I just finished 8th grade and took the high school biology course. I have a strong interest in biology and I’m in all gifted classes. I was wondering should I take ap bio as a freshman?
Without knowing what your HS graduation requirements are or what they have as prereqs for certain courses, you should get chem out of the way first. Then the following year,you can look to double up on physics and AP Bio as long as you can double up without dropping another core subject.
My rising Freshman twins will both be taking AP Bio. In our district, 9th grade science is biology…regular, Pre AP or AP. They both excel in science and as 8th graders were in the highest honors middle school science class and coasted through with high A’s so they felt they were up to the challenge. Our district has a 3 week assessment after the start of the semester and if you don’t meet a certain grade on the progress report or want to level down you can at that point. All incoming Freshman who have selected AP Bio have summer homework and reading assignments to get them prepared prior to the start of the new year
@Joel0926 @Momof3B Although Biology is mostly memorization, it’s extremely heavy memorization. For some light reading, do the site search
“AP Biology” “rescinded” site:talk.collegeconfidential.com
These are students that took AP Biology as seniors and are panicking because they are worried their acceptances will be rescinded because of a low AP Biology grade. These students are actually the lucky ones because they got accepted somewhere already. The students that got "C"s in AP Bio as sophomores or juniors most likely had to lower their expectations. Khan Academy has AP Biology practice: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology
My friend took AP Bio as a freshman and got an a in the class, though she did take a summer course beforehand to help prepare her for it.
I agree with skieurope… my oldest had a strong middle school bio program so she skipped the 9th grade bio and took chemistry in 9th and then AP Bio in 10th. A couple of other kids in AP Bio hadn’t had chem first and struggled at first with some of the material.
Some high schools do require Chemistry as an AP Biology prerequisite. And it’s probably not the best AP to start out with, but that’s my opinion.
Our high school won’t let you take it without taking honors biology first.
Why be in a rush?
Take Honors Chem as a sophomore…AP Bio will be there for you
I’d suggest getting through the intro Bio/Chem/Physics courses to allow you to decide which you want to pursue further.