I’m going to be a junior in high school, and I’ve never taken any AP or honors courses throughout my high school career (I’m taking honors history next year, however). I was planning on taking AP Music Theory (I want to major in theater/music education and I’ve heard that this is a requirement?), AP Psychology, and possibly AP Environmental. Would it still be beneficial to take AP courses my senior year, or should I consider taking some junior year? If you want to know where my high school stands, there are many AP courses offered at my school, mostly in senior year however. But there’s a bunch available junior year as well, and none freshmen or sophomore year.
Take an easy one (statistics, psychology, environmental, human geography) and a core one (such as English language ) junior year.
If all goes well, take two core ones or one core and two easy ones senior year. If you struggle junior year, still to one easy one core foe senior year.
Is there a reason you haven’t taken any? If you’re school offers them junior year, I would definitely take some then.
I didn’t do so good freshmen year, and because of that, my GPA has really suffered and I’ve been unable to take AP classes. I tried to take Pre-AP English next year, but my teacher and my parents wouldn’t let me, so that’s out of the question.
Can you take a couple hours level classes in addition to regular? What grades did you have in English and history last year?
I had a B+/A- average in English, but my other classes are pretty much out of the question as far as honors classes go. I ended Biology with a B- and I ended geometry with a C+
“I had a B+/A- average in English, but my other classes are pretty much out of the question as far as honors classes go. I ended Biology with a B- and I ended geometry with a C+”
Pulling up your grades is more important than taking AP classes. I don’t think that you should take any AP class unless it is in a subject where you have been able to get A’s. Expect to work a lot more in AP classes than you needed to work for other classes.
One daughter took AP music theory and liked it quite a bit. The content was essentially “music”, so doing well in it is somewhat unrelated to doing well in math or biology, other than the fact that all of the above required a lot of work (including a lot of practice for music theory).
Yes, I definitely plan on bringing up my grades next year, because my GPA is not going to cut it. But, I still think taking an AP in English would be beneficial for me as I am really good at it and could see myself getting good grades in that class. Although I was in college level English freshmen year, my teacher taught it like an honors level class, so I know some of what would be expected of me if I went up to AP.