Recommendation from teacher? Or does it depend on how well you did in that class? Sorry if this is the wrong category to put this in
Ask your school – different everywhere.
Ask your guidance counselor
At most high schools, you just need to do well in the prerequisite class (B or higher) and maybe get a signature from whoever teaches it. At some high schools, AP classes have a competitive admissions process.
At my school you just sign up for it
usually you take Honors versions of the pre-req courses
At my school you just have to complete the pre-reqs (if any) and then sign up for it.
@Phantomlink @bopper @nyuhopeful44 @halcyonheather @microssrunner17 @bodangles Thank you very much for the help
It’s fairly different from school to school. As you read, some people just sign up. At my school, we had to do practice assignments and turn them in. For your school, you have to ask your guidance counselor.
Also, one thing I wish I knew for my sophomore year was that we can self study courses. My high school definitely did not mention this and yours probably won’t to. Also, I talked to my counselor about doing this for my junior year so all of this is completely true.
So according to the college board, in order to get AP credit you JUST have to take the AP exam in May. How you study that is completely up to you. Taking an AP class is the well known route. However, if you want to self study for any course (regardless if your school offers it or not) you can do it on your spare time. A month or two before the AP exams, request that an AP coordinator gets you the exam for that AP. If you chose to self study a course that your school doesn’t offer, then you’ll have to take the test at a high school that does offer it. The locations can be found with the contact info on the college board website.
Also, if you’re considering this, I recommend you read stories for that AP on this website. So you know what to expect. Also, I recommend buying AP books for that AP like Barron’s, 5 Ways to a 5 on … for apes, I bought the Princeton review book and the smartypants guide
Self-studying for college credit is fine…but colleges don’t care about that for admissions…it is how you do in the classes you take in HS that are important.
You need a teacher recommendation and an A the first two semesters in the prerequisite at my school
At my school you need to to do the prerequisites and be the appropriate grade level, then a teacher recommendation but you can easily override it with a parent’s signature.
at my daughter’s school she needed a teacher recommendation and had to take a test. They have a large project due for the APUSH and APEnglish.
@Mom2girls I’ll give y’all feedback and Good luck to your daughter!
DD’s school encourages everyone to try at least one AP course. A student will need to talk to the GC and take any prerequisites, but those prereqs don’t have to be AP or PreAP. That being said, I would hope the GC wouldn’t pressure any student to take a class that he or she wasn’t ready for. And we have a state law that mandates that districts must offer every AP course, although they are allowed to rotate them every other year, offer them at only one school in the district, and/or offer them virtually.
Thanks for the help! @tutumom2001
At my school there is a certain time of the year (January) where students who are interested in AP classes apply to take them the following school year. The application process is not hard at all, but a lot of things are taken into consideration if you don’t automatically qualify. Your grades in certain classes, PSAT/SAT/ACT scores, overall GPA, writing sample, and teacher recommendations are all looked at and scored on a rubric. So it’s not just signing up for an AP class… you have to be accepted into one. It’s not difficult to get accepted into APs at my school, but it’s not super easy, either. Most people (unless you’re in the top 10%) don’t get accepted to all of the APs they apply to due to several circumstances. I got waitlisted from two AP classes back in January because of my math teacher. My grades weren’t even bad - he just wrote awful recommendation letters. I know this because the two classes that I got waitlisted from - Computer Science and Chemistry - required his recommendation. Fortunately I got accepted to AP Chemistry later in the school year.
No one is allowed to take more than 4 APs per school year, as well. 3 is the maximum amount you can take. You have to get special permission from the principal if you’re interested in taking 4.