I’m an incoming freshman at a fairly competitive public high school in Southern California. I’m supposed to be making my (temporary) schedule for all four years of high school in a couple of months, and I was wondering how many Advanced Placement classes are just too many.
I want to go into the medical field, but I am Asian, so I am afraid of looking like another Asian-4.0 GPA- Piano Playing robot. I am definitely not in it for the money (I get really pissed at people who enter law and medicine because they think they will earn a six-figure income.)
Right now, the largest number of APs I can take (all four years included) is 16. Is that too many? I am also planning on leading a couple of organizations at my school and doing other extracurricular activities, so I am really worried about this.
I think the real question is - can you handle 16 AP courses along with any ECs you’ll be doing?
Also, consider that not all AP courses are equal. ex. AP Human Geo < AP Chem
With this in mind, do some research (or you can look around on CC or ask ) and adjust the courses with your plan. For example, DON’T put the hardest AP courses (ex. AP Chem, AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP Bio) all in the same year.
Do you have a sample plan?
ex. Freshman: 2
Sophomore: 3
Junior: 5
Senior: 6
Well… having too many APs would mean you can’t manage them all.
My personal recommendation is to not focus on inflating your schedule with APs (like APES or music theory or similar classes considered to be easy As). It seems like you’ll have enough APs to look good to colleges… they don’t really count the APs you take.
Definitely max out the math and science APs (okay, I guess you can take APES, but only if you REALLY WANT TO). Don’t take classes that aren’t interesting to you just for the sake of an extra grade. Colleges notice that easily… if you wanna go into med school yet have taken a bunch of history APs without expressing any interest in history apart from that, they may think you’re trying to inflate your schedule (which isn’t bad, but it’s not good).
I wouldn’t be afraid of taking too many APs… that’s like saying “can my grade be too high.” But I would make sure to prioritize the meaningful classes. You can fill in the blanks with those AP inflators if you want (everyone does it), but don’t let the draw of a higher rank/GPA distract you from the important stuff.
Find out how many AP courses top students at your school take and look at national statistics. Sixteen is probably too many particularly if you are concerned about being perceived as a robot. You have no idea yet whether you can handle the workload. Taking 5 AP courses in a semester means a lot of homework. D routinely does homework until well after midnight
Taking 6 APs senior year is really risky. You’re probably not going to want to prepare for 6 tests after you’ve already been admitted to your dream school.
Well, most colleges limit the number of AP’s they will give you credit for to 6 or 8, so I’m saying 9–9 and get all 5’s on the exams as opposed to 16 and get a bunch of 3’s, which won’t do you any good at most selective schools.
Your daily happiness and having time for fun is important too.
Additionally, for college admissions, there is a law of diminishing returns once you’ve taken 6-8. After that, each additional AP’s contribution to the application is minimal. AO’s will look for the competitiveness in other areas of your application.
@Anish14 Yes, I am. Based on what I see going on here, I wouldn’t say that doing that many APs is strange - although I personally wouldn’t advise it. But some people can handle it.
At my school, the deal is that most students are expected/forced to take at 5-7 AP courses during junior year. If you defy the school by not doing so, you have to rack up on APs for senior year
Actually, I know a couple of students who ONLY took AP classes for both junior and senior year. i.e. 7 AP courses a year for 2 years, in addition to the 2-3 they took for freshman+sophomore year. But they have no ECs, so that’s the trade off for them.
edit Anyways, that was just the suggestion for if OP actually was insistent on doing 16 AP courses. But most likely she won’t be taking all 16 - ex. she probably won’t take all foreign language AP courses, probably won’t take AP studio art (if she’s not in art) or AP music theory (if she’s not in band/orchestra), etc. But of course I don’t know what AP courses are offered at her school
Top schools want to see a TOTAL of 4-8, preferably including English Language plus a choice from one ap science, one ap foreign language, one application history, and calculus ab OR bc, or all 4. Those are "core " aps; then you have solid but elective ap s which you can use to show commitment to an area of interest, such as music theory, art, cs, gov, economics; then you have "light aps ", from Human Geography, whose purpose is to introduce freshmen and sophomores to the ap style; ap stats for students who won’t/can’t take calc or want to supplement their ap economics class; psych and ap environmental science, to provide either a challenging class for kids who’ve never dared try ap , or a junior/senior year respite for kids overloaded with aps.
Try not to take more than 4 Jr and senior year each ( 5 if one is a “light” ap ), plus human geography freshman year and two sophomore year. Total, 11. That’d be the absolute maximum to guarantee you both a life and good college outcomes.
My word of advice is to make sure you’re interested in the material for the majority of AP classes you take. for example, I’m in calc bc, physics c e&m, and stats all at the same time. I love the material in all of them so I find it particularly easy. Over the snow break us southerners got recently I did math for fun. like 200 calculus problem just for kicks. I have 99’s in all and set curves yada yada because I like it
On the other hand I also have apush and language right now. I like history but only certain parts. I like English but only certain parts. As a result, I am currently running C’s in them because it’s just not as interesting and the work is a chore rather than a reward.
It’s not just the number, it’s the quality and the fit. If you have block scheduling like us, I would not recommend more than half of your classes be AP at any given time. Honors is okay, AP is a struggle sometimes.
) and adjust the courses with your plan. For example, DON’T put the hardest AP courses (ex. AP Chem, AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP Bio) all in the same year.
