hello! i currently take 4 honors and 3 advanced classes at school. next year, i want to take 4 AP classes and 2 honors. is that too much of a jump? i’m pretty much a straight a student and on my PSAT report i had 100% potential for every AP listed, if that helps. the APs would be stat, bio, spanish language, and english language. the honors are physics and pre-calculus. i’m a math science person. if i were to drop anything i would drop AP Spanish and go to honors spanish. thank you!
The difference between an honors class and an AP class is significant. There will be a lot of work to do and taking 4 at the same time is a lot. But it’s hard to say if you should or shouldn’t do it. I guess it would depend a lot on how you handle stress? Do you like doing school work and does your schedule permit you to take on that much. You say you are a math/science person but the AP lit in itself is a very heavy load. You will be reading and writing all the time so I recommend you only take that class if you enjoy doing that.
@amy989 The differences between AP and honors really depends on the school and courses. My two honors courses are significantly more challerging than my AP course.
I don’t think it would be impossible. How many AP’s do high-achieving kids usually take junior year at your school? If you are going the common route, you should be okay. However, why are you taking AP Stats and honors pre-calc? AP Stats is generally considered a fluff class, unless you genuinely interested in it dropping it for an easier course or study hall would probably benefit you. Also, why are you taking two science classes? Do you need lab periods for both of them? If you have already taken some form of chemistry, I’d just take AP Bio or honors physics next year and take the other senior year. If you plan on keeping AP Stats and both of the sciences, I would at least drop down to honors Spanish, to ease your course load a little bit.
@LeopardFire You are probably right. I’m just relating what my own kids have told me when they compared their high school’s honor courses to the AP courses. Honors was always an easy A whereas there was nothing easy about the AP classes.
I went from 0 APs (and three honors) to 4 APs (and one honors class) this year, and I didn’t find it too difficult. My school’s honors classes vary far more in difficulty than my school’s AP classes do, so I didn’t necessarily have a hard schedule last year (one of my honors classes was absolute BS, and another was only difficult because half of our points came from organization). I think you’ll be fine next year. However, you should talk to other people at your school who have taken similar courses.