I’m in 9th grade right now and I was planning on taking quite a few AP courses during the rest of my high school years. The problem is that all the courses I find are super expensive. I’ve heard people say that FLVS is cheaper than others, but then I read it’s $400 for just ONE semester. That’s crazy to me, and we don’t have the money to pay for that. Does anyone know of good courses that are cheaper?
@fryedchikken , are you in a state that has a free virtual public school? FLVS, for example, is free (I believe) for Florida residents. Is there something similar in your state?
@fryedchikken What AP courses are you looking for? I know many. Noah Nation is offering an AP European History course by AP readers for $550. I’ll be taking that. UCscout has courses that (depending on what plan you choose) are $169 or $299 per semester.
You can self study. There is no law that says it must be an AP course - not even College Board requires that. Find out the textbooks commonly used and try to find them - esp if you can get a Teacher’s Edition - then put the work in and self study. Google is obviously your friend as can be Kahn Academy. Use test prep books to be sure you don’t have any gaps.
Then locate places that will allow you to take the test. We’ve had good luck with a local Catholic high school, but sometimes even local public schools will allow homeschoolers once they’re reminded that your parents are local taxpayers. There is a cost to the test (of course), but nowhere near the cost of a course.
My lad did just fine self studying - getting 5s on his tests. It all depends upon the work you are willing to put in.
The nice additional pro to this is you learn how to study/learn independently often making the transition to college go well.
@creekland Did you or your learner self-study AP Chemistry at all?
Not Chem, no. In hindsight, I wish we had as that was the only course he felt a little behind his peers in at college. He still got As in his courses. He just had to put more work into it to catch up.
He did Stats, Psych, Calc, & Bio - the latter two without actually taking the test due to being pre-med and wanting to retake those courses at college. As per practice tests with those he’d have done just fine - which means he was well prepared for his college courses - great foundation.
We chose DE for English and Microbio. Neither of those As gave him credit at the college he chose, but again, they were great learning experiences. (At my oldest son’s college the English class did transfer.)
All AP test scores were given college credit.