<p>I have a question pertaining to admissions...</p>
<p>Typically, AP Chemistry is deemed the "hardest class" in my school, while AP Biology isn't as significantly hard. (Next in line would be A.P. U.S. and then AP Physics)</p>
<p>I've seen other threads where students say such things like AP Biology is the hardest class at their school and AP Chem isn't as bad. So, I was wondering, do colleges weight "hardness" of an AP class the same throughout every school?</p>
<p>It got me wondering because my brother took APUSH as a sophmore and got an A+, but he isn't the brightest student. On the other hand, it is only offered as a Junior class in my school and is the "second most hardest" class.</p>
<p>That being said, I'm deicing between AP Chem or AP Bio for senior year next year. I did the highest level sciences my freshman and sophomore year, but did level 2 physics this year, so I kind of want to recompense by taking AP Chem, since it is the hardest class and thus I believe it will look better for college.</p>
<p>I know, it's a really dumb philosophy. I really need opinions.</p>
<p>Unless, for some reason, your GC would not check the “Most Rigorous Courses Taken” (or whatever words they use) box in the GC recommendation, I doubt it will make any meaningful difference in college admissions which of these courses you are taking.</p>
<p>To the colleges, AP is AP. They know that the degree of difficulty varies from school to school and for different students. They don’t take the time or effort to figure out for each situation what would be the “harder” AP. The phrase “easy AP” is an oxymoron, as many students who earned 1s and 2s have found out.</p>
<p>Do what you like best, are most interest in, or have the best background in.</p>
<p>AP Chemistry is usually an all around harder AP… deeper content and less rote memorization. However, you should take whichever one you’re more interested or more likely to major in. If you just take the harder class, you’ll miss out on you’re interest and you probably wont do as well if you’re not interested</p>
<p>Take whichever class you are more interested in!</p>
<p>But regardless…
I got the same grade in the two courses, but I would say that AP Chemistry is markedly harder, with a much wider array of material, plus the material is more challenging.</p>
<p>You should choose whichever course you find to be more interesting or could possibly be what you’re thinking of majoring in. I guarantee that there are no colleges that compare the difficulty between AP Chem vs AP Bio and weight one more heavily than the other. In this case it really will make no difference in the strength of your application.</p>
<p>I will say however that there are a few APs that colleges recognize as being easier such as AP Physics B vs C, AP Calc AB vs BC, etc. And there are APs which colleges would generally deem slightly more relevant or ‘core’ than others e.g. AP Env Sci vs other AP sciences, AP Stats vs AP Calc, etc.</p>
<p>Certain courses are more difficult in different schools, and certain subjects come easier to various people. At my school, AP bio is definitely the more difficult class which is most noticeably seen in the grades of students that take the class. I personally ended up with a 94 in AP bio and a 98 in AP chem.</p>
<p>In this case, just choose the class you actually want to take. Don’t revolve your schedule based on what you think adcoms might like most. And in this case it would make zero difference between the two.</p>