, AP Bio and AP USH all at the same time is a bad idea. All take a lot of time. Performance > spread.

Let’s say you are not yet the best student, but you want a taste of what AP level curriculum and its pace would be. AP Computer Science Principles - not a bad course that no one is mistaking for Physics C E&M, but it can be interesting and a bridge to harder stuff.

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I agree with you completely.

I just wanted to point out to people who stare at a chart and not have the complete context that there are more to that story. There are people who "collect "AP classes for the sole purpose of having as many as possible.

In the grand scheme of things, this is really about cultivating some kid’s interest and help shape their future path. The danger I see many times here and with people I know, is parents introject their own bias and it’s not what the kid wants or can do. That’s both frustrating and scary to me personally.

It is also interesting that many people did go to college themselves, but somehow they have forgotten their own personal experiences.

I’m sure we are all saying the same things here. Academic advising always starts with the kid. Personality, intellect, passion and commitment as well as support structure. I have two kids; just getting one launched to engineering but the second is interested in sociology / writing – their planning is very different. I do cringe a little when I see many posters write out the same laundry list of classes when some complete stranger asks for advice here. After all, how do we advice when we don’t even know you?

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Agree that teacher quality is huge when it comes to AP test results. Our public high school has a big AP program and my D22 took 12 of them across all topics. She was a strong HS student with consistent As across all topics and 4/5s on her exams, but the two 3s she received on exams were both with teachers who didn’t prepare them well (one due a health leave of absence and long-term sub, the other who wasn’t that interested in test prep or following the curriculum). They were AP Stats and AP Art History, neither known for being particularly difficult exams.

Her choice to take so many APs largely came down to wanting to take challenging classes and also to stay with a cohort who took school seriously. She did well in them without a huge amount of stress. Non AP classes had a rep for being loud, boring, etc. She didn’t go the dual enrollment route bc it seemed like a hassle to get to the local JC and also the teaching quality was difficult to predict.

My S26 will likely take fewer APs and stick to topics of interest, per his choice. We might look into dual enrollment.

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I could not agree with this more. Take the most rigorous courseload you can, and then spend time on ECs you love. This is good not just for college admissions but for balance in life.

I’m sure there’s value in self-studying for APs in certain circumstances, e.g., HS doesn’t offer many advanced courses so student wants to demonstrate mastery of higher level content, or a student facing financial pressures wants to enter college with as much credit as possible. Outside of those instances, though, I don’t see an argument for self-studying APs.

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Yup. And the ones who aren’t gung-ho STEM kids (like my senior, who took E&M after really enjoying Physics 1) often don’t take the test.

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Student wants to take an AP earlier than the usual HS track to open the door to more advanced, varied curriculum in that discipline. Student is not challenged in school and wants to take additional courses that do not fit into school hours. Student can grasp a difficult subject, but it may take 2 years rather than 1 year, so she wants to get a head start without risking a bad grade in the class and also open the possibility of taking the AP more than once to gauge and document her progress. Student wants to be competitive in applying to certain research fellowships where more advanced courses would also allow student better to participate in and understand the research. Student simply loves to learn and is hungry for knowledge in many disciplines. Is learning allowed to be a passion or only EC’s? Is passion for learning where someone becomes a boring, academic drone? I wonder what Warikoo would say about that? Student is interested in a subject, but wants to learn it in a way that is both organized (according to some experts that construct the AP curriculum) and accountable (exam to give some feedback as to how much was retained and can be applied).

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I have no idea who Warikoo is, but these all seem like edge cases and don’t change my opinion that for most kids who have access to a rigorous school-based curriculum, there are better ways to spend time. ECs are a catch-all that I mean to include jobs and hobbies; it’s not just about passion but simply a range of experiences and ways to develop skills and relationships.

Also…spending time with friends being frivolous teenagers is underrated! I would never encourage my kid to sacrifice that to self-study APs.

But obviously every kid’s situation is different, and every kid should make the decision that’s right for them.

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AP CS principles could be a bridge to AP CS A if you decide based on AP CS principles that you may want to major in CS.

However, simply because a course is labeled as AP does not necessarily mean that it is representative of other AP courses. AP CS principles would not be particularly representative of other non-CS AP courses, for example.

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The provided graph shows the wide diversity of “what’s called an AP”.

Ideally, this thread could focus on specifics helpful to students and not semantics like the meaning of the word “bridge”, or the difference between “one size fits all” and “meaningful guidelines” or whether reasons are “edge cases” or not. Instead of picking words and rhetorical points, how about we think about facts or details that students would like to know?

For example, about whether it’s worth it to take Calculus BC after Calculus AB? BC is ostensibly graded more forgivingly, but its test takers are likely better prepared. Writers outside of CC have opined that the College Board may give a slight “grading upwards bump” to students taking its most difficult STEM courses in terms of increasing the # receiving “5”'s to encourage students to keep taking those difficult subjects. I’ve never seen data to prove this, but an interesting thought. Back to Calculus BC, is it worth it to spend another entire year just to learn about Maclaurin and Taylor series and some more about polar coordinates and integration methods? After taking AB is it safe to self-study for the BC exam without getting the “academic drone” stamp from admissions officers for self-studying an AP? Many high schools allow or even encourage students to take BC after AB, but that is a nuanced choice. Does taking BC after AB look like score duplication done to “game” admissions as every AO would know that there is a ton of overlap.

Or the difference between Physics I / II and C? Years ago, most took Physics C contemporaneously with Calculus BC, but is that good? Physics C does require some facility with integrating and vector fields that may not have completely “set in” from a contemporaneous Calculus class. Is the lab component a game changer? Any benefit to making sure the calculus is solid before tackling Physics C? Perhaps by self-studying over the summer after work or camp? Schools don’t seem to believe kids have absolutely no time to do academics over the summer, at least not as much as seems to be the case on CC. Maybe someone wants to chime in on whether it’s good or bad to look like a “gung ho” STEM kid?

Or how best to prepare for some of the most difficult AP courses the summer before the course begins. Not prep for the exams at the end of the course - which is a different forum. Is there a great Khan academy unit that one can look at over the summer to get better prepared before BC calc or AP US history? It may not be as obvious as doing the Khan calc or history course, for example, Algebra and Trig review may be more helpful than diving into the calculus directly; getting a feel for a few dates and wars may help form a mental framework into which the fact storm of APUSH can be slotted.

Or how about a list of AP courses that “AO’s know are easy?” Microeconomics was mentioned (I think) but given the College Board score distributions, Microeconomics would appear to have the most difficult material and / or test of the social science / history offerings. If there is in fact a mismatch between which courses “every AO knows are easy” and what is actually difficult from a teacher / course / testing standpoint, that might affect some students’ choices.

Or are there some courses that are easy to self-study but difficult in class? Of course teacher effectiveness and grading are always variables (you can have a difficult class with an effective teacher or other combinations), but some implied distinctions are made.

High school students I speak to ranging from those attending elite private schools to public schools locally to home school students have their eye on AP classes, and it’s enrollment season. Let’s try to give some meaningful content.

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Writers on both CC and other platforms can opine numerous things. That doesn’t make it true. I’ve seen no evidence to validate a “grading upwards bump”

AO’s “know” no such thing. How a school structures BC is dependent on the school. Some offer it as a follow-up to AB, with only a quick review of AB concepts. They may delve into post-BC topics as time permits. Other schools offer it as a course encompassing both AB and BC topics and is taken after precalculus. And they may have started AB topics in Q4 of precalculus

I don’t know if any data that suggests “most” took with BC. Most took with calculus, but it could have been AB. Regardless, the level of calculus used in C is far less than required by the engineering physics courses at many top schools; E&M, in particular, often uses MVC. The calc needed for AP Physics C: Mech is basic, and as I said above, may have already been covered in precalc.

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The timing of the thread is late for many, maybe most, HS students who have already chosen next year’s classes (many do so in Jan/Feb.)

Fundamentally students will be limited by their HS AP course offerings (relatively few HSs offer the full gamut of AP options), the HS’s required sequencing (e.g., Calc AB before BC, on level/honors science before AP science, etc.), and the HS schedule type (e.g., traditional, block and its many iterations, etc.)

If the HS requires AP Calc AB before BC that’s what likely makes sense for most students. If a student foregoes AP Calc BC after taking AB, the main issue would be what math would they take in its place, assuming they have more HS years? Are they ready for MV after AP Calc AB? I wouldn’t recommend AP Stats in lieu of AB Calc BC or MV for some students (depending on major, college goals, etc). Some colleges evaluate the highest math course taken, and at some of these colleges AP Stats can’t be the highest math taken. So, for example, if a student took AP Calc AB in junior year and then AP Stats senior year, their highest math taken is AP Calc AB.

I have never heard that BC is graded ‘more forgivingly’. I expect a higher proportion of students get 5s because of the self selecting nature of that course, similar to AP Chinese. BC is also offered at far fewer HSs than AB, and the schools that do offer BC tend to be relatively stronger and/or more affluent. Plenty of students take AP Calc AB who aren’t ready for it for whatever reason (poor grades in prior math courses, etc.), which is less of an issue with BC.

Big picture, the answer for what AP classes to take will be unique to each student…what they are interested in, what colleges they may be applying for, and what majors/career goals are on the table.

Generally, I would rather see students prioritize ECs rather than self study AP tests (if given a choice between the two), although there can be some situations where self studying may make sense for some students. For example, academically strong limited income students who are targeting their in-state publics where they would get college credit for certain AP test scores may be able to graduate in fewer than eight semesters with this strategy.

Also, some non-AP HS classes may prepare students to take the related AP test. For example, in my kids’ HS where APs are limited to junior and senior years, strong math students (have at least taken Alg 1) often take physics, not bio, in freshman year. The high honors version of that freshman physics class teaches most of what is necessary to do well on the AP Physics 1 test, so some kids will take that test. Students could look to see if there are opportunities like that at their HS.

If a student is so interested in a subject that they think they want to self study for an AP test, I would encourage them to do some summer program in that subject area instead, or take a CC or Coursera class. In reality I think some students self study for AP tests because that’s what they think colleges want to see, not because they are really interested in the subject matter.