I am currently a sophomore taking 1 AP course, AP World History (as this is the only course offered at my school during sophomore year). I was wondering if it was possible to take 7 AP courses in my junior (whether my physical and mental health can keep up). The courses I’ll be taking: AP Calc BC, AP English Lang, AP Physics 1 & 2, AP Chem, and AP Micro and Macroeconomics. Should there be any adjustments? Btw I’m in a fairly competitive private school (average GPA is 3.6+). Please give me some advice, thanks.
I’m also planning to take take 7-8 AP courses senior year, including AP Politics (US and international), AP Physics C, AP Bio, AP Lit, AP Compsci A, AP Psychology, and possibly Calc III (online since no colleges near me offers it).
It all depends upon your academic standard, time management, extracurriculars, family obligations, work obligations, rigor and demand of curriculum/teachers/school and personal physical/mental stamina.
It’s is a very heavy load but not impossible to manage if you don’t have too much on your plate and school courses aren’t too challenging and time consuming. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend it. As far as just passing AP exams, that shouldn’t be a problem, maintaining workload/grades of 7 intensive AP classes can be tough.
Unless you have a very high GPA already, I would not attempt this. If you have to give up fall ECs in order to do well, that won’t help your college applications much.
We have seen a lot of threads this year on CC from seniors who feel like they’re in over their head and now want to drop classes. The problem is their acceptances can be revoked or reconsidered if they don’t do the proper notifications and get the right permissions. Is it worth possibly finding yourself in that position?
AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, and AP Bio? You’re asking for trouble. My son (who is a senior) is currently taking AP Physics 1&2 (which is supposed to be easier than Physics C). There were 7 Juniors in his class at the start of the year. By the time people started putting out the Halloween decorations, there was one left.
Colleges will not be impressed with you taking that many AP classes. Having good HS course rigor is important, but if you cannot guarantee that you will get all A’s in those classes, you are wasting your time. You should be developing a well balanced class schedule with sufficient course rigor, but you also will need to show schools you are not an academic drone. EC’s will be important and with 7 AP classes, you will have no time to do anything except study.
Find out from your counselor how many AP’s will be considered rigorous for your school and stick to no more than 4-5 Junior and Senior year.
Read How To Be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport. Taking the most APs is not the key to college admissions success. Shoot for interested and interesting - that is catnip to colleges.
Thoughts - you’re probably at a Cali HS. Your 11th grade listing is actually only 5 APs at a time, not 7, since 4 of the ones listed are one semester. I think it’s ok to take the “standard” courses as APs if you can handle it.
11th - Calc BC, Chem, Eng Lang, APUSH, Physics 1 (first sem, if a prerequisite is needed for Physics C)
12th - Physics C, Eng Lit, CompSci A
Then fill in as need be with electives. You probably need US Govt. You don’t need Physics 2 if you are taking Physics C. I don’t recommend taking Bio and Physics at the same time.
It depends. My D did 7 each of junior and senior years and did very well. She also had a job and her ECs. But she isn’t the norm and when multiple projects and papers are due at the same, it can be tough. Know what you can handle and still excel.
If I am reading this correctly, you are talking about the following 5 APs per semester?
Semester 1: AP Calc BC, AP English Lang, AP Physics 1, AP Chem, and AP Micro
Semester 2: AP Calc BC, AP English Lang, AP Physics 2, AP Chem, and AP Macro
AP Calc BC can be very time consuming as are lab-based AP Sciences. I agree with @ProfessorPlum168 that it might be wise to hold off on Physics until your senior year. With Calc BC under your belt, you might be eligible to go straight into Physics C as a senior, but check your school’s requirements for prerequisites.
Stupid, not impossible.
Seems like an important consideration is why you want to take so many APs and what is guiding your choice. I think you’d get better advice if you articulated that.
If you are at a higher end private school, I would be surprised that you GC would even let you. At my DS school, they would say no.
i’m currently taking 5 and only one of them is homework heavy, and it’s still difficult to handle especially on test heavy weeks.
econ, bc, chem, and physics are all pretty tough classes (is your school pretty competitive?). don’t feel pressured to take every ap possible. spend your time deeply pursing your interests!!!
As someone mentioned, some of those are half semester classes, in which case it could be fine. Also your motivation for doing so is important. Do you want to? Are the topics ones that will help you in the long run?
In terms of managing time, the extent to which the classes take a lot of time or not is highly dependent upon the student’s background, interests, etc. That’s also true about which courses are “a lot of work” or are time consuming.
Example
My STEM oriented son and his friends, against the advice of each of their GCs, all decided to take AP Eng lit. I don’t know how it happened but they put them all in the same class. It was that class rather than the STEM classes they viewed as both difficult and very time consuming. So much so that they drove the poor teacher to an early retirement.
It’s true. She liked the group of kids in the class and they were respectful and engaged, but the chances of even a single one of the highly academic kids successfully doing a “slow read” on or “viewing the world from the perspective of a” Bronte character…well it just wasn’t going to happen. And by “slow read” I don’t think the teacher was referring to the fact that none could get through the first paragraph of the novel even if given an entire month to do so.
Many had opted out of the history oriented APs which made complete sense for them since there were other stronger non-AP history classes offered by their school. But really, the decision to take AP lit had a lasting impact. The students… ok, well not to them. They went to college etc. But to me. We live in a small kind of isolated village. And when I see the teacher in the aisle I"m heading to in the supermarket…I have to duck out. And that is too high a price to pay for the choice of taking a class for the sake of “you’re supposed to”. I’m just saying.
Take what makes sense for you.
My D signed up for 6 her senior year. Her counselor and I both thought it was crazy but agreed to allow it (She has an internship and a job as well). Turns out there was a scheduling conflict, so she could only take 5, plus two non AP classes. She somehow pulled off a 4.7 GPA this past semester, but it was not without many stressful, sleep deprived nights. An acquaintance pointed out that it would be crazy for a college student to take 6 classes at once, so why would you let your high schooler do it? I didn’t care for her comment back then, but in retrospect, I kind of agree with her now. Good luck!
When I went to high school, there were only 7 AP courses total offered, and 3 of them were foreign languages (so it was unlikely that any student would take more than one of these).
This looks like a relatively heavy load, since there are no obvious “light” APs (where a whole year is taken for what is usually a not-very-difficult semester course in college, like statistics, psychology, or environmental science), although not all colleges will give a full year of subject credit for all of the above.
I wouldn’t take AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, AND AP Chem together the same year.
Sorry but definitely a big fat NO! You will overwork yourself so hard that your GPA can’t even keep up. AP Econ isn’t bad and neither is English but sometimes it’s a little tiring with the essays. But math and science are a little different on the other hand. BC Calc…One of the worst enemy against your GPA along with Physics 2 and AP Chem which are VERY time-consuming. If worst comes to worst, Take English, Econ, Physics 1 and BC. It will still be heavy but a lot easier as Physics 1 isn’t too overly difficult if you put forth the effort. This would save the 2 GPA bombardment for your senior year.
Take 3 APs, and the rest Honors. Seriously. There are only so many hours in a day and going from 1 (easier) AP to 3 (hard/core) APs is already going to be a bit of an adjustment (understatement).