How are AP courses compared to college courses? Are APs easier, are they faster or slower paced, etc. And do you get summer assignments in college?
@Finasol AP’s are generally similar in content/difficulty to certain freshmen-level courses, although the pace and actual difficulty can vary by school.
Unless you’re taking summer courses, generally no.
From my experience, I thought that AP classes were generally harder than community college classes. Some AP exams even give more credit than community college classes. I’d say that at a university level, university courses would definitely be more difficult than AP classes, mainly because professors aren’t there to hold your hand and it is a lot of independent work.
There are no summer assignments leading to Fall courses in college, if that’s what you’re asking.
Note that some AP courses are slower paced than the college courses covering similar material, in that they cover over a year in high school what the college course covers in a semester. Examples include calculus AB, psychology, statistics, chemistry, environmental science, any of the physics ones if each piece (i.e. 1 or 2 or C-Mech or C-E&M) is a year long course.
How in-depth a college course is and how well it covers the expected topics varies by college/department/instructor. College courses can also be at levels other than the frosh level that AP courses align to (i.e. there can be lower/remedial/developmental college courses covering ordinary high school level material, or more advanced college courses covering more advanced material than frosh or AP level).
I honestly find AP courses a lot more structurally tedious (and therefore annoying) than college courses. I’m the sort of student that thrives in an environment where the grade depends on just a few exams instead of various weighted factors like participation, weekly journals, quizzes, etc so by default, I find college courses easier (in that sense) than AP classes.
One of my core beliefs that I will take with me to the grave is that I will never, in my life, experience anything as excruciating as AP U.S. History. I’ve taken multiple history classes in college, including a graduate seminar, and they all pale in comparison to how brutal APUSH was on my poor, 15 year old self.
Also, no summer assignments in college. But depending on the subject, you may want to review some stuff before the semester begins (totally not necessary, but it can be pretty helpful.)
APs are generally slower paced- a year long AP course usually covers a semester worth of material in college.
The comparable difficulty depends on the rigor of your AP teacher or high school and the rigor of the corresponding college course. For example, I took AP Chem and thought it was fine, but then I took an extremely rigorous honors intro chemistry course in college and I literally dedicated my soul to that class. On the other hand, I also took an introductory sociology college class that was less intensive than most AP humanities classes that I took, in that graded elements relied on only a couple exams and papers (similar to what @preamble1776 said).
No summer assignments, though there have been a couple instances where a professor emailed me a week before class started saying that they wanted a chapter read by the first day.