Senior High School AP courses

HNH
Sat, 06 Apr 2024 13:13:17 +0000

Our school’s, and my own belief, is that AP’s are more about quality than quantity. It’s more important to get “5”'s than to add on that 11th AP course. Your son is taking AP stats, so he’s taking a “math” course senior year. That’s fine. Advanced math discussions are a College Confidential rabbit’s hole, but taking multivariable calculus isn’t “better” than AP stats. In the scale of rigorous or “advanced” math, both are largely irrelevant.

The choice between Physics C and Physics 1 has some nuance, but it’s not productive to wonder if admissions is going to scrutinize why this accelerated student chose the less rigorous Physics pathway. Maybe it’ your high school’s policy to require Physics I first? They wouldn’t know. The College Board created the Physics I and II pathway for a lot of reasons like enabling less advanced math students to engage physics, including more lab experiences, and overall slowing the curriculum. So it’s not so easy to say that Physics I is a prelude to Physics C. It’s really different tracks. Neither track is anything more than a broad survey of a few select topics in physics that would bear little to no resemblance to a single semester advanced Physics college class at a T20 University.

The question of AP’s, how many, which ones, is really common on this website, so you might poke around some of the other threads. The kinds of minor decisions (AP Stats vs. Multi), (Physics I vs. C) are unlikely to move the academic rating at all, and neither accomplishment will mean much for admission, even with “5”'s. All of this is “good enough” academically, and for a student with “good enough” academics, it’s going to come down to community impact, EC’s and hooks.