<p>Oh, sorry 199844, I realized I only answered the “Why do you take them” part of your question and failed to answer the rest.</p>
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<p>If you have good time management, you will sleep and enjoy your high school years. As I said (in my very lengthy post) even though I might not be getting all the answer right, I am much more happier in my AP class.</p>
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<p>Yes and no. They like to see students being challenged. If you have a 4.0 GPA, but no AP classes, that shows you probably are not being challenged enough. A person with some AP classes and a 3.8 is generally preferred over a student with no APs, but a 4.0. That said, grades and classes are not the only things that count in college admissions.</p>
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<p>No, the colleges WILL see how many AP classes your school has to offer, and the fact your school only has two will not be used against you.</p>
<p>As for the second part, like I said, I guess some people take it for college credit, but that was never an issue with me. You could tell me I’m guaranteed to NOT get college credit, and I’d still be wanting to apply to more AP classes.</p>
<p>If you want guaranteed* college credit, take dual enrollment classes.</p>
<p>I only take ap and honors because of that’s where all my friends are and I’d be bored with the pace of regular classes (and the GPA benefits don’t hurt.) I have no issues with regular classes. Most of my classes freshman year were regular. The only regular class I’ve hated is Spanish 2.</p>
<p>Um… No. They’re not a scam. Tons of colleges still accept the credits one… Two it looks good to show you’re taking the most challenging curriculum at the school… Three it boosts your gpa… And lastly it’s much more like a college class (well the APs are my school are)… There’s no silly worksheets or hw assignments just lectures and difficult tests. I take them for all of these reasons, and if one or two of them aren’t happening then the other reasons are still very beneficial.</p>
<p>Two points made by the author were especially laughable:
AP courses cover too much material too quickly. (The precalc course at my school is harder than AB).
AP courses are not comparable to the college equivalents. (My BC Calc course covered multivariable, and my Physics C course will cover thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, electromagnetic waves, and wave mechanics).</p>
<p>The fact is that many of us don’t care about college credit and want to learn. AP courses are the most rigorous and interesting courses offered by most high schools.</p>
<p>Well, seeing as you only have to pay for the test, I fail to see the scam. You essentially pay for the shot at getting college credit, not for the education itself.</p>
<p>Plenty of colleges do give credit, and more selective colleges pretty much require you to take them (if they’re available) for admission. If your school offers say, five AP classes and you’ve taken zero, the college isn’t going to think you’re challenging yourself.</p>
<p>Of course they are. The classes are harder than the majority of introductory Gen Eds (an introductory English course doesn’t even compare to an approved AP Lang or Lit curriculum…), so the rigor is exaggerated.</p>
<p>The GPA boost can be gained by a slightly less difficult and intense Honors class, which looks just as good on a transcript. And if you absolutely want, you can pay for the test in May and start studying a month prior.</p>
<p>And AP Classes are just overkill; I don’t believe in ruining your HS career over something that looks nice on a transcript, and when you fail, it’s just devastating. That’s not what High School is about…and life isn’t about acing classes, getting into a good college, and getting a job when you graduate.</p>
<p>Have fun in high school. That doesn’t mean at the expense of failing classes–still do well enough to be a competitive college applicant. But do not stretch yourself completely thin over AP classes when an Honors is a perfectly good alternative and the test is available regardless of the course.</p>
<p>Can’t say I love collegeboard, but the AP curriculum is undoubtedly a great way to ease into college level courses. They’re a significant step up from honors courses, but due to the expanded timeline relative to a semester-long college course, you still have some extra flexibility built in to buffer the difficulty level. Honestly, having taken college courses over the summer, I found that my school’s AP standards (considering the large majority of the AP teachers have averages of about a 4 or slightly higher and I believe a requirement for them is to have at least a masters) have definitely made me more readily adaptable to the pace and difficulty of the college classes. Furthermore, I learn a heck lot more and have so much more fun in AP classes. Not dissing regular levels, but they frustrate me with the slow and simplified lessons as well as the people in them.</p>
<p>I think I did waste time taking too many.
Whatever, I’m abusing the college credit to the maximum my college accepts–which is 75% of the GE for engineering, a bunch of classes I don’t entirely need out of the way :)</p>
<p>I don’t get why people would like AP testing. It’s biased and silly. I prefer dual enrollment credits even though they cost more (but my school subsidizes 2/3 cost on DE credits) because they can be an actually college course if you have the right teacher. My math teacher taught at a college in Mississippi before moving here to teach us. My physics teacher teaches at a community college class plus two DE classes. Every teacher I’ve had for a DE course has a Masters. My DE US history teacher had one from Yale and another from Cambridge. With quality teachers, DE is the level of at least a community college course. So what’s the point of DE? You can test out of something? Wow. Congrats. You get to lose a class you could have learned something from.</p>
<p>This year I’m not going to take the AP English exam. Way too much mental stretch for my senior year (I’m still taking AP chem and govt tests). Even with a three I doubt it gonna get me far. </p>
<p>@SerenityJade unfortunately, not every school has dual enrollment. Our school allows us to travel to a relatively close university to attend college courses, but they must be in the morning and you have to return back to the high school for your other courses. The commute to and from the college is 2 hours. I mean, our school offers classes that are college level (you can use your work in these classes to potentially get credit or skip to a higher level class in college) but these have no AP equivalent (such as honors organic chemistry and honors linear algebra). Furthermore, the education level of AP teachers at every school differs. My AP teachers are just as well qualified as your DE ones, and so I reap the same benefits of a great high school education experience (note that I understand not every school is like mine and I’m just explaining my own experiences). Just to list a few: APUSH teacher taught at UCLA and prestigious private academies before coming to my school, APES teacher has PhD in environmental sciences (I can’t recall the specific title), AP Lit teacher is an English professor at Pitt, and the list goes on and on. Thus, I find that the AP curriculum, despite its flaws, has been beneficial to me.</p>
<p>Any class that isn’t AP level is mind numbingly boring. I’m in 7 AP classes right now in sophomore year for the challenge of it. If it carries over to college, then great. If not, then I had an amazing high school experience.</p>
<p>Also, I could defend more than one of the answer choices on a majority of the questions on AP Lang…all standardized tests are the same way. It’s funny because AP Lang is about argumentation and rhetoric, so the fact that they give you a BS test where you could prove potentially any of the answers correct is intriguing to me.</p>
<p>And if you can handle the AP load (7 classes still seems like a loooot…), then by all means, go for it. But I kind of doubt that those AP teachers, ModernAge, really have approved syllabi if their courses are easily handled.</p>
<p>@modernage: Really? Not one non-ap is not boring? Let’s look at the list:
Orchestra
Band
Choir
Drama
Creative Writing
Chemistry
Physics
Phycology
History
Cooking
P.E.
I could go on and on.</p>
<p>Sometimes I get the feeling that they are a bit of a scam. We have to rush through material and there are so many people who cram right before the test or memorize test prep books to get a good score for college apps, rather than learn from their AP class. All the money goes to College Board, of course. We don’t actually have college-level assignments or teachers.</p>
<p>But I’m so glad they exist, anyway. I only take AP classes/tests I actually like or that will get me college credit. They have a much better atmosphere than most classes and attract the better students in my school so we can work through the material fast and do a lot of cool labs and discussions we couldn’t otherwise. Plus if you compare $87 per test to a full year college class it totally works out, even if it’s expensive now.</p>