I’m not sure if this is in the right place, so my apologies. i’m a sophomore this year who will be skipping junior year next year to graduate early. my school offers early college classes (english 101 and 102, psychology 101, and sociology 101) which i will be taking next year. i’m trying to decide which ap classes i want to take in addition to those. everyone says the college classes are relatively easy, especially compared to ap, so the difficulty is probably similar to honors classes, which is all i’ve ever taken. the ap classes i’m considering are ap calculus (ab first semester, then bc the second semester), ap biology, and ap us history. i’m not sure if i will take all 3, although i do want to. also, my school has 4 classes a semester, if that’s helpful to know in advance. if anyone has any advice or recommendations, i’d really appreciate it. thanks!
i, actually, did not know schools offered AP Calc AB and AP Calc BC back-to-back… that seems incredibly fast-paced for any student. i can’t speak for AP Bio, but i’m self-studying APUSH right now, and i took AP Calc AB in high school, so i do know those two relatively well.
APUSH should be relatively easy if you’re able to comprehend information quickly and effectively, especially information about policies and the time periods of events. AP Calc AB was not an easy class by any means, but if you pay attention, ask any and all questions you have about the material, and always do the work, you should be fine. that’s exactly what i did, and i ended up with a solid average overall in the class. i can’t speak for AP Calc BC, but i have heard it is a very difficult class and is harder than AP Calc AB. good luck next year!
Even if a school allows you to take Calc AB and BC in the same year you can not take the AP exam for both in the same year so I don’t know why you would want to. The following is copied from the AP bulletin that is given to anyone taking the exam
If you want to take exams that are scheduled for the same time,
ask your AP coordinator for information about taking one of
the exams during the late-testing period. You may not take both
Calculus AB and Calculus BC within the same year
^ Because the bc exam is half AB, half BC, this student would only take one exam, BC.
Why are you graduating early? If you’re aiming for very selective universities, especially private universities, it will hurt your prospects.
Apush in block scheduling would be incredibly difficult. Can you take American history 101-102 at the college?
So to recap you are looking at a schedule for next year of:
English
Psych + Sociology (1 each fall & spring semester)
APUSH
AP Calc BC
AP Bio
Bio & USH are very content-heavy classes- just a lot of material to master
AB/BC moves very fast: it will depend on your strength (both natively and in background) in math of course, but it is considered a very demanding course.
You don’t say anything about your objectives, which is an important variable. So, based on the guess that you are planning to apply to highly selective colleges:
= No foreign language?
= Presumably you will also have some meaningful leadership ECs?
= College apps been compared to taking another class (researching schools, writing essays, writing up info for the people who are writing your recs / chasing your recs, doing the paperwork, etc all take more time and effort than most students realize).
Obviously, none of us know you, your abilities, your energy levels, or your objectives. An advanced english, science, history and math are typical for kids aiming high for colleges. I would be worried about time: you are taking 5 classes in a school that expects 4 and you are taking 3 classes in another location (travel time)- on top of the ‘usual’ heavy schedule of demanding course load, ECs and college apps.