Is AP really worth it?

early_college
Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:26:58 +0000

I will admit that I do not study as hard as I should have for AP Exams. I do everything required in class and did study a little, but I didn’t do enough obviously. I thought I did great on the AP Exam. I crammed everything right before the exam. At my school, we have about a 50% pass rate on AP exams. I am not great at standardized tests, look at my PSAT score. But I know lots of people who did the same on the AP Exam this year and got the same grade in the class.

I am in the top 25% of my class and my school doesn’t have a weighted rank, I would be higher ranked if we did. I have seen my transcript and the ten points are added. It is a county policy and not a school policy. My school takes off the ten points when doing your GPA and adds .5. The 10 points is basically useless and doesn’t help you. My % average is an 88%. I am pretty sure my cumulative average is weighted on my transcript. There is only one GPA, a % average, and a rank on my transcript.

I know a lot of kids taking AP classes. I know one kid who is taking five AP classes (AP Bio, AP Cal, AP Lang, AP US, AP Physics) and most kids are taking two or three AP classes. My school isn’t really fair either. One gifted kid didn’t get into AP Lang and they let him take the test over and he got in. They wouldn’t let anyone else do that. My teacher said it was false, but the kid told everyone this.

I feel like by dropping AP Physics, it will distinguish my chances at schools like NYU. If I took AP Lit, AP Environmental Science, and AP Macro/Govern my senior year, would that be too much? I want to have good chances at some top schools. I worked my butt of last year and my GPA went up three points.

I also will have to study for the SAT/ACT which I plan on taking in January/February of 2011. I will retake the test I did better on in May/June. French is a struggle for me and I will have to study harder this year. French II is suppose to be the hardest.

To the above poster, I have to take physics. If I drop down, I am still required to take physics. I have to take biology, chemistry, physics, and an elective science to graduate.