<p>i dont wanna sound pretentious or anything but I want to make my plans concrete enough to be able to get into Harvard..
And I'm taking Full IB next year,, and im also plannin on taking AP exams,</p>
<p>ill take Economics, Physics AP , Calculus BC
(Im taking AB this year as a sophomore, as Im already taking IB Math HL and Further this year)</p>
<p>do you think i need more APs?</p>
<p>people say as long as one takes Full IB, APs are not necessary; however, It is true that it looks GOOD ,,so yea,, i need people's advice</p>
<p>There is no magic formula for the number of APs needed, especially for a school like Harvard. AP is just part of the equation -- think of test scores, ECs, essays, recommendations as more parts to that same equation. There are some students who gain admission to highly selective schools who will never take an AP or IB class. Their high schools do not offer them.</p>
<p>If you take the full IB, you're gonna be loaded with the 4000 word EE, TOK, and the other thousand word essays in your classes. An IB HL is the equivalent of an AP. Anyways, if you take Econ, Physics, and Math HL, you'll have a good chance of acing the AP exam at the end of the two years.</p>
<p>The trick here is that admissions people tend to admit kids who they think "genuinely want" to take those classes, not those who are doing it "just to get into college." Does anybody really believe that in just one generation, kids changed from taking one or two AP's, to taking 9-14 AP's because of their "genuine interest?" I may be cynical, but I think it may have more to do with the competitive nature of college admissions than a sudden desire on the part of HS students nationally to have four hours of AP homework a night. I think it is more about the culture of academic achievement in HS than a passion for AP US History or AP French or AP whatever. (And I say this as the parent of two kids who did choose to take many AP classes so as not to be bored.) That said, you need to take the most rigorous schedule that you can while getting mostly A's. That means if your school offers a billion AP's, you need to take advantage of that opportunity, but you do not need to make every single class an AP class, although many students you are competing against will.</p>
<p>around 3-4 is a good number, for all of high school. but the more the better. </p>
<p>some people here 'claim' to have taking like 4 aps each year and like 12 aps all throughout high school. I can tell you that they are exaggerating, so just take as many as you find reasonable.</p>
<p>a rigorous load would be probably 8-15 AP's. However, a few kids, (Honestly, not alot. But since we're on CC, there's alot), end up taking classes at Community Colleges and going wayyyy beyond HS.</p>
<p>by the time I graduate ill have taken 17 ap tests and a few dual enrollment classes (multivariable, differential equations) and I dont think this is over doing it at all... I don't know *** dominus is talking about</p>
<p>Well, some schools don't allow you to take APs freshman year, sophomore year is also really limited. It was either Spanish IV (mostly fluent speakers) or World History. Junior year is when options open up and senior year you could probably take all 8 of your classes as APs if you had taken all the prerequisites. Some schools are more lax about AP enrollment and underclassmen, ours wasn't.</p>
<p>I don't think self-studies should really count when people say i have x many AP's. The classes should be all that count, especially since many colleges don't even pay attention to scores.</p>
<p>You need 80 million billion. Everyone wants to get into Harvard, but you could take 80 million billion APs and still not get in. There's no formula. Just take as many as you think you can take without having your grades suffer. That was my philosophy.</p>