Colleges' opinions on taking a course at independent study schools?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi, so I'm a high school sophomore, and I'm thinking about taking US History (which I'm supposed to take at school next year) over the summer at Opportunities for Learning.
The reason is that the program I'm in at school only has one AP US History teacher, and his classes are just really stressful (I'm in his class for AP Euro, which I'm required to take). I hate the way he teaches, and I feel like I can't get anything else done because I'm so stressed about this one class.
I could take honors instead of AP US with a teacher from the residential program, but I feel like that would be a waste of a class period in which I could be taking an AP class and boosting up my GPA.
So I was thinking of taking a US history class for 10 credits over the summer, getting it over with entirely, and taking an AP elective next year.</p>

<p>Would colleges see it as a bad thing if I take a class at Opportunities?</p>

2

<p>In the grand scheme of things whether you take the US history course at your high school or at some other venue over the summer is unlikely to matter to anyone but you. My sense is that if you see summer as a time to take additional courses then pick a special course, one that isn’t offered in any form at your high school – perhaps a course on government, or computer science, or Portuguese, or the modern City. Hopefully you get the idea – a course that will complement your high school experience, and not one that will serve to mitigate a perceived irritation with one of your high school teachers.</p>

3

<p>I would go for it. It sounds like you will be happier and less stressed during the school year, and you’ll have more AP classes so win-win. If you can get a 5 on the APUSH test that would also be good.</p>