AP Dilemma in Senior Year...

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I'm in a bit of a predicament. I am planning to go to college for Neuroscience, and have done well in both my honors programs for Biology and Chemistry (Both A's). However, the way in which my school is set up, unless you start planning in freshman year (which I did not, as I did not think I would want to major in any sort of science), you cannot take AP sciences until senior year. I come from a very rigorous public high school (ranked on a national level), and the APs are no joke. You cannot take 10 like some people post on here. A very heavy course load is considered 5 APs in an entire High School career. I am planning to take at least 5. I've taken AP Stat and Spanish this year, and am planning to take AP English and an independent study for AP psychology, plus only one science AP.</p>

<p>My reasoning for only taking one is that AP Bio and AP chem are the two hardest APs at my school. I have not heard, and neither has my guidance counselor, of someone who has successfully taken these two courses simultaneously... So my question is, which is more needed for a Neuroscience major, biology or chemistry? Specifically a behavioral neuroscience major, if that helps...</p>

<p>and a bonus question: Should I add in AP environmental science? Either by adding it and making my senior year extremely rigorous or dropping my Independent AP/English</p>

2

<p>Just curious, what’s the point of making an AP class so hard as to be untakeable? If the AP exams don’t require unbelievable hard classes to succeed in, isn’t that just doing a disservice to the students to lock them out from taking large numbers of them?</p>

3

<p>Don’t ask me, ask my high school’s curriculum.
For a point of reference, a student accepted to Columbia this year had 6, MAYBE (that’s a biiiig maybe) 7… The way the courses are set up, it is very hard to take a large number.
Someone who was accepted to MIT last year had 6 as well.</p>

<p>I’m not looking for an ivy or anything of the like, more only a USC caliber…</p>

<p>*One more thing, you cannot take APs until Junior year…</p>

4

<p>Bumping…</p>

5

<p>Well, I would suggest looking at the course requirements for the Neuroscience major at a school like USC.</p>

<p>[USC</a> Catalogue: The Schools: USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences: Neuroscience](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2010/schools/college/neur.html#ba]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2010/schools/college/neur.html#ba)</p>

<p>It seems like you’ll do a lot with biology and some chemistry.</p>

<p>Now, is having both classes as an AP tough? Yeah. Your workload is going to increase dramatically. Now does having them increase your general knowledge and can certainly be a benefit? Yes.</p>