AP Psychology or AP Environmental Science?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi. :)</p>

<p>I’m currently a high school junior deciding on my courses for senior year.</p>

<p>I’m an IB student pursuing an IB diploma, but my school offers AP courses as well.</p>

<p>Currently my schedule is as follows:</p>

<li>IB SL Calculus</li>
<li>IB HL European History </li>
<li>IB HL English 4 (Equivalent to AP English Lit)</li>
<li>AP Studio Art</li>
<li>IB HL Biological Themes (Course after AP Bio)</li>
<li>IB SL Physics (Equivalent to AP Physics A, I believe)</li>
</ol>

<p>Next year I’m planning to either take AP Psych or AP EnviSci in addition to the courses listed above.</p>

<p>I’ve heard that both are wonderful courses with great teachers, but the Psych workload is a lot bigger than the EnviSci one. EnviSci also has a required lab, but apparently the teacher skips it every 2/3 days.</p>

<p>I’m not too worried about the pros and cons of each, but I am concerned that taking AP EnviSci, a third science course, would sway the opinions of college admissions officers out of my favor.</p>

<p>I’m planning to apply to HYPS etc. and I don’t want to appear too Math/Science focused (or in this case, simply Science focused) even though I plan to pursue a degree in the sciences. Instead I want to appear as a more well-rounded student. If the addition of said third science course will have a negative impact on my transcript, I’ll be sure to take AP Psych and endure the larger workload.</p>

<p>CC Community, what are your thoughts?</p>

<p>Thank you for your time.</p>

<p>~Xombie</p>

2

<p>Bump to get this to the first page. ;)</p>

<p>Any opinions?</p>

3

<p>what about a foreign language?</p>

4

<p>I vote for Psych. You already have 2 sciences, so why add Enviro? Psych will keep it even. </p>

<p>And, I agree. A foreign lang would be nice.</p>

5

<p>Psych for sure. Great class.</p>

6

<p>Enviro is hardly considered a true science…</p>

7

<p>I absolutely hate the Spanish curriculum at my school, I can’t take another year of it.</p>

<p>This year I’m taking Spanish 4 anyway, so I guess that counts as “four years.”</p>

<p>I know I plan to take Psych freshman year in college… is there any advantage in taking it senior year in high school beforehand?</p>

8

<p>1+ to Psychology. You already have some science, and it is firggin’ Psychology! We don’t even have that at my school…</p>

9

<p>Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. :)</p>

10

<p>im gonna go out on a limb here and say that you should take whichever one interests you most.</p>

<p>btw, HL english is way harder than either AP english courses.</p>

11

<p>Thanks for posting. :D</p>

<p>To be honest, at the moment I’m leaning towards EnviSci (is it so obvious?) simply due to the fact that the class really seems to interest me and has a reasonably small workload. (Yesterday the class left school and walked into town to look at the organic foods for sale at Kings, the E. Coast equivalent of Shop Rite.) :P</p>

<p>Yeah about HL Eng… not looking forward to those World Lit papers. :S</p>

12

<p>Here’s a thought – take the class you actually want to take. Which one do you want? Honestly, this choice means little in the grand scheme of things. Colleges want to see the most rigorous courseloads, but outside of you taking higher-level classes and the standard math-science-English-social studies, I’m not sure it’ll be a big deal what your elective is. Do you prefer ES? Then take ES!</p>

<p>I wish we had AP Psychology at my high school too. That was my undergraduate major.</p>

13

<p>Yeah I guess I’ve decided… ES!</p>

<p>But I am looking forward to Psych in college. :)</p>

<p>Thanks again everyone.</p>

14

<p>Psych is too easy to take a class for. You can get a 5 just by getting the Barons book and self-studying it. It truly is a waste and I wish I actually didn’t take it this year so I could have taken Japanese 1.</p>

15

<p>if u wanna do the sciences, then env sci would actually help in that…
idk…at my school (IB) people think of pysch kinda as a science…idk tho, i have never taken it</p>