How do AP's Work At Your School?

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
1

<p>I was just interested in finding out how different high schools view ap courses. I guess this was sparked by seeing the thread about only being able to take three ap's a year.</p>

<p>At my school, ap's were viewed as junior year classes until the last two or three years. It used to be rare for a sophomore to be taking any, but now there are a lot more. And I think freshman aren't allowed to take any. I used to think this was normal until I began seeing ppl on CC who begin taking ap's freshman year, and end up with maybe over a dozen by graduation.</p>

<p>So it would be interesting to hear about other schools. Thanks!</p>

2

<p>At my school, AP World is a two-year course for Freshman/Sophomores. AP Art History is available for Sophomores, but hardly anyone signs up for it, so it’s usually not offered. =/ Most other APs are open to both Juniors and Seniors. Some are grade specific, such as Language (11) and Lit (12), APUSH (11), Eco (12), GOPO (12), Physics C (12), Calc AB/BC (12), and AP Studio (12).</p>

<p>Btw, I am in Sachem North in Long Island.</p>

3

<p>We have most ap classes in our school, expect the art and economics ones. The science and math ap classes are emphasized (our school pays for the ap tests if it’s a science or math). Most of the time, freshmen and sophomores only take social studies ap classes (ap govt and ap world). Most people take the most ap classes their junior year and then kind of take it easy their senior year.</p>

4

<p>At my school, APUSH is the only soph AP, there are no freshman APs. Juniors have the opportunity to take AP Bio or AP Physics if they opt out of Chemistry or they can take these classes as seniors. AP English Lit, AP Calculus AB are available to only seniors and AP Stats is available to Juniors (if they opt out of pre-calc and thus surrender taking Calc) or seniors. Plus, we have a trimester system which makes combining APs difficult because they are three terms when other classes are only two. Definitely a pain in the ass. :)</p>

5

<p>At my school it’s all contingent on a students abilities. AP World is a course taken most widely by sophomores and rarely by freshman. As a sophomore I took AP Statistics as well, and I was only one of two sophomores taking it. AP English Lang, APUSH and AP Physics are typical junior year courses, along with AP Calc AB for students who are double accelerated in math. Foreign language courses and the other AP Sciences, alongside AP English Lit. are taken in senior year.</p>

6

<p>my school recieves money for every student that passes and AP exam, so they encourage us to take as many as we want</p>

<p>my schedule-
freshman: AP Bio-3 , AP human Geo-5 (2)
sophomore AP chem-4, AP world-5, ap art history-4 (3)
junior: AP eng. lang, AP stats, APUSH, AP physics B, AP Psych (5, and still waiting for scores)
senior: AP gov, Ap macro, AP lit, Ap calc BC, AP physics C (both of them) and AP enviornmental</p>

7

<p>Sophomores can basically only choose 1 AP (World History). Juniors and seniors have a much wider variety.
My school offers a lot of APs</p>

8

<p>My school lets you take AP classes starting 9th grade. Here are the options you have.
9th Grade: Only AP Bio and AP World History(this is a 2 year course, so technically you can only take one AP Exam in 9th grade)
10th Grade: AP World, AP Chem
11th Grade: AP Physics(mixed with seniors, AP Chem(mixed with sophs), AP US History, AP Psyche(Seniors get higher priority to be able to take it tho), AP Computer Science, AP Lit, AP Gov’t
12th Grade: AP Statistics, AP Environmental(may not occur due to tiny classes of 8 ppl), AP Bio, AP Psyche, AP Computer Science, AP Gov’t, AP Macro Economics, AP Euro History, AP Calculus, AP LOTE(Spanish, French, or Italian), AP Eng Lang, AP Art, and AP Music Theory.
So ya…we’re kind of full of APs offered from Freshman Year, although I don’t now if they limit our APs that we can take. I’m taking four next year as a Junior and planning for 7 as a Senior. I’ve heard at my friend’s chartered school they make you sign a death waiver if you take three or more APs, just to be safe in case you go crazy from the stress…</p>

9

<p>We used to only offer only one AP course for sophomores (world history), mostly so that people could figure out how much work an AP required and stop taking 8 APs junior year without having any idea what they’re getting themselves into. We’ve since welcomed sophomore and juniors into AP Art History, AP Comp Sci, AP Human Geography, and maybe AP Comparative Gov and AP Psych. Freshman year I wasn’t allowed to take anything AP, and sophomore year I took world and I was one of the first 2 sophomores to take art history (no one wanted to let us take the class…and then we both got 5s). </p>

<p>A few of ours are grade specific (the first five listed by nightpwnsj00), and the rest are open to juniors and seniors or maybe some sophomores who have taken the prerequisites. </p>

<p>I was in 6 APs this last (junior) year (5 full-year courses and a 1-semester AP Psych), which is pretty high but not an outlier at my school. We’re a fairly competitive public school, and the counselors rarely have time for any academic counseling, so no one’s there to stop you from complete course overload, whether you can handle it or not. We offer something like 32 AP classes total.</p>

<p>Frankly, I’m kind of relieved that I wasn’t allowed into any APs freshman year. It was nice to have that one year to adjust to high school before readjusting to college-level classes.</p>

10

<p>At my school there’s a gifted program thing that forces you to take some AP classes and also provides some optional ones. There were also a few people outside the program that took some AP classes, and they weren’t necessarily in that grade level.</p>

<p>Freshman: AP World
Sophomore: AP Bio (I didn’t take the test though), AP Stats (only for a few people, most take it senior year), AP US
Junior: AP Chem (optional, I did honors instead), AP Eng Lang, AP Euro
Senior: AP Physics C (optional), AP Calculus AB/BC (optional), AP Stats (alternative to doing calc, I’d already taken it), AP Lit, AP Gov & AP Econ (neither taught the AP material, and no one took the tests)</p>

11

<p>9th grade: AP Human Geo, usually only gifted kids take this. I wasn’t one, but I got a 3 on it.
10th grade: AP World History (most take this and that’s it), AP Art History (not many take this) and you can pretty much take any AP course you want, except for math and language arts. Most people usually just take one AP course this year. We only get two electives though and everything else is required. Also, most people take a foreign lanuage so the most one would take is 2 and no one takes it.
11th grade: Only some people can take English AP’s and only some people can take Math AP’s. This is mostly the gifted kids.
12th grade: Anything.</p>

12

<p>At my school there are no AP exams that fit into the freshman schedule, for we have a list of set classes (we choose which level, however. No AP offers though.) and an open period (which you can drop to take an extra class, which I’m doing next year.) and a choice class, which most people choose language. Sophomore year you get the choice of AP world, and next year they will be adding AP Bio to that. Junior year they offer AP US, AP Calc, AP Chem, AP Psych, and so on. You can pretty much take any of them in senior year.</p>

13

<p>Most schools in my county allow freshmen to take AP Human Geography and/or AP Environmental Science. Almost nobody takes both of them because it means sacrificing an elective like P.E. that’s a graduation requirement. My school doesn’t offer AP Enviro, so I just took AP Human Geography. AP English Language is restricted to 11th graders, and AP English Literature is restricted to 12th graders. Besides that, most APs are based on prerequisites, not what grade you are in. Here’s what I mean:</p>

<p>To get into AP Chemistry, you need to have biology honors, and it is highly recommended that you take chemistry honors, but some skip that second part and take it as a sophomore.</p>

<p>To get into AP Biology, you need to have taken both biology honors and chemistry honors/AP. Thus, almost nobody takes it as a sophomore (unless they do chemistry over the summer online or at community college) - it’s generally a junior/senior. My school bent the rules for me and a couple of other kids this year and let us do it without chemistry.</p>

<p>AP French Language is generally only a junior/senior class because you need to have French I-III, and you can’t take a level higher than French I in middle school. However, I know of two native speakers who took the class as sophomores simply because they were able to speak, write, and read at that level.</p>

<p>AP US Government is a senior class. However, I know a kid who’s taking the class as a junior along with AP US History, and a friend and I are taking it online (we’re rising juniors) in order to get that credit out of the way.</p>

<p>AP World History is generally a sophomore-only class, but every few years there is a kid who takes world history honors as a sophomore and ends up taking AP World as a junior or senior.</p>

<p>AP Music Theory doesn’t even have a grade requirement. If you pass an entrance exam, you get to take the class. Some kids can do this as freshmen, while others can’t even pass it as seniors.</p>

<p>There are more classes, but I think you’re getting the point.</p>

14

<p>The same with my school. You have to take Honors Bio and Honors Chemistry before AP. You could take AP Bio sophomore year and you can take AP Chemistry junior year. You take Honors Bio freshman year and Honors Chemistry sophomore year.</p>

15

<p>My school doesn’t offer Italian, Chinese, Environmental Science, Human Geography, Macro, and Micro.</p>

<p>Grade-level specific
10th grade: World History, Art History and Music Theory
11th grade: English Lang, US History
12th grade: English Lit, US/Comp. Gov’t</p>

<p>We can take the rest of the classes any time in 11th or 12th grade. How many we can take depends on our counselors.</p>

16

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<p>I find that odd. One can definitely learn AP Chemistry without ever having taken a chemistry course, but not having any chemistry experience for AP Bio almost killed me when it came to labs. Our teacher had us creating and mixing our own solutions, making serial dilutions, etc.</p>

17

<p>When I was a freshman, there weren’t any freshman AP courses. I think they offer world history now. The only AP offered sophomore year is bio. junior year they offer APUSH, and Lang. senior year they have lit. All the other APs are a mix of juniors and seniors. The maths (calc ab and stats) can be taken junior or senior year, no specific order. AP enviro is offered, mostly seniors but I think I’ve seen a junior in there, it’s a one semester class. AP gov and psych is a split class. It’s all year but you switch classes every other day, so it’s the same amount of time as being one semester long. I was in there this year, it was about half and half juniors/seniors. AP art is offered to anyone as long as the teacher oks it. This coming year, AP lit and AP stats is a split class. You have to take them both, or have an online class. It sucks. I think that’s all of our APs besides the ones offered as online classes. I don’t personally know anyone who self studies and didn’t know it was an option until I started reading theses boards. Also, my school pays for all APs.</p>

18

<p>No freshman or sophomore AP’s.</p>

<p>-AP Studio Art - can be taken junior or senior year, or both
-AP Calculus - only for seniors, have to take honors math in 9th-1th grades and take
2 math classes sophomore year
-AP English - only for seniors, have to take honors english in 9th-11th grades
-AP Psychology - offered 2008-2009, but not 2009-2010; 3.3. gpa
-AP European History - offered 2008-2009, but not 2009-2010; 3.3. gpa
-AP US History - offered 2009-2010, but not 2010-2011; 3.3. gpa
-AP US Government - offered 2009-2010, but not 2010-2011; 3.3. gpa
-AP Biology - offered 2009-2010, but not 2010-2011</p>

<p>You have to have a certain grade in the classes leading up to the AP classes too, for example, a B in Honors Biology to take AP Bio.</p>

<p>And my school is small, so the way scheduling works there’s no way you could take all of these ap classes. I’ve taken the most ap classes in my grade and i’ll only end up with 5 when I graduate, which seems like nothing compared to the people on here who have like 8 in one year.</p>

19

<p>That’s my school, lol. Oh we also only offer AP Spanish. We don’t even have Italian in our school, I know it’s said because I would have took it. We also don’t have AP French,AP Latin and AP German.</p>

20

<p>My school encourages APs, but doesn’t allow us to take them until sophomore year. APUSH is the only class offered as a soph. Junior and Senior year has tons of other APs including: Latin, Spanish, French, German, Studio Art, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, Physics B, Macroeconomics, US Government, Calculus AB & BC, Statistics, English Language & Literature, Computer Science A</p>