APES as first AP/honors ever?

<p>I've never done any really and I'm mostly trying to both raise my GPA a bit and hopefully add just something AP and a little rigorous to my schedule for Junior year. I'm not trying to get into an Ivy league school or something really intense just a good 4 year. I'm also not the best at math and i'm better at social studies so I like that there's some history in there. </p>

<p>But a lot of people refer to it as a "joke class." Would this actually make my application look worse though? I know it's not insanely easy and it covers a huge amount of information and requires memorization. How exactly is it going to affect me?</p>

<p>AP art history is considered another easy one at my school and it sounds just as fascinating (and supposedly looks nice), but I dont need it for HS. APES would fulfill my 3rd year science requirement.</p>

<p>Lastly, the fun core classes like lit and comp or world are only offered to seniors so I lan to do one or both. Any opinions on any of this?</p>

<p>Be careful with your assumptions; I’d always taken all the APs offered, and really underestimated APHuG. It was the class I did worst in. It was tougher than I thought, and I didn’t even see it coming.
If it’s an AP and weighted and fulfills graduation requirements, it can only help you. And your application. Assuming you don’t fail out.</p>

<p>Thank you, that’s very helpful. Human geography and enviro are very similar because of how they deal with population and motivation of humans right? And also I do fairly well in my other classes so I’m assuming it meets my level of difficulty, if not exceeds a bit, so I would hopefully not fail out</p>

<p>Yes; also languages, culture, religion, etc. It’s been different from the usual APs I’ve taken. AP Enviro was my first choice, but we didn’t have enough students sign up for them to form a new class. I’m actually really loving it now. The world literally makes more sense.</p>

<p>I’d ask people at your school who have taken it first. From what I understand, APES and Human Geo have a similar reputation for being easy. For me, Human Geo was very easy, but APES has been challenging so far because my teacher holds everyone to a VERY high standard. Yeah, so the teacher will probably be more important than the class in determining difficulty (excluding the AP test, of course). Also, look into Statistics if you want to take an easy AP.</p>

<p>My school doesn’t offer Geography; can’t say much there.
It does offer Environmental Science, which I took last year. It is indeed a ‘joke’ AP–you can self-study it pretty easily. Funnily enough, I’m also taking AP Art History now, I gave up AP Physics and Biology (respectively) for these two.
AP Art History is just memorization and writing, and it’s an easy AP in terms of ‘getting’ the material–it’s just about how much work you put into it and how much you can memorize, that’s all. It helps a lot to be passionate about the subject…also, at my school, it fulfills the fine arts requirement. It’s my favorite class this year, but mostly because of the teacher.
For APES, I don’t regret taking the class since it was my ‘relaxing’ class, and I took it with a friend. College-wise, it probably hurt me because I could’ve self-studied this AP test and taken a harder AP science class. With the exception of APES, the AP sciences are generally pretty hard, or at least a lot of work (from what I’ve heard; I’m an English-y person who’s taken several APs and Chem’s the hardest one I’ve taken).
For the subject itself, it’s one of the more helpful classes…like lollobrigida implied, it’s applicable as well as interesting.</p>

<p>Another thing, there’s an AP forum on CC; the people there might be able to answer your question better there.</p>

<p>Everary- Yeah, i’m indeed more of a history and theatrical person, so both APES and AP art history would fit me equally well. APUSH is team taught with APEL (which is double the workload) so I thought art history would keep me occupied until AP world. Only problem like I said is I already have 2 years of fine arts, but I could live with an extra.</p>

<p>YouGotAStewGoing-As I understand it, the teacher is very laid back but also adds discipline. I was actually planning to take Stats in place of pre-calc on account of I’m trying to stay away from math.</p>

<p>at my school, its like the easiest AP</p>

<p>ask your school</p>

<p>much of the time aps are school specific</p>

<p>My friend and I love to complain about it, but honestly, it’s not too bad. Usually.</p>