How does your school's AP process work?

<p>At my school, you just take whatever you want. Rising sophomores and juniors are supposed to get their previous teacher in a similar subject’s initials on their scheduling sheet, but it is not necessary.
Due to the vast majority of students taking mandatory 9th grade courses, it is extremely difficult to take APs during freshman year.</p>

<p>No requirements whatsoever for AP’s. You can take as many as you want freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years. :)</p>

<p>These are my school’s grade requirements for AP classes, though they make exceptions if you ask nicely. Prereqs are in parentheses, and you have to have an A or B in them and get a teacher signature on your schedule form. You have to take the test if you take the class. </p>

<p>Registration isn’t competitive because hardly anyone wants to take AP classes. </p>

<p>Sophomores only
US History</p>

<p>Juniors only
English Language (English II Honors)</p>

<p>Juniors and seniors only
Biology (Biology, Chemistry I)
Chemistry (Chemistry I)
Statistics (Algebra II)</p>

<p>Seniors only
English Literature (AP English Language)
US Government</p>

<p>My school assumes that people are rational and therefore the only thing in the way of taking an AP class for all seven periods is your older friends who tell you horror stories. I wish there were limits though, because my parents (especially my dad) are like “You MUST take ALL AP’s so we don’t disown you” then throw in something about how I’m lucky they didn’t kick me out for being queer and so should repay them by getting as much college credit as possible for cheaper than tuition. Yay for stiff Southern Baptist parents who would rather buy beer than pay a little extra for my education. And don’t even get me started on what they say about my work load. The basic gist is “You’re just staying up all night to have Skype sex with your girlfriend and don’t actually have twelve hours worth of work.”</p>

<p>And that turned into a rant. Sorry about that. Long story short, we don’t have qualifications.</p>

<p>The general rule at my school is:
1). Meet the prerequisites
2). Teacher recommendation
3). PSAT score (if applicable)
and only juniors and seniors are allowed to take APs. </p>

<p>For example, AP Bio is only offered to seniors, and the prerequisites are either AP Chem or Honors Anatomy, and you must have an 85 or above I think in either class. For AP Language, it was a 90 or above in Honors English 10, a combined PSAT CR + Writing score above a certain number, and a 5 or above on a response to a AP Lit question. When it comes to teacher recommendations though, my school seems to pretty lax.</p>

<p>I’m transferring to a new school for junior year, and at that school you just have to meet the prereqs and get teachers signature</p>

<p>AP classes at my school have virtually no requirements - no required grade, you do not need a teacher recommendation, there is no limit on how many you can take (although counselors stress that you should limit yourself to two - and only 8-10 students take 3+). </p>

<p>Class Name
Year you can take it
Prerequisite</p>

<p>AP Language
Juniors
Pre-AP English 9 & 10 recommended</p>

<p>AP Literature
Seniors
AP Language recommended</p>

<p>AP US History
Juniors
Pre-AP World History recommended</p>

<p>AP US Government
Seniors
AP US History recommended</p>

<p>AP Psychology
Juniors or Seniors
Previous Pre-AP or AP class recommended</p>

<p>AP Chemistry
Juniors or Seniors
Chemistry & Algebra II</p>

<p>AP Biology
Juniors or Seniors
Biology and Chemistry recommended</p>

<p>AP Physics
Sophomores, Juniors, or Seniors
concurrent enrollment in Pre-Calculus required, general physics recommended (which excludes almost all sophomores, with maybe 2-3 able to take it)</p>

<p>AP Calculus
Juniors or Seniors
Precalculus</p>

<p>AP Statistics
Sophomores, Juniors, or Seniors (available only to seniors until this school year though)
Algebra II (which pretty much excludes sophomores, except 5-10 of them)</p>

<p>AP Music Theory
Juniors or Seniors
Experience with music</p>

<p>AP Studio Art
Juniors or Seniors
Art Foundations + Art Foundations 2 or Drawing or Sculpture</p>

<p>Almost all the AP classes at my school (except math & science AP courses, which have real prerequisites) are filled with ridiculously unqualified students - most don’t even take the AP tests because they get 1’s and 2’s on practice tests. Our school would benefit if some sort of requirement existed, whether it be a grade requirement or teacher recommendation.</p>

<p>None freshman year.
APUSH sophomore year.
AP US Gov, AP Eng Lang & whatever else junior year.
AP Eng Lit & whatever else senior year.
Need prereqs for math / science APs.
Cant take more than 4.
Need to take the test to have it weighted as ap in your gpa. Also if you take the test you get 2 HS credits for the class</p>

<p>Most classes have their Pre-AP course that you should take before signing up for the AP course. These are:
AP Calculus (Pre-Calc Honors)
AP Physics (Advanced Physics),
AP Statistics (Algebra II Honors or higher),
AP English Lit (English Literature),
AP Spanish Lit (Spanish 11 Honors),
AP Chemistry (Chemistry Honors),
AP Biology (Biology Honors),
AP Computer Science (Computer Programming)</p>

<p>However courses like:
AP US History
AP US Govt
AP World History
AP European History
AP Psychology
AP Environmental Science
AP Art History
AP Studio Art
you can take with just teacher recommendation.</p>

<p>Also, each course is weighted by 0.5 on your gpa, so taking 7 ap classes and getting straight A’s yields a 4.5 Weighted gpa.
Every student must take the ap exam, save for any medical reason, slacking students WILL be kicked out from the class to allow it to proceed better. No real limit as to how many you can take, but it seems like the most you can REASONABLY take, with the restrictions above are 1/2/4/4 for freshman/sophomore/junior/senior year respectively, while most students will graduate having taken at least 0/1/2/2. The most AP’s taken in total in recent memory was 9 I believe, although new courses are added every year and more students are striving for AP’s that number will be surpassed by one of the seniors at my school (0/2/4/4) and later might be surpassed by me, currently junior (1/2/4/4?)</p>

<p>For my school there are prerequisites for some APs. You also have to have two teacher recommendations for each course you would like to take and get it approved by the College Board. I honestly don’t think the College Board has to approve you though since so many kids are saying that they did not have to have recommendations for their AP classes. Freshman can’t take any APs and sophomores can only take one AP, AP Euro History, unless you have connections or you somehow cheat the system. Trust me it’s been done. Other than that, juniors and seniors can basically take any AP classes.</p>

<p>9th: Ap world history only
10th: APUSH, but you can easily take any other ap as long as you ask your counselor.
11th: max out your schedule
12th: max out your schedule</p>

<p>And that’s the story of how I ended up taking 6/7 AP’s my senior year.</p>

<p>I transferred schools, but the first school I was in would only let you take APs if you had taken the general course first. For example, you could only take APUSH after taking the general US history course. Because of this policy, the two AP courses I took before senior year was pretty rigorous. The school I’m in now has very few AP courses, but it gives its students scholarships to take 4 community college classes a year.</p>

<p>Freshman year you aren’t allowed to take AP classes…unless you’re super advanced in math.
Sophomore year you can take AP Biology if you got above an 85% in freshmen year bio. You can also take AP European History & AP stats if you took Algebra 2 freshman year and got a good grade.
Junior and senior you can take pretty much any AP class as long as you complete the pre-requisites.</p>