My son is a Junior and he is contemplating whether to take (upgrade) APUSH instead of regular US History.
Concerned that he is not challenging himself by not taking APUSH. He just started school and has time till end of this week to make change.
I heard APUSH is tough and time consuming. Does taking APUSH has any weightage towards the admissions to UC’s or other colleges?
Currently taking :
AP Math Calculus BC
AP Physics C
Foreign Language Honors
US History
Eng Literature
He is willing to get into STEM field - and has finished AP Comp Sci as a Sophomore.
Any advice what else can be done to be competent by taking just regular History .
Taking a 3rd AP as a junior shows a rigorous schedule which schools like to see, but BC and Physics will both be challenging. Is AP Gov an option? That was one of the easier APs for my D.
No more time-consuming that AP Physics C, IMO. But the workload depends, in part, on the teacher. If he can handle the class, he should take the class. But taking APUSH does not specifically help in college admissions. It will be part of overall rigor, and for the UC’s the weighting will help, but no more so than any other AP. Colleges will evaluate the schedule as a whole. Particularly if the GC ranks the schedule as “most demanding,” the AO will not parse course by course.
Not in lieu of anything else on his schedule. I’m sure USH is a graduation requirement, so the OP’s question is really APUSH vs regular USH.
APUSH was a lot of work for my daughter but she loved it and it greatly improved her writing. She also did well on the AP exams and was able to get out of an entire gen ed sequence in college (she took AP euro, APUSH, and Dual credit gov). That is very college specific though in terms of getting credit and usually public universities are more generous with AP credit.
The other consideration is having your son talk to his guidance counselor to see what his school considers for the “most rigorous” schedule. If he’s gunning for a competitive university, he’ll want that box checked off on the counselor’s report.
APUSH was time consuming for D1, based on how it was taught. And she was a history kid. But I’m not sure anyone can say it’s not a help in competitive admissions. The higher the college tier, the more the balance in core humanities rigor also matters, not just STEM. Beats APES or AP stats the AP econ, psych or sometimes AP govt.
At DD’s school, APUSH is taught junior year and requires two hours of homework a night. Usually kids don’t pair it with AP Calculus BC (typically a senior class) because that one is three hours of homework each night. Add those two classes with any ECs plus the homework of the other five or six other subjects and… you must chose between having a life or getting some sleep (pick only one).
Hopefully your school is different. If not, and STEM is his thing, go for the higher math. Is honors history a possibility or is it simply regular vs. AP?
Neither of my kids spent two hours of homework a night on APUSH. In fact I’d be surprised if they spent more than half an hour except when studying for a test or writing a paper. All the kids who were planning on applying to selective colleges took it, including most of the STEM oriented kids. My older son really was not thrilled about taking it (CS guy), but he did and got a 5 on the exam which got him out of taking a history course in college which made him very happy.
I’m always astounded by how much time homework seems to take for other kids on CC. My kids had clubs for an hour or two most days and did two or three hours of homework adding up all their subjects. Tops. They did well on the AP exams and had no problem with college level work when they got to college.
As I’ve often said, including on this thread, the workload depends, in part, on the teacher, so the OP’s kid should investigate. In my own experience, I’ve never had an AP class that had more than an hour of HW per night (excluding papers and labs, but even then, the nightly homework was lessened around due dates). I can’t possibly imagine what would require 2-3 hours/night.
See, this is just ridiculous. APUSH and AP Euro are comparable difficulty, so the HW expectations should be aligned. Having taken both, there is no reason AP Euro requires 4 more hours of HW per week than APUSH. IMO, one teacher is on a power trip.
Ours is just the opposite. AP Euro is a sophomore class, and not known for crazy amounts of homework. The subject matter should theoretically be of comparable difficulty (I completely agree), but the workload just isn’t. Other people on these boards talk about AP Physics having a lot, but ours doesn’t, not even C (it has plenty, just not a crazy-have-no-life amount like BC). For some reason it’s AP Calculus BC and APUSH (30 pages of reading a night with notes and questions) that are the “winners”. I’m expecting DD to either take them in separate years or bump down to honors history. I guess it’s good advice to tell the OP to talk to the teachers, students who have taken the classes, and the GC about it, because it really is different everywhere.
Almost all students at our local HS avoid AP Euro like the plague. There’s a lot of writing from what I’ve heard. It’s a grade killer and a class for the “creme dela creme” of students. The weak need not apply. And it’s been this way for years and years.
Lots of variation school to school! My daughter easily spent 20 hrs/week on AP Physics C (more on test weeks), and no more than 3-4 hours/week for AP calc. She though calc and stats were the easiest APs at her school in terms of work load. All the other APs were somewhere in between. Good advice to the OP to talk to the teachers and other students about the workload!
One course won’t make or break an application – but perhaps check with your guidance counselor. One thing that may make a difference is if they will check “most rigorous” curriculum box in writing their recommendations. Also if there is an honors version of the course that may be a good alternative than APUSH if that is not their strong suit.
As others have said it depends on the school and the student. Most of the top students at our HS take APUSH instead of regular US History 2. If he is aiming for a tippy top school, he may be competing with kids who talk APUSH and APcalc BC and AP physics.
Can he drop US history now and take APUSH next year? What science and math will he take in 12th grade?
In most cases, getting an A in APUSH looks more impressive than an A in regular USH. But if it causes him to do less well in the other APs or to have an unmanageable level of work, it would not be worth it.
My daughter took her history credits through distance learning (American School), and she got into a top college. The only AP courses she took were Stats, Lang, Calc, and Physics.
For non-STEM, the highly selective colleges will want to see it if it’s offered by the hs. For STEM, it will depend on the college, the top ones want to see balance as lookingforward noted so APUSH and APLAC would be expected.
For UCs, as long as you have the four honors or APs junior and senior your son is fine wrt the capped GPA, so with three this year and assuming you son took pre-calc honors and/or science honrs, you have the four. I’m not a big fan of loading up on APs but without knowing some of the colleges your son is considering, outside of UCs, it’s tough to answer.