does one AP really make a difference?
I’m going to be choosing my classes for next year in a few days and I’m still pretty undecided.
The classes I know I forsure want to take are AP English Lit, AP Psychology, AP Stats, AP Gov/ Econ.
I’m undecided on the last two slots. It’s either I take AP chemistry & academic decathlon, prep chemisty & academic decathlon, or prep chemisty and AP Spanish Language. My main question would be do you guys think taking one more AP really makes a difference and how 5 APs and academic decathlon along with college apps would be?
One more AP for your senior year? Tiny difference. However, if you’re looking to be a STEM major, it’s strongly recommended to take the core science APs which include AP Chem. Something like AP Spanish (for STEM majors) won’t make much of a difference senior year.
@Stanccepted I plan on majoring in biology & have already taken ap bio and ap physics c
I’d strongly recommend AP Chem (if only to skip past intro chem in college). However, if you don’t want to take it, that wouldn’t drastically lower your college profile. Although it might look a little strange to be looking at majoring in bio but not take chem
Have you taken chemistry? Because you need to have that before you take AP Chem. You could always take a weak intro to chem at a CC over the summer, then jump into AP Chem, but you can’t just take AP chem without some understanding of chemistry.
I agree AP Chem would be best, but you’d need to find a way to bridge what you learned about chemistry through AP Bio, and the actual level expected in AP chem (= summer school? Self study?)
Your two real choices are AP Chem + Academic Decathlon if you have already taken a chem class, or AP Spanish and regular Chem. Can’t you take Academic Decathlon in addition to your classes, though, since it’s more a club than a class?
Competitive colleges will expect a STEM applicant to have the typical 5 core classes every year (English, Math, Foreign Language, Science, Social Science), except that for foreign language reaching Level 4 in 3 years “counts” (they look at level, not number of years - good for you if you accelerated), and you can double up junior and senior years in any subject (ie., take two sciences or two social sciences); 5 of the 7 possible periods should be Honors or AP if available at your school. In addition, they’ll want to see each of Bio, Chem, and Physics, plus one at the AP level at least and, if offered, calculus (AB or BC makes no difference).
@Stanccepted thank you for your feedback!
@MYOS1634 no, I have not taken chem. If I take AP Chem I would take Chen over the summer to prepare. & at my school academic decathlon is a class not a club. My school only has 6 periods a day & I have already take AP Calculus AB (the only one offered at my school)
Is there a way for you to dual enroll at a local community college and take calculus 2?
@MYOS1634 aha maybe but I’d rather not. I’m actually looking forward to AP Stats and I’m not going to double up on math. It’s not exactly my strongest subject
FYI, AP Stats has about as much math in it as physics does. It’s not really a math class… it’s a formulas class.
@Stanccepted thanks for telling me! That makes me feel a lot better about the class aha
