I am currently taking, chem ap, calc bc ap, gov ap, ap lit, and apes. I was planning on taking Macro ap as well but it did not fit in my schedule, would it be worth it to self study? I do like learning about eco but i’m not sure if the college credit is worth it so I am just looking for some advice
Hi! If you are interested in economics I would recommend reading Picketty’s “Capital in the 21st century”. My guess is that you will get a lot more out of this book than self-studying for AP macro. Good luck with all of your classes!
Colleges don’t really care about AP test grades for exams you self-studied for. They prefer to see you develop interests outside of the classroom and testing room. If you decide to do it anyway, you are already taking that many AP classes at once and I would make sure you have the time and ability to do all of the work necessary for those classes and make sure you can still devote the time to Macro.
If your goal is to do it to rack up college credits be sure to consider where you are going!
State (public) universities tend to be the most generous in giving credits, so if that’s where you are headed look up their policy on AP credits and graduation requirements. Balance out the credits you have with the number of credits taken in a normal term. See if the extra 3 credits make a difference. IF you still think that they will be enough to help you achieve your goal (graduate a semester or 2 early? knock out all gen eds?) then set yourself to doing the major revision over the winter and spring holidays. I think you are going to find that your work load is pretty heavy, and you don’t want to over-extend yourself and then crash and burn in your regular classe.
If you are applying to private colleges/universities, they tend to have limits on the number of AP credits that you can count toward graduation, and to be very specific about what credit(s) are possible for which APs.
If you are applying to highly selective colleges/unis, as @helpingmom40 pointed out, you won’t get any extra points in terms of admissions, and the time you put into will take away from time spent either shining in your enrolled classes or your deep and meaningful ECs.
I agree that if the intention is improving college admissions chances, it’s not a valuable investment.
I found Econ to be a very interesting topic, with lifelong applications, so if you’re doing it out of interest and a desire to learn, go for it. Econ is a credit that can be widely used as a General Ed credit, so a good test score could be valuable in freeing up schedule space in college.