<p>Honestly, is it worth all the effort to self-study APs? I want to get National Scholar Award and will need to self-study 5 APs this year... and I'm starting to think it might be for nothing. (Assuming I get 4/5s on all of my APs)</p>
<p>If I put in the time and effort to self-study but when exam time comes I'm not confident, should I still take the exams since 4 out of 5 of my self-studies aren't offered as classes at my school?</p>
<p>Argh..idk.</p>
<p>Think about it this way, if you can get credit, it will also save you a lot of money in college. I think self-studying still looks good for college admission, and it shows a lot of initiative. </p>
<p>My own personal experience - I self-studied for AP Psychology this year and I was not confident at all. I had read the Barron’s book once and read 2 chapters the morning before the test. With AP Physics C Mechanics, I studied 3 days before the test (I was taking AP Physics B to be fair though), and for AP Calculus BC, I learned the BC material about a week before the test. </p>
<p>^Soooo…I learned not to procrastinate this year :p, but even though I wasn’t that confident, I still ended up with 5s on the exams. A lot of times people are pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>Yes, they would save you lots of time and money in college because it can get you out of classes that you don’t need to take again.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that many colleges, especially the colleges that people on cc generally want to go to, will not give credit or will only give minimal credit for AP scores. Taking many tests can be quite expensive and time-consuming, and it’s hard to really predict how much it will pay off. If you’re interested in the subjects you’d be studying, it’s not necessarily a bad idea, because self-study can be more efficient than classroom study if you’re motivated, and AP tests allow you to demonstrate to colleges that you actually do have the interest and motivation to master tough material on your own, which is pretty much exactly what you need to do well in college classes. However, I doubt that it will look any better for admissions than doing some other valuable extracurricular instead. I would guess that self-studying 5 APs would be excessive; you may be able to do it, but it’s probably not worth it.</p>