I’m kind of stuck on deciding what to take. Can someone please give me some advice and suggestions on the following AP courses:
Feel free to share some of your experiences with these classes (difficulty, exam scores, interests, etc.)
I would definitely taken APUSH, AP English, and AP Calc AB. How many courses are you able to take and what have you already taken?
Definitely take APUSH and AP English (not sure which one you’re talking about, but I prefer Lang over Lit). I really enjoyed AP Gov, and if you know the content,the test will be a breeze. I can’t speak for the other courses but I do know that I would’ve taken AP Stats if I had the chance
Since APs transfer into college credits at many places, you want to take classes that you not only are interested in but also in subjects that you may not enjoy as well. Let me put it this way: if a certain college requires only one English and you are set on STEM, and if the class has a good/easy teacher, it might benefit you to take AP English. That way, if the credit transfers, you’ll never have to take another English again. And that makes Mr/Ms STEM Major who wants to go into scientific research very happy.
As for my experiences:
AP Macroeconomics: not offered
APUSH: very content driven class but have to still make connections between people, places, and events, teacher was very good, lot of my class got 5s
AP English: teacher didn’t teach much but don’t really learn much in the class, it’s harder than I thought it was going to be, very few 5s
AP Calc AB: I found it easier than Precalc, but I’m math-oriented, basically need to know like 2 or 3 concepts to pass the exam, very high pass rate
AP Stats: have not taken but plan to next year, not as math-geared as you might think
AP Gov: much less content driven than APUSH, more analytical and in-depth, I thought it was interesting, pretty good teacher
Good luck!
-AP Macroeconomics: I’ve taken this and AP Microecon over the summer. Macro is a lot easier for many people because it focuses on economy as a whole on a global scale, while Micro takes consideration into individuals and corporation interactions. Both subjects involved a lot of graphs and important vocab words that you need to know in order to apply it to other concepts in the subject. As for the course difficulty, I personally found it hard only because I was taking it on APEX, and they squeezed a whole year’s worth of work into 6-8 weeks. The tests and quizzes itself wasn’t that hard if you actually studied though.
-AP US History: I’ve also taken this class, and quite frankly, it was the worst class ever. Both the subject and my teacher made the class largely unappealing. I’m not a big fan of reading and memorizing dates, acts/policies, and people in the first place, so I had a hard time on the FRQ’s and tests in the beginning. If history is one of your worst subjects and/or you have a dislike for history, I wouldn’t recommend taking this class. It was very time consuming for me as my teacher would assign multiple pages a day for us to read, and we’d have quizzes every week and 2-3 unit tests combined every 2 weeks. The tests were also a bit too intense for me, as I had to read quotes and passages from historical figures and kind of “dig” into what it meant to accurately answer the questions. My tests also had sections where you needed to match specific dates to people and historical acts, and vice versa. Most of your time spent in APUSH will probably be lectures. This class is very, very different from AP World History. APUSH goes a lot more into depth.
-AP English: If you’re talking about AP Lang, which most take their junior year, it’s not difficult if you pay attention and like reading. My class began reading books the second week of school, so it was kind of intense. My teacher also focused a lot on rhetorical devices and grammar, which you need to be able to know to take the exam in May. I feel like the AP exam was actually quite similar to the SAT reading section, personally. I think it’s a good class to prepare you for the SAT as well.
If you need a general guideline, I think what AP classes you want to take reflect on your past experiences in those subjects and/or your interest in those subjects. For me, I knew I wouldn’t take AP Government because I simply didn’t like APUSH and history in general. Remember, choose classes that YOU want to take. Don’t just do it for colleges or to impress your friends and other people. It does look better if you get good grades even if you take a few AP classes, than to get straight C’s by taking 4-5 AP classes. Good luck!
What are you interested in? For example if you play to pursue a STEM field, I’d definitely take AP Calc.
I would focus on the AP’s that match your interest and what you want to study. Also talk with others to see who the teachers are. If there is a teacher in an area you do not like, it can be much for difficult. One other possibility, if you know what colleges you might want to apply to, you can look online to see what they would give you credit for with a certain score. The most competitive schools give very little credit, state schools and others may give credit for AP Govt for example, but not APUSH. You would need to research.