AP Classes

[COLOR="Magenta"]Goals, don't let these guys push you around. I'm proud of you for even considering to take one or two.
If I'm kind of analyzing correctly, your best bet would be one or two AP classes. You don't want to be gnawing at your nails at the amount of stress these classes cause. Trust me. I took five this year. I want to die.

In answering your questions, not you do not HAVE to take AP classes for college. While they're "recommended" and "good-for-you" sort of thing, I know students who have been accepted into the UC system with no AP classes on their transcripts.

Overachieving is a little bit of an overstatement in my opinion. While I like to have fun learning and gaining knowledge, I wouldn't call it overachieving. Actually I feel like brown-nosing teachers is overachieving. Try not to focus so much on the whole "achieving" part of it and more so on the, "what do I have to do to get here."

When you apply for UC make sure you have a KILLER essay, make EVERYBODY read it. UC also loves to see community work,
remember,

ITS NOT JUST ACADEMICS ANYMORE

its community service, and any outside-of-school impact you make in the world. Don't be afraid to go out during the summer and clean up some highways, or help in the soup kitchen. You'll feel good about yourself, and it will certainly make you stand out from the usual book worm students. Its shows you aren't afraid to go out there and get a little dirty to make a difference.

Also,
Its OK if you don't know your major yet, or what you want to do in life. Seriously, its A-OK. In fact my cousin, put undecided on her application for University of San Fransisco, and she was accepted. If you ask me, that's huge.


Just keep it easy, and remember its your SENIOR YEAR, your last year you must enjoy it! I wasn't able to enjoy my senior year and I deeply regret it.
Taking one AP Class just to "test the waters" is a great idea for you, and I suggest you take it. Also, don't be afraid to go up to your counseling office and bother them for local scholarships.

Local scholarships are your best bet for money, as well as national ones. I can tell you from personal experience, that scholarships truly make the difference in regards to paying for college. Even if its just $100 or $200 there, it REALLY helps.


Sorry if this seems a little rushed, I'm super tired and really wanted to tell you as much as I could as quickly as I could lol @_@[/COLOR]

I'm really glad someone is on my side about this. While I did say I hate "school" but I love learning!! I learned tons this year because it was a laid-back year. I even enjoyed preparing for the SATs by taking a six-week course. That was about the only extra effort I spent outside of my LOL 0-30 minutes of daily homework. I can't fully agree with you on Community Service, though. It's hard to find someone I care about. @.@ But again its due to personal issues. I would love to help kids on the autism spectrum though (no oppurtunities). Go figure why. :S

Thank you very much for the encouragement!

Heya Keith ;]

You're still way too young to know what you want in the future. Don't worry too much about it and focus on graduating. I never took any AP Classes but I did finish my IB Diploma. In many ways I regretted it because of all the time I invested and it didn't pay off as much as it would have if I just did regular classes. It was a great experience so I'm glad I took part in it but grades/scholarship wise it wasn't the best of choices. (I didn't have weighting just because the classes are a little harder than regular, and the same goes for my friends that did AP) Don't even get me started on Theory of Knowledge, some 4k+ word Extended Essay, and 200 Creative, Action and Service hours.....

The content you learn in AP classes does help with college but what's more important is your work ethic. As long as you have that, you'll do just fine AP or otherwise and I guess all the people with good work ethic take AP. I really don't recommend you use your AP classes as credit for 1st year classes because the transition is rough for some people and I heard lots of stories about people who did skip 1st year classes and bombed the 2nd year classes.

OMG hey Kevo!

I guess I don't have work ethic necessary for AP classes. Work and learning should be done in class only, not at home. It's weird for me to even spend more than an hour on homework daily lol. Ty also for being encouraging, Kevo. Seems like you're always there for that purpose. F3