<p>I'm currently in 8th grade and I'll be going to high school next year. I'm in gifted classes, so naturally I'll be placed in Honors Bio. However, I really like science and I plan on majoring in biochemistry when I attend college. In 7th grade, I took accelerated gifted life science, which is kind of like biology, and I did very well in it. Right now, I'm taking physics and a little bit of chemistry. I was thinking about buying a biology book just to review and get the basic concepts over the summer before taking AP Bio in high school. Do you think taking AP Bio would be a good idea, or should I just stick with honors?</p>
<p>Read this and judge for yourself:</p>
<p><a href=“Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board;
<p>Personally I think that is a bad idea. At my high school you can’t even take AP bio without already having taken bio (and most of the people who take AP bio took honors bio). AP bio is not known for being particularly easy and it is too much for a freshman. If you really want to take an AP take an easier one like psych.</p>
<p>Sounds like a potential disaster, but you’re probably smarter than me.
If you think you can do it, go for it, but I wouldn’t.</p>
<p>ditto. stick with honors</p>
<p>Are you serious? Get off of this website and come back your junior year. (which is probably when you should even consider AP Bio)</p>
<p>Not trying to sound rash, but honestly your interests will change. Don’t get ahead of yourself. <---- Best advice I’ve ever received from this website.</p>
<p>Unlike some others here, I actually think this is somewhat plausible (I’ve known some pretty smart kids, lol). You’re the best judge of your abilities. A few questions: 1) How good is your memory, and how fast can you read/absorb info? Very very important for AP bio. 2) How is your overall course load for next year? Keep in mind, this will be your freshman year so you don’t want to get burnt out and you do want to enjoy you first exposure to high school. If you’re trying out difficult courses in other areas, you might want to stay at honors. 3) What will your high school be like? It helps if many of your current friends will go there, that way you can concentrate on your classes instead of dealing with teenage drama all the time.</p>
<p>If you do go for it, definitely learn as much as you can over the summer. Stay motivated, it will help you during the first part of the year. It’ll be hard, not gonna lie. HARD 
Also, be prepared to be in classes with many juniors/seniors who may ignore you most of the year. Anyway, good luck with whatever you end up doing!</p>
<p>My D15 took AP Bio as a freshman. Her school had a combined class where they took GT Bio in first period and AP Bio second period. It was a small class of 13 freshman, so they got a lot of attention from the teacher. All of the kids did very well. Her school did the same thing with the 9th grade Government class (combined GT/AP). Only the top students were invited to take those classes.</p>
<p>I would think it would be very difficult to skip 9th grade biology and go right into AP Bio though.</p>
<p>You’re going to need more than just the basic concepts. While it is probably possible to do, I wouldn’t recommend taking AP Biology during freshman year. If you do, you’ll need to do a lot of studying over the summer. And if you do, you won’t be able to take another AP during the same year. Why don’t you take an easier AP course that you’re interested in and save AP Biology for sophomore year?</p>
<p>I strongly recommend you take AP. You’ve got the skills.
Don’t get left in the dust, since I know very competitive kids who all have taken AP science classes in 9th grade, and if you want to keep up with your true competitors, you should do the same. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>honestly, if I were you I would stick with either biology honors or AP physics or AP chem. I made the mistake of taking AP bio last year as a freshman and ended with a B, my only B last year and hopefully my last B for the rest of my life. It was a very tough class, the multiple choice tests were extremely specific, likely to a level you will not be used to. There are a lot of time-consuming and very stressful labs.</p>
<p>“I made the mistake of taking AP bio last year as a freshman and ended with a B, my only B last year and hopefully my last B for the rest of my life.”</p>
<p>For God’s sake, the experience wasn’t that bad. I don’t expect you’ll get a 4.0 in college unless you go to a school with a ton of grade inflation. </p>
<p>@ OP: I don’t think it’s a great idea to say you “plan on majoring” in anything at this point. Most people change their major several times in college.</p>
<p>As far as AP Bio, I would suggest talking to your current life science teacher and asking what they think of your plan. They could give you some tips on what to study to be prepared, or advise you against it if they think it would be a horrible idea. None of us on here know anything about the difficulty level of your school, or how much you really learned about biology this year.</p>
<p>You will probably die without a knowledge of basic biology. AP Bio is the hardest class I’ve ever taken, and I aced regular bio (we don’t have honors). First B I ever got.</p>
<p>You should totally do it. I took AP Bio freshman year (without a real knowledge of biology) and got a 5. I think it was a great idea because I had more time freshman year and was only taking AP Bio and AP Physics B. In other years I was a lot busier and wouldn’t have been able to put the same amount of time into AP Bio as I could my freshman year.</p>
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<p>this is not a good attitude to promote to a freshman on CC… you should find the courseload that is comfortable for you, as cliche as that sounds. I wish I discovered that before senior year</p>
<p>OP, if your school allows it, you may be able to try it and drop down to honors later if it’s a problem.</p>
<p>“this is not a good attitude to promote to a freshman on CC”</p>
<p>The OP is in high school. Freshman year matters for college, though probably not as much as later years. Many desirable colleges are very competitive and taking advanced classes when offered is pretty much required for admission - though you certainly don’t need to have taken AP Bio as a freshman to be a competitive applicant.</p>
<p>OP - if you will ultimately have no other options besides your high school classes, there’s no point in exhausting them early. If you’re not trying to take more advanced dual-enrollment biology courses, there’s no real reason to take AP Bio freshman year rather than later as long as you take it eventually. When you’re deciding whether or not to take AP Bio, think about what you’re planning on taking your sophomore/junior/senior years.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! I don’t plan on changing my mind about my major and future since I’ve known what I’ve wanted to be for a while now. I’m skipping a grade in math, and I think taking both would be very hectic, so I think I’ll just stick with regular biology. Thanks for all the advice though!</p>
<p>If you’re very confident, go ahead… but I wouldn’t take it. </p>
<p>I took regular Bio as a freshman and found it very difficult (I had an incredibly difficult teacher though), I got an A- first semester and B+ (89.3% !) second
this year I’m taking AP chem and I find that it is much easier than regular bio for some reason</p>
<p>Anyway, if you feel VERY confident, take it, otherwise, just take honors bio (I don’t think it is a good idea to take ap bio) </p>
<p>here a link to the college board ap bio course description
<a href=“Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board; </p>
<p>it includes sample problems so you could try them out and see how difficult they are</p>
<p>AP Biology is a joke.</p>
<p>I took it without taking Honors Biology or any sort of biology class before it and got a 5 on the AP along with a 790 on the SAT II.</p>
<p>It’s the easiest AP Science of Physics C, Chem, and Bio</p>
<p>^
EASIER than Ap chem???</p>
<p>You have to be joking</p>
<p>AP Chem is a joke, I can’t imagine that ap bio is easier… I found REGULAR bio like ten times harder than ap chem…</p>