So I’ve signed up to take 3 AP’s (AP Gov & Politics, AP Calc AB, AP Psychology) this year (senior year, btw), and I’ll be planning to take 4 AP (3 aforementioned AP’s + retaking AP Bio) exams in May 2017.
As a prospective pre med kid, which AP would look better on my college apps: AP Psych or AP Stats?
Also, how would 2 Math AP’s look on my college apps?
I hope to be able to take both, but I may have to choose only one of the two due to scheduling conflicts.
b u m p
If you’re equally interested in both and have equally good teachers for both I’d take AP Psych.
You already have a math class notoriously more difficult than AP Stats (Calc). If you do end up as a pre-med you’ll need psychology knowledge to do well on the MCAT. Many medical schools require or strongly recommend social science/humanity courses taken as an undergrad and psych will give you an early intro to that. Psych will likely be more useful to a pre-med than stats.
As far as admissions for undergrad goes it probably will not make a difference which you pick.
Pick the class you are more interested in, the class with the better teacher etc. It won’t matter for college admissions.
Psychology is a requirement for most med schools. AP Psych seems to cover the Intro to Psychology course for most universities. It has been my experience with both of my children that many schools do not accept AP Stats credit for the required stats course. Perhaps because many statistics course are geared for their prospective disciplines. Based on that I would recommend taking AP Psychology.
@lvvcsf My D’s college does not accept AP Psych as a substitute for Psych 101. I think this is because at her college Psych 101 has a lab component and a lab is not part of the AP curriculum. If the goal is to get a college credit (I think the OP is more interested in what looks good for admissions though) I’d recommend the OP look at the details of what APs are accepted by any schools he/she is considering applying to. I don’t think one rule fits all. And I don’t think Psych is required for most med schools (often there is a general social science/humanities requirement that can be satisfied by many different courses).
So, as it turns out, I can take both classes. I’ve checked the AP Credit policies for some of the schools I’m applying to (I’m applying both domestic and international) and most of them (Canada & US) will give me some form of credit.
So, I guess my question now is how will this look on my application?
It will not either hurt or help your app. If you can handle the workload, take them.
It depends on your strengths. IMO I would choose AP Psych because of your intended major