<p>This is what my counsolers have been telling us, but my counsoler also told me that the SAT writing counts as an SAT 2, and it doesnt...so does anyone know?</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure plenty of people who get into ivy league schools don't take AP lit, is your selection of AP courses limited? That could be why the counselor said that; to make sure you have enough AP to be competitive.</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>But if you take the easy no-critical-thinking-required lit class when you could have taken AP English, I don't think you'll deserve to.</p>
<p>It's not mandatory in the sense that if you don't have it, they throw you into the trash can.</p>
<p>what I'm assuming your counselor meant (perhaps giving her the benefit of the doubt too much), is that AP Lit it a pretty standard AP, that a large percentage of Ivy-bound students take because pretty much everyone takes English for 4 years, and thus if your school offers AP Lit, most top-reaching students, who are aiming for a "most rigorous" courseload, will select it. </p>
<p>The exception, of course, would be if your school only offers one or two periods of it, and thus it would mess up your schedule to take it. If that were the case, and you took honors (or AP lang, if you haven't, etc.), I'm sure colleges would understand.</p>
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<p>And what your counsellor probably meant regarding the writing section is that Writing used to be an SAT 2, and now its part of the SAT as you know. As such, most schools are giving it less weight (or none at all) until it shows correllation to good writing.</p>
<p>Consider your competition. You are applying to an Ivy League college, presumably one that only accepts around 10 percent of applicants. I am going to bet that most of your competition will have taken AP English. If you decide to take the easy route and not challenge yourself, you will not seem as competitive in the applicant pool.</p>
<p>I'd like to think I'm Ivy caliber, and I didn't take AP English. In my school, AP English is a very competitive course, and it's much easier to take another AP like Environmental Science. It's much easier to take a Science AP in my school than English.</p>
<p>So, long story short, no. In my opinion/experience, AP English is not a staple course for an Ivy League student.</p>
<p>According to some of the people here, I guess it depends on how competitive the course is in your school. In my school, there's an application, along with an essay, and a test, and this is all just to get into AP English. AP English is a class of 16 people (at most) in my school per year, and only those who are actually amazing at English consider applying. So taking, for instance, Comedic Literature or Contemporary Fiction is not considered the easy route in my school.</p>
<p>It's not so much about AP English as it is about most rigorous courseload possible.</p>
<p>Your counselor isn't wrong about SAT writing. As you might know, writing used to be an optional SAT II subject test, but after its incorporation into the SAT reasoning test (in a way to make the test more "difficult"), the writing subject test was discontinued. However, many colleges still view it as a subject test.</p>
<p>i dont really want to take ap lit (all you do is sign up) because there would be a lot of reading and multiple projects at the same time from what i've heard, and im planning on taking 4 or 5 APs (mostly challenging ones like APUSH and Physics) already, to top it off w/basketball season.<br>
i'm planning on taking honors english though. i just don't know how important ap lit is.
has anyone got into an ivy/any other top school w/o taking ap lit?</p>
<p>I would agree with others that AP Lit/English is not absolutely REQUIRED to get into a top school, but....</p>
<p>I must disagree with those who say that AP English is not a staple course. It is arguably the most common staple AP course that the top colleges will like to see, along with courses like APUS and AP Calc. In my personal experience and research and from the knowledge that I have gleaned from admissions deans on these forums and from college advice books, if your school offers AP English and you do not take it, you will be a in a small and not particularly desirable minority among applicants to the top colleges. If there is one thing that students at the top colleges do a lot of, it is reading and writing. Also, not to be cruel, but colleges are going to know that AP English is a more rigorous course than AP Enviro, for example, and will not rate that AP course equally as AP English. </p>
<p>Now, if you are taking an otherwise rigorous courseload and the next level down of English isn't really basic, I think that it is okay to not take AP English. But it is a class that you should really have a good reason not to take, in my opinion, if you are serious about highly selective colleges.</p>
<p>Well said, advantagious.</p>
<p>That is good advice to follow (advantagious)</p>
<p>No, it's not required at all. I know someone who took the easiest literature class offered and was accepted. If you want to add more turbulence to the mix, no APUSH either. I believe that straight As with a mix of regular, honors, and AP (sparingly) courses is better than rushing head first into many APs and getting multiple Bs. That's the observation that I have made. Of course, straight As with all APs is better, but most will come out with a B.</p>
<p>Yes, I know it goes against what admissions officers have been saying, but as long as the schedule is 20% regular, 50% honors, 30% AP, I don't see what's wrong with it.</p>
<p>
Well, that just nullifies your entire statement.</p>
<p>If all you care about is your GPA and don't think you're capable of earning a high grade in a certain AP, go ahead and take the general class. But selective colleges know how much easier general classes are in comparison to AP's, so it would only make your higher GPA seem less impressive.</p>
<p>SQL: your anecdotal friend who got in: good for him/her. However, one must be aware that the top tier schools are DEFINITELY looking for those who will push themselves within their environment. If you attend a rural HS with fewer resources, maybe Precalc is the most advanced course on your transcript. Well, did that student take Calc at the CC?</p>
<p>However, if you go to a plush school with all sorts of opportunities, the GPA monger who carefully constructs his schedule by avoiding challenging classes -- well, let's just say there are 1000s of students who ARE taking the most rigorous courseload. Maybe they aren't 4.0s but they show some essentials to academic success -- drive and the desire to learn.</p>
<p>They're the ones you'd be competing against. I ALWAYS advise HS students to take the more challenging class -- even if they don't get the A. I had all sorts of Bs in my HS career. But I took every hard class myvery advanced HS offered. I got no rejections my Senior year. </p>
<p>HTH</p>
<p>"I got no rejections my Senior year. "</p>
<p>where'd you apply to? and how many Bs did you get?</p>
<p>Well, wait -- AP Literature or AP Language? They are both English APs. I'm taking both, but I'm just curious.. everyone keeps saying AP English, but I just wanted to say they are in fact two different courses and AP exams.</p>
<p>AP Literature...there's an AP english language??? we only have that for foreign languages</p>
<p>im taking AP lang</p>
<p>A friend of mine signed up for AP English but took the class for a week and decided the teacher was a joke and her time would be much better served in a "free reading" class with a more challenging teacher. She wrote about it in a supplementary essay (the decision not to take AP and why she thought it helped her in the long run) and got into Princeton, Amherst, Cornell, and others.</p>