<p>I never really took an AP class due to my school's horrible scheduling. Instead, I just took junior classes in my sophomore year (US History, English 11, etc). </p>
<p>Now that junior year is here, I think I need to make up for the loss of two years of my high school "academic life." So my schedule is...</p>
<p>Day 1
AP World History
Psychology
US/World Government
AP Literature
French II</p>
<p>Day 2
AP World History
Psychology
AP Biology
AP US History
French II</p>
<p>and I'm thinking about self-studying, AP Psychology, AP Government, AP Stats, and AP Environmental Science.
Now my pre-calculus teacher wants me to take AP Calc AB (we don't offer BC, so I'll self-study that if I take AP Calc) but that'll replace the Psychology in both days. Which means I'll be self-studying 4 APs and taking 5 AP classes.</p>
<p>Basically, is it worth dropping psychology to take AP Calc and is my course load too much, considering my previous years being a farce due to "easy" classes.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but I don’t think you can go from no APs to 5 APs classes and 4 self-studies. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I don’t recommend dropping psych for AP calc, I’d recommend taking it senior year because 0 APs to 6+4 self-studies is just too much. </p>
<p>Also, the general consensus here is that self-studies are good for 2 things: proving you’re capable of AP-work when your school doesn’t offer them, and getting more college credit relatively cheap. Don’t overload yourself with too much in an attempt to make up for your other years because in the end it probably won’t matter that much and there’s no point killing yourself.</p>
<p>Well this is the first year my school had this much APs heh so I couldn’t have taken APs as a freshmen or a sophomore. I understand what you mean but how hard are these AP classes? </p>
<p>I’m currently studying AP US/AP Psychology/AP Bio to lessen my course load for the school year. Would that help much?</p>
AP Courses are college level. You’re pretty much suggesting to take a full load of college/high school classes and self-study a semester of college work at the same time, with no prior college/AP classes. AP classes vary by school. Some are very difficult… I think we recently had a thread thread about an AP lit class where people were supposed to read something like 100 pages/day.</p>
<p>Best way I guess I can put it is that AP is to honors what honors is to standard.</p>
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<p>It has been my experience that in the end summer study does very little to reduce the amount of work you have to do during the year. Most of the time you understand the material that’s presented in class. Even if you already know it you still have to show up for class. Even if you’ve read the chapters you have to reread them throughout the year to study and you’ll still have to do the same assignments as everyone else.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m sorry, you’re in South Korea. You can probably afford to study those APs. :)</p>
<p>There was an article about some girl at that Leadership Academy who 5’d 10 self-studied AP’s while already taking the incredibly challenging load at the school. And these were like Physics, Calc, and so on.</p>
<p>AP Courses can be challenging, but it depends on the teacher. Many people have mentioned that they never got through all of the material in AP US History, meaning the class was going slowly. Except for a few courses like macroeconomics, microeconomics, Physics C (if you can take it as your first physics course), and Calc BC (If you can take it right after precalc and it’s 1 year long), AP courses are intended to cover the material of 1 semester of a college course in the course of a year. This means that while the work may be college level, chances are the pace and grading are not. Chances are, however, that they will be harder than most honors courses.</p>
<p>Haha with time, yes I think I can study those APs. Financially, ehh I found out a few days ago that the tests are going to be quite expensive when you factor in the cost of private school tuition here along with prep books and so on.</p>
<p>But to be honest, what you read about was one of the few elite of the elite schools. I don’t attend those schools. Instead I attend another foreign school since my Korean isn’t fluent, due to having lived most of my life in the States. But most of the students here, ehh…
Let’s just say that the GC looked at me like more than 3 APs have never been done before and said he’ll give me two weeks until I drop one or two classes, after that, I stick with them for good, better or worse.</p>
<p>I understand they’re college courses but if you have the background to grasp the concept presented in the courses, wouldn’t they be at the same difficulty level as a high school course or is it just the sheer work load required? (Now of course, I’m generalizing here) But AP Lit kinda scares me… With the amount of reading and all.</p>
<p>It depends on your high school. If it’s as you said, the level of work expected <em>should</em> be higher. If it’s not, this generally means you won’t be prepared for the exam. For example, calculus can be taught at a high school level, but you’ll never get any of the more challenging problems that would be on tests on the same subject in college courses. If teachers are grading more easily than the AP exam graders, the course won’t prepare you well for the exam or higher level college courses, but the course in high school will be easier. If the teachers grade the same or harder, the course will be very hard but you’ll be really well prepared for the exam. This is the reason it varies.</p>
<p>And I know you’re not taking this one, but here’s an example:</p>
<p>3rd year Latin at my high school reads about 40-80 lines of Latin a week
AP Latin reads 100-160 lines a week
The college course that AP Latin supposedly is the same level as reads 150-225 lines a week, at Brown.</p>
<p>More work than a normal course, but not as much as a college course.</p>
<p>I’m not particularly fond of the way most APs seem to be taught. Most college professors are like “Here’s the book. I’m going to lecture for 6 hours a week. I’m going to give you a test and whatever you do in the meantime is your problem.” A lot of times AP courses are, particularly at not-so-great schools, “I’m going to give you 40 million work sheets, you’ll all but copy the chapter verbatim for an ‘outline’ and the tests will be on unimportant facts.”</p>
<p>Other factors are 1. Are you an American Citizen and 2. Are you looking at top US schools?</p>
<p>There was an article about some girl at that Leadership Academy who 5’d 10 self-studied AP’s while already taking the incredibly challenging load at the school. And these were like Physics, Calc, and so on.</p>
<p>^ you mean minjok leadership academy? that’s considered the best school in the country, so it’s not necessarily that phenomenal (of course it IS phenomenal) given the fact that it’s korea, and those are some of the best students in korea.</p>
<p>I don’t think the self-study APs are that bad actually. From what I’ve heard, stats is pretty dang easy. Psych I’ve heard isn’t that hard, and Envi Sci is a joke if you’ve taken bio before. Again, I have yet to take any of these courses but that’s what I’ve heard, and I trust my sources (: And I’m sure Gov won’t be Calc BC as long as you care about the course.</p>
<p>AP world isn’t that hard, it’s just a ton of memorizing and lots of dbqs. i’m going to take it next year, but i took the regular course this past year doing some college-level stuff and it’s basically apush except it’s more about europe and asia than it is on america.</p>
<p>Then again, we exaggerate a lot of things on CC. Everyone always goes on about how easy most of these courses are but only 10% of people make 5’s on Environmental and there was a thread in the AP forum about how you had to memorize a lot of specific laws and regulations that people may not expect and may not have much experience synthesizing.</p>
<p>I meant I heard from people in my school, most of whom do not level up to CC standards (not saying that I do) (:</p>
<p>I didn’t know it was 10%… meh. That sucks. Usually if you’re motivated enough to self study it though I’m guessing you would have either the intelligence or persistence to match a high score.</p>
<p>I would say cut down an AP or two though. Just, ten APs in one year is a little too much. OP, you do know that a rather rare/honorable distinction is given to those who take at least 8 exams with an average grade of 4 (ie AP Scholar)? That’s for one’s entire high school career, not just their junior year. Perhaps split the self-studies into two years?</p>
<p>Plus a lot of schools only offer one or two APs for sophomore year and rarely do they ever allow freshmen to take APs at all. So don’t feel like you have to hurry ):</p>
<p>I dunno, I came from a Bay Area school where AP Bio was the norm in sophomore year and there were so much opportunities there yet when my parents moved to South Korea… There isn’t much here if you can’t speak the language fluently and my current situation only makes things worse.
Currently, I’m not an American and I am aiming for top private schools (Princeton, JHU, Cornell, etc), because those are the schools that give out financial aid to non-Americans, unlike the UCs. But I’m considering UCLA and UCSD.</p>
<p>As far as the teaching style of my school goes, the Calc teacher said he’ll basically treat it as a college course. Do the optional homework in class, take a section quiz every other day, a chapter test in about a week or two then that’s your grade.
But the AP USH teacher is pretty anal-retentive about the work, requiring outlines and etc, to the point where he crammed last year’s class about 4 chapters weeks before the AP exam. So I’ll be buying AMSCO for that class.</p>
<p>As for the AP award, it’s not only about the reward (sure it does look pretty good) but the fact that due to moving schools, half my freshmen year is blank and my sophomore/freshmen year are kinda … ehh messed up. I took environmental science for my freshmen class, regular biology during sophomore year, and I lost the Mandarin II/Comp Sci credit… Just talking to friends back home, it seems like I’m a year behind most of things.</p>
<p>Thanks guys for the advice x] it’s good hearing from other people who have knowledge about this, unlike most people at my school heh.</p>
In my experience, this is not how college math courses are run. There are 1 or 2 tests and a final a semester, plus weekly problem sets (which count for little). The pressure is to synthesize chapters of material and do well on 2 big tests, rather than several smaller ones.</p>
<p>Apparently you don’t know Korean well enough to be accepted to a Korean University (Am I correct on this?). There are only a few college in the US that give very good financial aid and international admissions is really difficult. My advice? Learn Korean! At least then you have more options. :)</p>
<p>Haha well it is high school after all, Uroogla. After all, it’s not like my math teacher is pursuing groundbreaking research in the realm of Calculus hehe. They need something to put in the grade books but compared to other teachers in high school, it’s pretty hands off teaching. But I understand what you mean.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m kinda screwed. I don’t know Korean well enough to receive a college level, or a high school level, education in Korean, yet I know enough to go around.
But there are programs which allow non-Korean speaking people to apply and be an “international” student. Yet as meritocratic the Korean college admission process is, their “foreigner” program is not. The requirement is that my parents and I need to have a foreign passport and it gets harder since they don’t recognize my high school as a “real” American education system. (The college is Yonsei for those who are interested)</p>
<p>However, my friend did get a full ride to some liberal arts university and another to Boston College (although he was American). So I’m hoping that something comes up in the future where something could alleviate my financial situation. But the goal at the moment is to get accepted into a good university hehe</p>