<p>During this wonderful week long spring break, I find myself studying and working on many AP Classes. But my mind quickly wonders to college life and I wondering "Is all this hard work for AP Credit worth it?". This is now why I am here. I would like your guy's experiences about how AP Classes have affected your college endeavors and if it was worth it? </p>
<p>I would especially like the experiences from people who took over 10 AP Tests.
Their insight would especially be relative to me.</p>
<p>i only took 2 APs and they were both English so idk if this counts, but I did get 8 credits for them, which is rad. they only covered electives, though. honestly it depends on the college. at some, AP credit can only be applied to electives. others allow them to count toward a major, but idk how common that is.</p>
<p>I don’t care about getting credit for my courses - in fact, I’d rather not. I’d rather be able to explore than already have elective or even course credits (then again, the schools I’m looking at have very gentle general requirements with a lot of room for exploration). Taking AP classes for the benefit of difficulty and the way it looks on a transcript is definitely worth it.</p>
<p>Ok I took 9, not 10, but whatever. Yeah it was definitely worth it, here’s why:</p>
<ol>
<li>I hate slow classes because then I get bored, AP classes are more fast-paced. I like to be challenged or else I get bored. </li>
<li>In my HS, at least half the grade took APs, I noticed in my regular classes the kids were just slower and somehow more annoying, like they made more racist jokes and stuff and would complain over little things. </li>
<li>AP credits - A lot of them I used as credits toward graduation rather than to skip a class. By taking AP Psych, Stats and Econ, I got to skip the Introduction classes and take more advanced classes which were more interesting since i already had some background.</li>
<li>AP classes are not that hard at all, except for my World History classes in HS because the teacher gave us SO much work. So not too hard, plus looks good on a transcript.</li>
</ol>
<p>applicannot, I think you don’t understand how much AP credit matters once you get to college. Here are some reasons to take as many APs as possible:</p>
<ol>
<li> You get to register before everyone else (other freshmen) after your first semester.</li>
</ol>
<p>At most schools, registration order for classes is done by who has the most credits. So, if you want to get into a class before it fills up, it is better to have more credits so you have a better chance of getting in. There were many times I wanted to take classes but couldn’t because it was a popular class that filled up quickly. I had the reqs filled for it, but couldn’t register soon enough. Kids with tons of credit going in got most if not all the classes they wanted.</p>
<ol>
<li> You get to take classes you want instead of mandatory pre reqs (which may suck).</li>
</ol>
<p>Lets say you don’t want to take anymore history or biology classes. You don’t have to if you fill the requirment (at least part of it) with AP credits. You can still take these classes if you want, but you don’t have to. It is up to you, so this gives you more freedom. Lets say there is a class you really want, but your mandatory pre req is only offered at that time. Looks like you are going to have to wait to take the class you want.</p>
<ol>
<li> Easier course load.</li>
</ol>
<p>You need less credits to graduate so you can take less classes if you want. Or you can still take classes, it is up to you. However, if you mess up and need to drop a class it won’t make life harder for you later on if you want to graduate on time. Also, you may not want to take 15 or 16 credits while you are filling out grad school apps and studying for the GREs (if that is your path).</p>
<ol>
<li> Easier to get school sports tickets.</li>
</ol>
<p>At my school there is a lottery for tickets. Juniors and Seniors have better chances then underclassman, but your standing is calculated by your credit level. I knew first year students who got tickets, but to no surprise these students all had sophomore standing (at least).</p>
<p>I had one college level bio course which was 8 credits.
And credit given for AP english and history. They were great. I got to skip out on what I thought to be pointless courses here, and take interesting electives instead. Def. worth it. </p>
<p>I haven’t taken over 10 APs, but know some who have. They have a lot more freedom in choosing classes.</p>
<p>The only good thing about AP courses in the post above would be early registration. The other parts don’t interest me. Either way, I’m taking 7 AP courses and 7 AP exams, regardless of how I score. If I do well, excellent! If not, it’s not the end of the world. I was just saying I take a pretty laissez-faire outlook on the whole AP thing.</p>
<ol>
<li>Substituted for 5 intro freshmen courses</li>
<li>Placed me into 2 “honors” physics classes, instead of regular physics</li>
<li>Waived one GE class</li>
<li>Gave me 28 units of elective credit = earlier registration</li>
<li>Probably helped me get admitted</li>
</ol>
<p>Yeah, it was worth it, even though one of them (AP English Lang) gave me nothing more than the 4 units of elective credit.</p>
<p>Euler basically told you why - you get out of prereqs, you can get your major underway faster, take the courses you want, register faster, hell you can even easily graduate in 3 years if you want to.</p>
<p>I would take as many as you can - I took a ton and all but one have been extremely useful. Plus it looks good on you college applications.</p>
<p>You may want to look at the universities you’re interested in to see which ones accept credit for which APs. Most take 4s and 5s, but some take only 5s for some classes.</p>
<p>At my university, they were all useful except for AP English (Literature)- which simply transfered as 3 hours of “general credit” - useless!</p>
<p>The MOST useful APs were Calculus BC - which counted for 6 hours of math credit - and the the best of all <em>drum roll</em> AP Chemistry — which counted for a whopping 8 hours of science credit (this pwns AP Physics and Biology). Since every student needs 12 hours of math/science distribution at my university, I didn’t have to take a single math or science course there (unless I wanted to). I also had US gov/ comp gov credit get me out of req-intro-boring classes for my major. I forget how many exact hours of AP credit I got but it was somewhere between 30-32 hours. In semester systems, usually every year counts as 60 hours, so I got to register as “the year above mine” mid semester every time.</p>
<p>I know people in my school who took all these AP credits and got 4’s or 5’s on all them. Then when they came here, because of the program they are in, could only use AP’s to fulfill 8 credits maximum.</p>
<p>Haha, yeah, as strange as it may sound, taking AP classes is definitely worth it. I pretty much took every AP class there was at my school, and I don’t regret it a bit, even if I did mediocre in the more difficult classes like Chemistry and Calculus.</p>
<p>Initially, I was thinking that if I had to pay so much for my exams ($86 compared to the free and reduced price of $5), I would definitely want to get credit for it. But my way of thinking changed somewhere along the way-- it really wouldn’t be so bad if you took the same class in college. You’ll be more prepared for the class, and probably do fairly well. And hey, if you do get credit, then great. It’s a win-win situation.</p>
<p>Not to mention that the presence of AP classes on a schedule makes an applicant much more competitive in the admissions process.</p>
<p>I don’t remember how many tests I took, but I came in with 50 credits. Yes, 50.</p>
<p>It got me out of every gen ed requirement except one (and if I had self studied World History instead of Euro, I would’ve been completely set… apparently Europe isn’t diverse enough for the global diversity requirement. BS if you ask me). I also got out of gen chem, calc, and the first semester of bio, so I was able to get ahead in my major requirements.</p>
<p>Definitely worth it, as long as you score well. I got all 4’s and 5’s on my tests, and my scores were always high enough to get me the max amount of credit.</p>
<p>The annoying thing is that my school does seniority in two different ways. For the good stuff like class registration and housing, they do it by number of years in college (first-year, second-year, etc.), so I’m still on the bottom of the totem pole. For crummy stuff like FA where older people get screwed, that’s when they turn to credit standing. They need to pick one and stop effing people like myself over.</p>
<p>I’m not a college student yet, but I will enter UCLA with 68 units from AP credits, plus 7 from community college courses. If all of the CC credits transfer, I’ll have junior standing after one quarter. If not, it’ll take 2 quarters.</p>
<p>i took exactly 10 APs, and it was the reason i am able to now graduate a year early.</p>
<p>however, i don’t fully agree with people’s arguement that applying your AP credits can let you take electives you want. out of all the APs i took, only one let me place out of a class. the others counted as electives. so i originally had 40 elective credits to do whatever i want, but since my AP credits applied towards my electives, i only had like 18 elective credits left applying my APs. so yea, make sure you find out if your AP credits will let you place out of a specific requirement, or will just count as an elective.</p>
<p>I took 10 APs, and it’s the only reason I’m able to contemplate the double major I want, since I came into UGA with 51 credits.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I do think that I might have been better served by taking some of the courses I exempted as a GPA boost rather than throwing myself immediately into Honors Integral Calculus and then Organic Chemistry, both of which are taking their toll on my GPA, before I’d really gotten used to college.</p>