<p>So I'm in my senior year and I'm taking AP Biology right now. I hope to major in Biology, so it seemed like the natural step to take. However, with about 2.5 weeks to go in the class, I have an 86%. I'm working harder in this class than I've ever worked for any other class, and still only getting an 86. </p>
<p>So my question is: Does your performance in AP Bio reflect how you'll do as a Bio major? I originally took the class to just try to get a head start on the Intro Bio class I'll have to take freshman year of college. Thanks!</p>
<p>I would not take an 86% as a sign you should not major in biology. If that’s what you are really interested in and you feel fairly confident in it, I would not worry too much about your high school class too strongly predicting your college success. As you point out, taking the AP class will make you better prepared for your intro biology class in college.
In general, college is a fairly different environment from high school, and there are a lot of factors that play into how well you do in either.</p>
<p>However, I do want to ask: Why do you want to major in bio? What are your plans with the degree? I am asking because I want to make sure you are aware that biology is not a field with the best job prospects and just want to make sure you know what you are getting yourself into and have thought things through!</p>
<p>No, it just says that you should never be any kind of analyst since that is wildly crazy to base how well you’ll do in a biology major from one biology course you took in high school for AP credit. </p>
<p>A friend of mine is a physics major who started from basic arithmetic in community college and is at UCLA now. I was not good at math in high school it would seem from my HS transcript, but I’m 16 units away from graduating with a math degree. I did not work like a dog to get here either. I think I’d make sure your chemistry skills are up to par because I’m assuming the rest is just memorization. I took an Honors Biology class in my first couple years of college. It was easy, so I think you might be overthinking how hard a biology class will be in college. A very close friend of mine concurrs and he was an absolutely terrible student in high school but has a high GPA as a Mechanical Engineering major. He took AP classes too, so really…just wait until you get into college. I don’t think you need to declare a major for the first two years.</p>
<p>AP classes are generally going to give very little of an indication of how well you’d do in a given major. I know people that have take AP Calculus in high school and have done horrible after going on to college calculus. Conversely, I know people that never even took pre-calc in high school and have excelled in college calculus. The same can be said for physics, chemistry, biology or any other subject you could name.</p>
<p>AP classes are generally just a broad survey. They cover all of the main points of the field without a great level of depth. AP classes are often based on the rote memorization of large amounts of information, rather than any real rigor of understanding of any of these various fields. Thus, they aren’t really much of an indicator of how well one will do in a college course.</p>