Hi, I’m going to be a sophomore at my high school this year, and I’m wondering which AP I should choose as my elective. My school requires one art credit, and I want to take an AP to boost my GPA, hence these two options. However, if I don’t take AP Art History this year, I can take an after school class art credit or take one senior year. That being said, I would rather take APES than Art History, although I’m not particularly excited about either class.
The only problem is that I’m not sure which class colleges will take more seriously, and I want to get into an Ivy League, or Johns Hopkins. If this helps, I took three APs freshman year, and got these scores:
AP Calculus AB: 5
AP Biology: 3
AP Human Geography: 5
I’m also expecting getting into my favored college to be a little harder, as I am Asian (Indian).
I’d take the one that interests you more, which sounds like ES. Any AP course will show an effort to be challenged with a rigorous schedule, though honestly neither will be seen as “serious” as Calc, Physics, Chem, USH, CSA, Lang/Lit., IMO.
This reminds me of the Sesame Street song, “One Of These Things (Is Not Like The Others)” Hint - it’s CSA. Certainly not as lightweight as CSP, but certainly more in the ES grouping than the calc grouping.
Tangent aside, for the OP, colleges will take both “seriously.” The challenge for you is that while AP Art History is not difficult if one is interested in art/architechure and has decent memorization skills and has some knowledge of world history, if you are “not particularly excited about” it, it will be a very long year.
Personally, I would go with neither if you aren’t into the subjects. Your chances at a “favored” college will not be improved by one more AP course. What may improve a college application is using after-school time to improve ECs rather than taking another class.
AP History is a ton of work. I’d find a different way to meet your school’s fine arts requirements. College admission is not a race to see who has the most AP courses.