I am currently a sophomore who’s about to choose his classes for next year. I can take two AP science courses for junior year. I plan to take AP physics and either AP Bio or Chem. If I choose to take the Bio course next year, I have to wait until senior year to take AP chem. This may be a problem because I will not be able to take the AP test before being accepted into a college, and chem is kind of necessary if I want to become a bio major.
The other option is to take AP chem in school and self-study Bio and take the AP test this/next year, and take the actual school bio course in senior year. I think that this might be the better option since I already have a decent understanding of bio (read almost the whole Campbell textbook on my own) and already do multiply bio events in Science Olympiad and I am pretty sure that I can get at least a 4. However, I’m not sure how colleges will think if I didn’t take a school course before taking the AP exam for bio, especially since I want to focus on bio when I go to college.
So, one choice is to take AP bio in school next year and wait for senior year to take AP Chem and risk looking bad while applying for colleges since I will not have taken the AP exam. My other choice is to take the AP Bio exam first, then take the course in-school in my senior year. Which one do you think would be better?