I intend to take two Ap science courses net year. I can’t decide on which two of the three (in the title) I should take. Freshman year, i took honors bio, but through my school i took the AP and got a 4. I’m planning on majoring in bio, so i probably won’t get credit for that (Northwestern, my dream school, requires a 5 for credit). I want to take the full course for college credit, for it to show up on my transcript as a harder course (although getting the 4 on the test should make this not matter), and to refresh myself on concepts i’ll be going more in-depth on in college (although i still remember a lot from bio due to academic clubs). However, I also don’t want to spend a whole year taking a class trying to get a 5. I’ll probably take APES; i would like to go into conservation science so this fits. As for AP Chem, i don’t remember as much about chem. If i do good enough, i could get out of some chem classes in college, which would be nice because i would rather focus on bio then.
TL;DR I want to take AP Bio, but it might be a waste, and I want to take AP Chem because I need to learn that stuff again but I don’t like the class as muh.
Thoughts?
From reading your post, it sounded like taking AP Chem and AP Environmental Science would be the best combination for you. If the colleges you want to go to won’t give credit for bio even if you get a 5 since that will be your major, there doesn’t seem to be a reason to take AP Bio. Your course schedule will be just as rigorous either way, which is what really matters in college admissions.
If you want to double up on AP sciences, one of them should definitely be APES (the easiest of the 3). Between AP Bio and Chem, either will look good for colleges, so choose based on workload and interest, since AP Bio might be less work for you.
Chances are you might have to take bio anyway for your major - in which case APES and AP Chem make more sense. Even if you could elect out of bio 101 by retaking AP Bio and getting a 5, you might not want to since that’s your major and there might be uni lab components you might want to do or enjoy doing. So do AP Chem since you’ll be happy to skip that.
My D took AP Chem and the test but choose not to skip Chem 1 in college because of the lab component, plus she enjoys chem (she’s majoring in ChemE). In retrospect she should have taken AP Bio in HS instead since she’s now having to take biology as a required course and would rather skip it.
insanedreamer- My D took AP Chem and the test but choose not to skip Chem 1 in college because of the lab component, plus she enjoys chem (she’s majoring in ChemE). In retrospect she should have taken AP Bio in HS instead since she’s now having to take biology as a required course and would rather skip it.
How come she has to take Bio? I have 2 ChemE students and neither took Bio in college…
futurecat- IMO - Go for the AP Chem. APES has a rep of an “EZ AP” - and your getting into NU is not going to be enhanced by taking an EZ AP. Study your butt off and get the AP Chem 5. And as the parent of 2 Wildcat ChemEs - Good Luck!