do colleges know which APs are blowoffs?

<p>It also needs to be looked at in the perspective of a student's schedule. Though my school offers about 17 AP classes, I have only taken 1. Why? I was behind in middle school and worked my ass off the past four years to simply advance that far. I've been interested in Biology, and political science and AP Enviro is a class that encompasses a lot of the two. I've already taken honors bio, honors chem and honors physics, so I had my bases covered in the other subjects as well. All the honors classes at my school (and even some simple college-prep classes) are taught out of college textbooks as well, a great example of differences between schools.</p>

<p>Is it better to take AP lit , with a strong english backround ,or to take Ap environmental science , with a some what weak science backround . Also , What do you think is the maximum number of AP's to take ? I may be taking 5 ( AP lit , AP environmental sciennce , Ap MeH, Ap gov , and Ap art ) , which one would you consider to drop ??</p>

<p>what is AP Meh? If Ihad to choose I would drop Env Science.</p>

<p>AP Stats at my school is really intense
the teacher is hard and barely gives any partial credit on tests, which are also difficult</p>

<p>I'm in AP Enviro and it's definitely not a "blowoff." It's a LOT of work and we have at least 1 or 2 lab write ups a week. It's pretty intense.</p>

<p>ilk:</p>

<p>not sure what there is on this thread that bothers you. Most of us have already pointed out that every school and teacher is different. Based on collegeboard's curriculum (which is designed by college profs), the simple fact is that certain AP courses (one college semester) cover less material than other AP courses (two college semesters).</p>

<p>Specific colleges already factor in the toughness of specific APs by giving
or not giving credit for them...? Individual schools make specific APs
super tough...for example AP Stats at my school is quite hard in terms of
required effort from a grade perspective despite the content being relatively
easy compared to Calc BC. There are no fluff APs at my school that I know
of....(but some of the grade 12 APs seem to be set up to vaccinate against
Senioritis ;))</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>
[quote]
Our only two easy AP classes are AP US and AP Stat- and AP US being the more difficult of the two.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>funny that you say that because APUSH is maybe the hardest at our school while stat is definitely the easiest</p>

<p>//only 2 As out of 60 people</p>

<p>AP US Government and Politics is insanely easy. There are a lot of kids (the stupidest ones) in my class who take it so that they graduate with at least one AP.</p>

<p>easiest at my school:</p>

<p>AP stats, ap environmental, ap economics(micro and macro), and ap physics by FAR</p>

<p>At my school, AP Psychology and AP U.S. Government are considered the easiest.
I really do think psych is pretty easy though. I got a 4 on the test and I didn't open the book all year.
& the hardest at my school are Physics and Chemistry. Calculus is considered hard too, but my teacher has a 75% passing rate.
Biology is seen as easy, but I have a terrible teacher. As I did for World History.
For English Language, my teacher had an absolutely terrible 14% passing rate. </p>

<p>So I think for some it varies per school, but I think other APs such as Psychology really are easy.</p>

<p>AP Psychology could be a really hard class, honestly. At my school, the teachers have so much experience and skill in teaching that class that retaining information is a snap. It is a hard class at my school, we just don't have to work as hard as other classes because psychology just happens to have the most competent teachers that can explain the best. </p>

<p>APUSH at my school is also known as suicide. I don't know why no one else did what I did... not take the class and get a 5 on the test.</p>

<p>How is AP Euro generally looked upon? Is it considered "lower" than AP USH?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Our only two easy AP classes are AP US and AP Stat- and AP US being the more difficult of the two.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>At my high school, AP Stats was a roughly normal AP class (much, much easier than the crazy-hard prob/stats class I had to take in college, but immensely useful for data analysis in my ISEF projects and lab science classes). AP US History was very difficult, one of the hardest classes to get an A in (and the pass rate on the actual AP test was extremely high).</p>

<p>AP Psych was not overly difficult, but it was a very high-quality class. Very, very popular. Same teacher as for AP US History, and most of the students got 5s on the test.</p>

<p>mao:</p>

<p>No, Euro is not "lower" than APUSH.</p>

<p>
[quote]
How is AP Euro generally looked upon? Is it considered "lower" than AP USH?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>At my school Euro was seen as harder than US History, though I imagine that's because it depended on which teacher you got. For US History (taken 10th grade) one's students got 4/5s and the other's students got 3-5. In Euro, we had three teachers. I had the one where people got 3s or 4s, another had 3-5s, and the best one had 4-5s.</p>

<p>I've really found the quality of an AP class is really influenced by the quality of your teacher. I remember my Euro homework assignments were just copying pages and pages out of the textbook by hand.</p>

<p>Haha... AP Stats is a joke class in our school, but it is still insanely hard to get an A because apparently our teacher is a sadist and enjoys watching our faces when we get our tests back and we see that we failed because we didn't show the exact amount of work she told us to, or because we drew a graph too small (yes, I have actually gotten points taken off for that).</p>

<p>Oh, and we are so horribly overprepared for AP Chem that literally every single one of the 50-some people who take the AP Chem test gets a 5 on it, but barely 10 people actually get A's in the class.</p>

<p>At our school, AP Psych is one of the most popular classes but its not an easy A. Nearly everyone gets a B, but you have to be really into the subject to get that B/B+ -> A-/A. Nearly everyone gets a 5, some 4s a couple 3s.</p>

<p>AP Stats, my god, no one likes the teacher (I hated her). But I respect her, because she flat out knows her Stats. In that class, grades vary from F's to A's. But almost everyone passes the test.</p>

<p>Regarding the AP US vs AP Euro debate. AP Euro is harder for sure, but it's way more fun and interesting and the teacher grades on a strict bell curve. everyone passes though. AP US is easier, but still far from a guaranteed A. If you read the book, easy 4/5. If you were just awake in class = 3.</p>

<p>bluebayou- i just hate when people generalize, that's all. when i hear someone says AP stats is a "glorified honors course" when it COMPLETELY isn't for many students who are struggling in it at my school, it really bothers me.</p>

<p>It's different for each school, whether an AP class is hard. For example, my AP History class was more on the level of a CP class than honors class. Also, my statistics class is not very hard, considering it is filled with normal people from whom that is the only AP class they have ever taken</p>