My daughter was offered AP US history by her school but she doesn’t want yo take? Will that put her at a disadvantage while applying for colleges?
Generally speaking, yes. Course rigor plays a part in many college’s application process. Taking the highest level courses offered is what top tier colleges want to see. However, if your daughter is not planning on applying to top tier colleges, I am sure she will be fine by taking the other history course.
Agreed.
Thanks for your response. She is planning on doubling up her science this year taking AP bio and chem hons. and so she thinks that AP US history would be way too much stress to deal with. And, moreover she says she is not interested in History and doesn’t wish to pursue history in college. What do you think of her decision?
It really depends on the context of her entire schedule, and what is offered by her school, as well as the tier of colleges to which she will apply If the school offers 5 AP’s and she takes one, that will be viewed by colleges differently than in the school offers 30 AP’s and she takes one. No college is going to expect that an applicant will take every single AP course offered by her school.
This is solely my opinion. That reason works for me as a reason not to take AP European History, as an example. It does not work as a reason not to take AP US History. My rationale: assuming your daughter is attending an American HS, USH is a graduation requirement in all likelihood, so she has to take it at some level. If I were an AO, I would want to see that she pushed herself in this area. Now, if she is applying to top tier colleges, and her schedule already has 4 AP’s in core courses (i.e. not AP lite courses like Human Geography), she could get away with not taking APUSH.
At the end of the day, however, it would be important that your D’s schedule meets her GC’s standard of “most rigorous,” as s/he will need to check that box on the secondary school report sent to colleges.
Thank you @Skieurope. Her schedule is she is currently in sophomore year and she takes Geometry hons, English hons, US history hons, Bio hons and French hons. Her school doesn’t offer AP courses in freshmen and sophomore years. Its only at junior year and senior year. And, they don’t encourage any student from taking more than 3 APs. in a year. She plans on doubling up her sciences by taking AP Bio in junior year along with Chemistry hons. And, then in Senior year plans to take AP physics and AP calculus or AP French depending on her eligibility at that time.
I am very anxious to know if she is doing the right thing or not by not taking APUSH since she plans on taking up AP biology.
AP history is an easy class.
OP - It is also to consider your Ds target schools. Top elite’s like a well-rounded app, so they like to see a STEM kid with literature or history stats as well as the science & math. However, if your D is looking at large state schools, it will not matter.
APUSH does help essay writing skill. The students need to read a lot and write a lot. My D’s school also offers it for sophomore and it is typically the first AP course. I think taking APUSH in sophomore is more useful than double up in science unless you have other AP class already. Since your daughter will be in junior and there is a limit in AP due o school policy, it would be up to her to decide. She should ask her GC to see her schedule is consider rigor or not. Most important, don’t overwhelm with AP that it makes your GPA suffer.
@mayavishnu - I’d be careful about considering the fact that “the school doesn’t encourage more than 3 AP’s.” Whether or not that advice is applicable depends on what type of student she is. That advice is relevant to maybe 80% of the graduating class, but students in the top 10%-15% are definitely fine taking more. My GC freaked out when I signed up for 5 AP’s, but after a semester and a half I can tell you it was hard work, but manageable.
Also, only students at your daughter’s high school can accurately predict the difficulty of the class. The rigor of any course largely depends on the teacher and their grading/teaching style.
I agree on that it depends on what she wants to pursue in school. I had the option for AP history but since I was planning on applying to engineer schools I focused more towards chem/bio/calculus. I still took honors history and in my school APUSH was considered hard and a lot of work with the class and I like history. my school also didn’t want to many AP classes per semester because of the labs that went with them, there isn’t enough time in your schedule. As long as I kept my grades up, which I have 4.89 with all my classes and EC’s, leadership I was still accepted to the STEM schools, Penn state,UMD, northeastern. If she is involved in a sport, make sure she has enough time to do all the work and attend practices. That is when it is tough and then you stress because you worry that you will get a bad grade and ruin your GPA when you could have gotten a good grade in an honors class. But if she is looking for Ivies that might be different.