<p>A lot of people here on CC are selfstudying tons of APs every year. What is the purpose of doing so? To get college credit so they won't have to take the classes? To impress adcoms? To get AP National scholar or w/e?? Why do people self-study something like APES when they don't even have to take it in college? Would it be for the other reasons above?</p>
<p>I'd say the first two reasons are probably more common than the third one you mentioned. Some kids might actually enjoy studying a subject that isn't offered at school, and want to show their mastery of it. </p>
<p>Other than that, I wouldn't know.</p>
<p>So if you are interested in a subject that isn't offered at your school but score high on the AP exam, how greatly do adcoms value the score? Are there any other reasons why people self-study exams? Also, is Physics C Mech and E/M easy to self-study??</p>
<p>Physics C is definitely NOT easy. To begin with, you need to have taken or take at the same time Calc.</p>
<p>Physics C is easy. The only major calc u need to know is like position, velocity and acceleration. One year, the FRs had no difficult calculus at all other than what I just mentioned.</p>
<p>If you are going to be dual-enrolled at a local college, having AP exams can get you past the introductory classes. That gives you access to more classes/more interesting classes/better scheduling options. Self-studying is a way to create more interesting future opportunities.</p>
<p>Also, if you think you know a lot of the material already and are fairly self-motivated, self-studying can be done in a lot less time than taking the course.</p>
<p>What if you took AP Physics B before and wanted to self study Physics C Mech and E/M??? Would the knowledge of Physics B make it a lot easier for you to understand Physics C?? Are the relatively the same except that you need to use calculus?</p>
<p>If I review Physics B again over the summer, will it help me a lot if I wanted to stelf studying Physics C?? Btw, I'm taking AP Calculus NEXT year so I don't know how long I will have to wait until I can apply the concepts to Physics C.</p>
<p>People self-study instead of taking a class at school because
1. It takes less time
2. Scheduling may not let you take the class/take all the classes you want
3. Poor Teacher
4. AP Class has massive irrelevant workload
I chose to self-study to
A. Show colleges that I had knowledge about a subject and to show my passion for that subject
B. Save money!
C. Jump straight into 300-400 level classes in college
D. Impress adcoms- Without AP exams I wouldn't be ivy material, but now I might be.</p>
<p>My school doesn't offer the class.</p>
<p>Koda,</p>
<p>Physics B will help with Physics C. You don't have to review optics, thermodynamics, or waves, though. They're not on the C tests. You could try to start on the C material, too. It will help make calculus more interesting.</p>
<p>Also, how far in AP Calculus do you need to go in order to start applying the skills to Physics C?? Is the calculus applied in Physics C hard? Suppose I self study Physics C and get good scores. Would adcoms value this greatly or moderately? Do they see the effort that people make into studying for these tests and scoring well? Also, in another situation, suppose that I failed the 2 tests. I can not report the scores and the colleges wouldn't know? I've heard people say that there is "mark" like "W" or something that shows that you have withdrawn the score. Is this true?</p>
<p>Koda,</p>
<p>The calculus used in Physics C is not terribly hard, but it does help to have a really firm conceptual grasp of the math you're using. </p>
<p>I don't know how much self-studying is valued in admissions. I'm pretty sure you can just not report the score if you don't do well. I guess there's some danger that if you don't have other fun extracurriculars, they'll look at you and go "Eeeewwww, what a nerd." But don't let that stop you from learning something you're interested in.</p>
<p>I don't want to be taking high school all over again in college. The whole purpose of AP for me is to save time and money as well as eliminate all the classes I have no interest in. Once I get to college, I want to take classes related to my major only not general ed stuff.</p>
<p>I'm thinking of possibly self studying the following:
AP French Language (I hate the class)
AP Computer Science AB (A offered, but my summer course at Carnegie Mellon is equivalent to A without MBCS, so I don't want to be wasting time...Mrs. Miller could help)
AP Psychology (offered, but I heard the teacher is boring)
AP Statistics (might take as regular course)</p>
<p>What is the difficulty of self-study in these?</p>
<p>You can study for Psych and receive at least a 4 with no problem at all. You probably won't need to truly "know" anything about Psych for your major so just get it over with.</p>
<p>I've also heard that Stat is pretty easy to do yourself, but that is more likely to be useful to you-as far as college coursework is concerned-so you might want to legitimately take that one.</p>
<p>I tried to self study for Euro because I am taking an Honors World History class where all we studied was Euro. Hence, I wanted to take AP Euro. But the school said that they won't administer the test so I gave up.</p>
<p>i took wh honors last year and ehap this year and found ehap to be much much more in depth and specific.</p>
<p>I self-studied a bunch so as to graduate early.</p>
<p>How would that allow you to graduate early?</p>
<p>I'm trying to get my school to grant me exemption for the two AP classes I self-studied and score high AP scores on.</p>