<p>Do colleges prefer an applicant who takes AP classes primarily in their subject area, or those who take them in a variety of subjects?</p>
<p>Specifically, I am primarily interested in social science/humanities above math/science.</p>
<p>Sophomore year I took the only available AP: US History.</p>
<p>My schedule junior year was: AP Euro, AP Psych, and AP Bio, with Honors Latin IV and College-Prep Pre-Calc/Trig.</p>
<p>Next (senior) year my plan is to take AP Government, AP World History, AP Macroeconomics, and AP English, with Honors Physics and College-Prep Calculus.</p>
<p>Would it be better to take, say, AP Physics and lower-level gov or history? Drop Econ and take Stat? Or will colleges be glad to see that I'm pursuing my interests (while still taking the core classes)?</p>
<p>As long as you are taking a rigorous curriculum, it won’t matter exactly what you take. But there are several strategic points to consider. If you are a strong student across the board, one reason to take a variety of different kinds of AP courses is that you can often use them to fulfill undergraduate distribution requirements. Many schools, for instance, are going to want you to take a history class, and might exempt you from that requirement if you have a 4 or 5 on a history AP. If you take 3 history APs, however, you’ll still only get exempted from that one history distribution requirement. In your case, taking a science AP in hs and getting a good score on the exam might exempt you from a science course in college. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you’re strong in some areas and weak in others, then you shouldn’t necessarily take AP classes in all those areas. For instance, if you’re lousy at math, then don’t do AP calculus, but stick to the humanities/social sciences subjects; if you hate to write or are terrible at foreign languages, then avoid AP English, Spanish, etc.</p>