I am having a hard time picking which class to choose for junior year. If I take APUSH I don’t know if I will be able to handle it because I don’t really enjoy reading history textbooks and the only reason I passed my WHAP class last year was because the teacher gave us free answers and always curved the essays and tests and I somehow managed to get a 3 on the AP exam. I am pretty sure I won’t major in anything history related. Also there’s going to be a new APUSH teacher so I don’t know how he/she will be like. If I take AP English Language I am not sure if I will be able to handle this either because I have never done a time in-class essay before and I heard the teacher is a tough grader on essays. However, in my English 2A class the teacher always gave me As for the essays I wrote, but AP Lang is on a whole different level than English 2A and AP Lang preps you for college. If any of you guys took these classes which one in your opinion is easier and were you able to balance other AP classes/SAT/ACT prep/extracurriculars? (I am also taking BC and AP Chem junior year)
I’d say pick AP Lang. You’ll be writing for the rest of your life and this class can be a vital aid in your college apps and other classes. APUSH won’t really do anything for you since you aren’t going into that field.
If you feel that you can’t handle any of these classes then I suggest you don’t take any of them. Top colleges have already said that college admissions are not a battle for the number of AP’s you have.
Agree with the above. With that said, many colleges give no credit for AP language, but most give credit for apush. If you don’t major in history, it could fulfill a distribution requirement. Then again, you may already have that covered.
Do not take a class that doesn’t interest you and that will require a lot of time to please adcoms.
AP Lang will serve you forever. Writing is a skill you will need, and working through the AP language curriculum will apply to every class you take.
However if you feel adding either one is too much, you don’t have to take either one.
Agreed ^
It’ll be so much easier to sit through a year of a class you enjoy than a class you don’t. I took APUSH and even though I passed both the exam and the class, it was definitely a lot of work I could have done without. On the other hand, AP Lang was one of my favorite classes last year - not just because the teacher was a real one, but because it made me think much more critically about writing and helped streamline the way I write. It’s an invaluable class especially if it’s taught right.
AP Lang was actually a lot of in class work for me; I think we only read/did a project on an actual book once, but we did have a few major papers per quarter (although this varies per school). APUSH had weekly homework during which we covered one or more chapters.
I’ve never taken the AP Lang class but I did take the exam. I self-studied it in two days and got a 5 on the exam, so IMO it would be better to take APUSH because it is the more rigorous class, and you could easily self-study AP Lang.
APUSH is not that bad if you find a way to relate to the info- think about how the history you’re learning about affects you right now (like with the 2016 election).
I disagree - an AP course isn’t about its exam. You should only self-study if you want college credit or if you’re interested in the course (AND it is not offered at your school). Colleges cannot care less about self-studied courses; it adds next to nothing to an application. Rigor varies between schools and I really can’t imagine OP’s counselor not checking “most rigorous course load” on the Common App because they took AP Lang instead of APUSH. As others and myself have pointed out, AP Lang can give you some lifelong skills in your writing or, at least, help in writing for college apps and other classes. I think you can get the same knowledge from a regular US History class and APUSH class.