<p>My son goes to a high school that doesn’t have AP. He is interested in art/design and has been taking art classes at various outside places because his school doesn’t have an arts curriculum beyond two basic courses. He was advised to do the AP Studio Art Portfolio program on his own as it would show motivation to a college. Wondering if anyone with AP Studio Art knowledge can weigh in on whether or not this seems like a good use of his time vs. continuing to take outside courses at other locales.</p>
<p>I think the act of putting together a portfolio for the AP is well worth it. More so in many ways than most APs.</p>
<p>Mathmom-- do you have a child who did this and if so was it part of their school curriculum?</p>
<p>acme, you might want to take your question to the AP forum, which is under SAT/ACT. A lot of kids (CC kids…) self-study for various AP exams.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ap-tests-preparation/369861-self-studying-aps-improving-your-app.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ap-tests-preparation/369861-self-studying-aps-improving-your-app.html</a></p>
<p>No, way back when though, I did the studio art AP. I can’t remember exactly what the current requirements are, but the structure of it is that you put together a body of work showing breadth and then do a set of pieces on a theme. My recollection is that it’s one that you could put together yourself, perhaps using work from outside classes or that you’ve done on your own. Our high school offers the art AP as a class, I usually see the show they put up of the work they’ve done for the course.</p>
<p>While you can self-study for most APs, I do think that for some you probably lose a bit, by not having the give and take of class discussions.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your invaluable tips and advice–CC’ers come through again!</p>
<p>My D did could not get the APUSHistory class because of conflicts, so she took regular US History and self-studied for the APUSH test with mentoring from her teacher. She did miss some of the higher level class discussion that was missing from the “regular” class, but on the other hand she benefited greatly from the teacher mentoring and I think it was a good introduction to independent study. Anyway the experience was a success; she scored a 5 on the test.</p>
<p>I did it for Human Geography as a junior --studied casually for a semester from Barrons, studied intensely for 2-3 weeks (text book on loan from a teacher/Barrons), and got a 5 (yes, I know it’s a “soft” AP and NOTHING to write home about, but still…). I figured I might as well get as many AP tests in as possible, had no room in my schedule, and I genuinely was interested in some of the subject matter. In the end, I got 3 hours of elective credit I probably didn’t need, as I came in with 63 credit hours (59 AP credits and an additional 4 from a college class I took summer of junior year) and already had AP credit that fulfilled that particularly GE requirement… However, I did enjoy the material (it played into a couple of “hidden” passions of mine) and got a nice feeling of accomplishment from it. As to whether it helped admissions-wise, I can’t say… I didn’t apply to upper-tier schools but got lots and lots of merit money thrown at me from the ones I did apply at, which was my goal (and yet college still seems very expensive somehow ;)). I doubt it made that much of a difference, though who knows, really–it could have been the little push in my application’s favor that helped nudge it into the next pile…</p>
<p>I’m glad I did it, but I’d say only to do it if you enjoy the material and/or need the score/credit (major plan, AP Scholar qualification, etc.).</p>