AP Classes

This thread was a nice read, as I'm considering taking an AP class or two during my next and final year of high school. AP Psychology is a definite. I hope I'll at least get something out of it, you know?

You guys are lucky to have a school with actual AP certification in subjects. Next year will be the first year that AP classes, English 11 and 12, are offered. I will be the in the first AP English 12 class offered, and deeply regret the fact my parents did not look into schools/neighborhoods that had High Schools that offered these courses. However, the only way not taking AP will affect you is if you did not take the highest level course offered for that subject. I.e We are only offered "Honors" programs that are just accelerated classes, but colleges accept that as a similar to AP class without the credit.

AP classes are a great way to get college credit to lighten your class load in college. It also saves money too. If you take an AP, do it in something you're really interested. If you like the topic a lot, you're likely to get a 5 when it comes to the AP test. There are many courses to choose from. What subject do you like the most?

@ Bolded: I think you just simply overstretched what I said. What I meant was that you can take any # of AP's you want (as long you can handle it). The key point here is to get good grades in those courses (and good scores, preferably a 4 or 5).

Take as few or many as you want. However, taking (and completing) even as few as 1-2 AP by end of your junior year does make you stand a bit out in the admissions process. But taking your first APs senior year...that's a bit too late there son. =\

Little bit harsh there buddy. My school only offered senior classes for AP.

Just want to throw out another point as a current college student:

I see a lot of discussion revolving around taking only AP classes that "fit your fancy," we'll say. While this is ultimately the deciding factor of whether or not you pursue such interests, it's actually extremely beneficial to take as many APs as you can personally handle. See, colleges and universities have these things called "breadth requirements," which basically means the "basic classes across a wide range of subjects you must pass in order to graduate." Not only that, but many of these requirements focus on specific classes you must take to qualify you for a specific degree (B.A. or B.S.), and which are the classes generally known as "those you can pass out of with AP scores."

Examples from my personal experience: UW-Madison requires that I take Calculus 221 and 222 (Calc 1 and 2, aka through Taylor Series) in order to complete math requirements for my Medical Microbiology & Immunology Bachelors in Science degree. That's a full year of 10 credits-combined courses I would have to take...had I not passed out of both classes for earning a 5 on my BC Calc AP exam. I'll tell you right now I hated Calc for the majority of the year, as my teacher was very tough and it certainly wasn't my future career path. However, by the end of the course I found I loved the content, earned a great grade on the exam, passed out of a full year of required math courses, earned 10 credits, and now enjoy doing integration by parts and u-substitution problems for the fun of it (don't' ask).

While that's my most prominent personal example, others include the 5ish credits I earned and, again, basic social studies classes I passed out of by taking APUSH and AP Gov. Again, both studies of which I'm not pursuing a career in, but both classes in which I learned a lot, enjoyed the subject material (I do extensive work in politics now), and in the end got me 5/120 of the way closer to graduation (5 credits/120 needed to graduate), BEFORE starting my freshman year. I ultimately started college as a sophomore based on credits earned.

tl;dr: Regardless of whether you like the course or not, you'll most likely have to take it in college eventually. It's a huge benefit to take as many AP courses as you possibly can, whether you like them or not, because they allow you to pass out of these required courses AND give you credit that, in many cases, can chop off a whole semester or two of your college career, thus saving you thousands.

Little bit harsh there buddy. My school only offered senior classes for AP.

I'm going to be a bit honest with everyone here.

Taking AP classes - even if its just 1 or 2 classes in your junior yea, not going all-out - will boost your college profile significantly. With the exception of certain circumstances that cannot be avoided, taking these courses is strongly recommended if you want college admission officers to even seriously consider you for admissions. Taking your first AP's your senior year will be too late, because admission officers only view academics from sophomore to junior year; they will not look at your senior year academics that much (they only check there just to make sure that you're not slacking off)

Plus in the coming years, I'm predicting that APs will be a bigger factor in the academic portion of admissions than anything else. Why am I saying this? Starting next year, for example, (not this year, thankfully), for the class of 2012, the UC system is making SAT I and SAT II's optional. Yes, optional. (However, certain majors will require SAT II's). What does that mean though? More weight on academics. That translates to more importance in taking AP courses. I don't know what other colleges/universities will do in terms of their admission policies, but I can say with certainty that importance on academics will be the trend in the coming years. (P.S. Admissions officers will still look out for the other goodies, like extracirriculars, community service, etc. But they will look at academics first before they look at your other accomplishments)

However, that does NOT mean you shouldn't go and take full loads of AP's. Each person has different limits on how many APs they can handle. Take as many as you want, take as few as you want. But bring back good grades and good AP exam scores. That's the key thing here.

In my defense, my point is that taking APs during senior year may not have much of an effect compared to taking APs during junior year, as it won't be part of your main academic profile in your college applications. You can still get credit for passing the AP tests, but you may not stand out in the admissions process simply because you don't have AP courses listed in your sophomore and/or junior year transcript.

I'm not being harsh. I'm just telling the truth, especially regarding college admissions. Take this with a grain of salt if you wish.

P.S. APs also save a lot of money too. Would you prefer wasting a few hundred dollars on similar courses in college, or just dedicate your time and effort into AP courses during high school, and only pay $86?

I'm going to be a bit honest with everyone here.

Taking AP classes - even if its just 1 or 2 classes in your junior yea, not going all-out - will boost your college profile significantly. With the exception of certain circumstances that cannot be avoided, taking these courses is strongly recommended if you want college admission officers to even seriously consider you for admissions. Taking your first AP's your senior year will be too late, because admission officers only view academics from sophomore to junior year; they will not look at your senior year academics that much (they only check there just to make sure that you're not slacking off)

Plus in the coming years, I'm predicting that APs will be a bigger factor in the academic portion of admissions than anything else. Why am I saying this? Starting next year, for example, (not this year, thankfully), for the class of 2012, the UC system is making SAT I and SAT II's optional. Yes, optional. (However, certain majors will require SAT II's). What does that mean though? More weight on academics. That translates to more importance in taking AP courses. I don't know what other colleges/universities will do in terms of their admission policies, but I can say with certainty that importance on academics will be the trend in the coming years. (P.S. Admissions officers will still look out for the other goodies, like extracirriculars, community service, etc)

However, that does NOT mean you shouldn't go and take full loads of AP's. Each person has different limits on how many APs they can handle. Take as many as you want, take as few as you want. But bring back good grades and good AP exam scores. That's the key thing here.

In my defense, my point is that taking APs during senior year may not have much of an effect compared to taking APs during junior year, as it won't be part of your main academic profile in your college applications. You can still get credit for passing the AP tests, but you may not stand out in the admissions process simply because you don't have AP courses listed in your sophomore and/or junior year transcript.

I'm not being harsh. I'm just telling the truth, especially regarding college admissions. Take this with a grain of salt if you wish.

P.S. APs also save a lot of money too. Would you prefer wasting a few hundred dollars on similar courses in college, or just dedicate your time and effort into AP courses during high school, and only pay $86?

You are basing national standards on a California University? Also, why do you assume that every school is AP certified in all areas? AP certification is a rarity and not a good standard for benchmarks. College admissions depends on factors that range from academics to social life, and are not heavily weighted on AP. I would go so far to say it isn't, and I hate this word, fair to take an AP student from X high school that offers various APs instead of an Honors student from Y high school with none or just a few APs.

Objectively Speaking: I took five AP courses but I took them out of possible enjoyment: AP Bio, AP US History, AP Comparative Government, AP US Government, and AP Language and Literature. I scored a 4 on all my exams except for AP Language and Literature which I got a 3. I got an A in all my AP classes. I applied to Rutgers State which isn't selective at all and got accepted. I applied to Yale and got an interview but was rejected. I applied to Georgetown and got an interview but was rejected. I applied to Franklin and Marshall and got accepted. I applied to Allegheny and got accepted. I applied to William and Mary and got wait listed until late May until I was finally rejected. I ended up attending Rutgers as I was offered $60,000 in combined scholarship. The scholarships were based on my GPA and SAT scores. Not on AP tests or SAT II test scores. My AP classes counted towards my cultural requirements so I wouldn't have to take Caribbean Studies or African Arts. It would have raised my GPA if I didn't AP out of those classes, but I would probably hate myself for taking such stupid general education requirements.

Subjectively Speaking: I'm in my third year of college with a bio-based major with emphasis on genetic engineering. I had the option to skip Bio 101-102 but I decided not to, because I wanted to see what college biology would be like. It ended up being really easy because I knew a lot of the material and was able to raise my GPA. My friend who AP'd out of General Chemistry and General Biology took Organic Chemistry and unfortunately failed it. The course material was too hard on him, as he was only a freshman and he became so depressed that he left school for a whole year and came back later. His AP credits ended up screwing him over. I don't know why everyone is insinuating that taking AP courses in high school will correlate with job success and landing a high figure job. In the context of your SAT and GPA, AP tests are secondary. It is important to show that you like to challenge yourself, but not at the cost of screwing yourself over like Captain Ahab. AP classes should be taken if they seem interesting to you and might give you a "sneak-peek" into college course work. Depending on your teacher they are not that hard. It is better to prepare yourself a little in high school. But it really doesn't make a drastic difference when it comes to college and even less when it comes to the real world. I saw a proverb being thrown out so I'll throw in one of mine: Does it matter in the short term? Maybe. In the long term? Not really. It might matter to you that you went to a high profile school like Georgetown and paid massive money to get a stellar education, but all I wanted was to work in a lab, get my hands dirty, and learn some science. That's about it. You can't fathom the amount of pretentious bastards that feel an obligation to reference their school any chance they get. But who knows, I might have been the same way if I got accepted to Yale or Georgetown.

Why I Contributed: Seems to be an awful load of speculation with a twinge of hypocrisy.

Anyway, that's my crappy lump of advice from someone who couldn't make it into the Ivies. Take it with a large grain of salt.

You are basing national standards on a California University?

I did not say that I'm basing national standards on the UC system. I'm simply stating that academics will be a bigger factor in admissions in the coming years, disregarding the UC admissions policy change.

College admissions depends on factors that range from academics to social life, and are not heavily weighted on AP.

Care to reread my post? I didn't say that the admissions process will be focusing 100% on academics...

I would go so far to say it isn't, and I hate this word, fair to take an AP student from X high school that offers various APs instead of an Honors student from Y high school with none or just a few APs.

If you're going to apply to a good school, better have some APs in your arsenal. Also, I did mention that you don't have to take tons of APs to look "good"; take as many as you can handle, whether its a few or a lot, just bring back good grades and outstanding AP exam scores. Admission officers don't like to see people who go all-out on APs and epic phailled on it.

I'm done arguing. Lets get back on track

[COLOR="Magenta"]I wish we could stop the arguing and mud-flinging. The guy got his questions answered, there's no need for you to continue shoving your ideals against someone.

If it's really so difficult, research for youself:
http://homeworktips.about.com/od/makingt...ourses.htm
http://greatcollegeadvice.com/how-good-a...th-taking/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...01238.html
http://collegejolt.com/?p=11246


Just a few websites I googled.[/COLOR]