Honors and AP

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>BACKGROUND: At my school, there are only 5 APs offered (Lit, Calc AB, Physics B, US and Spanish Lang). We do however, have a large honors program. The interesting part is, the honors courses are usually far more difficult than the AP. The honors courses present more material in incredible depth, but do not cover the same topics as the APs, so you can't take the exams.</p>

<p>My worry is that colleges will look at my transcript and say "Wow, he only took 4 APs (I don't take spanish)". </p>

<p>Someone in my Honors-Accelerated Biology course took AP Bio last year at his old school, got a 100 average and a 5 on the exam, but can only manage a 92 in the course at my school. I have a 93 in that course, and my teacher said I'd get a 100 easily in AP Bio, but because the course has different material, I can't take the exam, again.</p>

<p>QUESTION: Will my lower grades in Honors-Accelerated courses look bad, because most people think honors are a joke, but they're far harder in my school than AP? I highly doubt colleges will recognize the difference</p>

<p>QUESTION: For SAT Subject Tests, I will have to prepare pretty much on my own because the respective courses don't cover the same material. Is it possible to get upper 700's on SAT Subject Tests with no AP course, or even a normal course to begin with, without extensive self-study that is?</p>

<p>QUESTION: I know most colleges recalculate GPA. Will they weight my Honors courses like AP, or will they be weighted normally (or do they not weight anything)?</p>

<p>Thanks so much in advance!</p>

2

<p>I don’t think that colleges weigh honors classes. Someone else will have to confirm this though.</p>

3

<p>I don’t have Bs and Cs, all As. But low As in some. Also, there’s only one AP offered to juniors and only 3 to seniors, none to underclassmen. So I can’t take the AP alternative.</p>

4

<p>Thanks eight28, that’s actually not too bad an idea. Actually, on transcripts, it doesn’t even appear as that, it just puts the class name, then the class code. If you want to know if its honors-acc, you have to go look in the program of studies.
It looks like:</p>

<p>Biology 118
Anyone who just takes college prep bio:
Biology 117</p>

<p>So I doubt colleges will actually request a program of studies… they won’t even know its honors!!</p>

5

<p>Also, colleges look at the classes your school offers and how difficult your schedule was, so if you take lots of honors classes and a few AP’s (not necessarily all), then they’ll know that you were taking the hardest classes your school offers. If you’re really concerned, you could also somehow work that angle into your apps, but the colleges you apply to will already know about how difficult the honors classes are and how few AP classes are offered, so don’t worry too much : D</p>

6

<p>Okay thanks so much for your replies!</p>