<p>Should i take four AP courses or one AP and three courses from a local community college. which would appear better on applications, or would there be any difference?</p>
<p>What would you like better and why?
Usually I would say go with the APs but if you have a good reason for taking classes at a CC go with that. Just don't take CC classes that cover the same content as the APs at your hs.</p>
<p>yes, the AP's are science related but i want to take micro and macro econ and cultural anthropoloy because i'm going to major in international relations. also the quality of the AP classes is not very high and i would probably benefit more from the college courses. i'm also not going to be applying to the ivy league, so will it really make that much of a difference?</p>
<p>I don't think it would make much of a difference.</p>
<p>Just to make sure: you have had three years of lab sciences already, haven't you?</p>
<p>will be taking the third year next year with physics</p>
<p>I recommend not thinking about what would "look better."</p>
<p>My class's valedictorian indeed had a challenging course load. The easy road was never taken. She did a very good job of earning the highest grades in those classes. The hard*est* road wasn't taken either, though. She and another student with marginally lower grades both applied to several top tier schools. The second student was admitted to all; the valedictorian was admitted to none. The second student took a hard*er* road by scheduling an AP math earlier, which demonstrated some risk-taking. In addition, he is state-ranked in several field events. Collectively, those two made him more appealing.</p>
<p>To answer your first question, you should first ask yourself, "Am I dead-set on staying in-state, or do I want to go out-of-state?"</p>
<p>If you want to complete your undergraduate education in-state, check whether the university you're aiming for accepts the community college credits. If it does, take them. If it doesn't, do AP.</p>
<p>If you want to leave the state, I recommend AP. A good score virtually guarantees credit anywhere. By contrast, it's harder to transfer community college credits, or even credits from an university. </p>
<p>I did both AP and dual-enrollment. My local university had a minimum age requirement (16) which corresponded to my junior year. Before then, I took two APs. After then, I took two APs and twelve college courses.</p>
<p>If it's not too difficult to schedule, I suggest doing both for flexibility.</p>
<p>yes, i'm not too worried about actually transferring the credits because the AP courses offerred are really bad and I would need to prep on my own quite a bit anyway. I am thinking that the community college courses will be much more rewarding, interesting, and i will simply learn more. I may or may not self-study the AP's, but I'm more concerned with actually learning relevant subjects as opposed to wasting my time in my school's AP courses. I'm just not sure if doing this will be looked down upon by admissions committees or not.</p>
<p>AP is actually preferred over DE in my opinion. From what I've read on this forum, and personal experiences, college admissions are oftentimes scared of the non-standard applicant who does a lot of his high school classes in a local college etc. I didn't really have this problem because I had standard high school classes along with DE classes, but people I know enrolled in specifically DE programs usually suffer a lot in college admissions.</p>
<p>I would suggest you not care however, and take whatever classes you're more interested in. From experience, I've found that AP classes are oftentimes slack and easy, and the exams are a breeze. Personally, I believe the DE classes are better intellectually. But you're gonna have to decide for yourself exactly why you want to take these classes.</p>