I am definitely not a science person and have tried and failed at biology, chemistry, and physics. I am wondering what AP Environmental Science consists of: is it mostly memorization (like biology)? Is there math involved? How difficult do you think it would be for someone who has consistently earned B’s in honors biology/chem/physics courses?
Also this is what I’m thinking for senior year:
AP English Lit
AP European History
AP US Government
honors calculus
AP Environmental Science
AP French
I am pretty gifted in English, so I wouldn’t consider AP Lit to be any work (not trying to sound cocky, just speaking from my past English classes/workload). And my French teacher is extremely lenient and always hands out A’s. This leaves 3 APs and 1 honors that I really need to study for. Okay schedule? Also I am wondering if AP exam grades for senior year matter? And do first semester grades of senior year matter? I am planning to apply to college early decision.
Being good in English means that you may find the class easy but AP Lit in general tends to have a lot of work (obviously depends on school). Gov should be a fairly easy class, especially for an English person. I’m guessing your honors calc class is calc 1 so stretching a semester course to a year should make it pretty easy. I have heard bad things about euro but, again, you seem to be inclined towards humanities. Your AP exam grades do NOT matter at all. Your first semester grades will matter depending on the college, you can only apply ED to one school and the others will be EA/RD and RD tends to require first sem grades.
As for APES, it tends to be a fairly easy class and is essentially an easier bio (yeah it should be memorization). Getting a B is not failing, although consistent Bs in science is a little concerning. I think you would benefit from APES as it tends to be an easier science but maybe look for other science courses such as geosystems or oceanography or something (definitely take a science though).
Depends on your school. At my school, APES is one of the hardest classes, but at our rival, APES is super easy. As for the content, there’s quite a bit of math and memorization involved, the curriculum is really extensive. For me, I’ve always done okay in science classes, but APES was really hard for me. I got a B, but it was really hard. That might just be my school though because I got a 4 on the exam. Ask around for what it’s like at your school. I know kids who got As in AP Chem but almost failed APES, but I also know kids who had the opposite. ED and EA plans don’t look at 1st semester, but you need to maintain grades to keep your acceptance. If they see that you have all As as an applicant but get a D first semester of senior year, they’ll have questions. Your other classes don’t seem super hard, AP Lit should be fine if you’ve done well in English in the past. AP Euro is typically seen as an easy A, so it might look odd if you don’t do well in that.
The difficulty of any class depends on the student’s natural talents, study skills/effort/grit/ability to use resources, and the teacher. A teacher has the power to make a class as easy or challenging as they desire.