<p>I am a Cornell hopeful for the class of 2014.
I am signed up for AP English 3, Bio, Physics B, and U.S. History.</p>
<p>For my senior year, I am planning to take Calc BC, Euro History, Chem, French, English 4, and possibly Stats.</p>
<p>I have never taken an AP class before. consequently, are AP subjects overwhelmingly difficult? I know that it's mostly depending on the teacher..I am a hardworking student, but I easily get anxious/panic attacks over homework overloads</p>
<p>well you should definitely get over your panic attacks VERY quickly..ie NOW. even now, junior and senior year in high school has a lot of homework too...and looking at your schedule, it seems like you'll be doing a lot of work. and cornell isnt exactly a walk in the park either...its college and its an ivy, so you get A LOT of work. you dont need to take every single AP class that your school offers. while my high school had every single AP class imaginable, i got in early with only 5 APs (ap eng lang and bio junior year; ap eng lit, ap calc, and ap psych senior year). taking APs also doesnt give you "credit"...it only allows you to skip the introductory levels, which doesnt help you in the long run. plus, if you are a hardworking student, you should be able to handle high school homework. and this is coming from someone who went to a very competitive top public high school in the country. and if you have never taken an AP, why are you overloading yourself with 4 to start with? thats a little TOO ambitious. AP classes are supposed to be "equivalent" to the first year in college, but the amount of material in a year long AP class translates to about half a semester-semester of material in college. i would suggest to only take the APs in the subjects that are your strengths. im better at math an science, so i took the bio and the calc. i cant stand history so i stayed away from those. and AP scores dont make or break a college decision. if i were you, i would spend the next couple of weeks or so really thinking about which APs you want to take. call your counselor even. its okay to take honors courses...and even regular ones too. you dont want to burn yourself out in the hardest years of high school.</p>
<p>take only the APs that you might actually get credit for if you get a 4/5 on the AP exam or that might warm you up for your major...</p>
<p>i.e. a BIO major might not need to take AP ENGLISH or AP HISTORY</p>
<p>^ thanks for the responses.
as for the number of APs I am taking.. well, AP English is very challenging but the regular class at my school is seriously a joke. and I heard that the Honors class is only a bit below the AP one, so why not take it one step further?</p>
<p>maybe I really should reconsider my classes. I am pretty sure I can get As in those classes if I try hard enough..my school is very competitive also. that's why I need those APs..to get a good class ranking. does that matter a lot?</p>
<p>also, although this is old news, my congrats on getting into Cornell!!! any advice for me? moving here from Canada in December, I think I'm particularly weak when it comes to ECs. I'm interested in the environment/vegetarianism, and I also have mild interests in astronomy/stargazing and literature. I want to develop my interests and put them into good use and have a good, presentable resume by next year when I'm applying to Cornell. I just don't know how to start. maybe start a club?</p>
<p>-maybe you should take AP environmental science instead of bio
-do the AP english courses...they really arent that hard
-class ranking isnt the deciding factor. just try to be in the top 10%
-dont just go gungho and start a club. can you join some? maybe an environmental club? dedicate yourself to a couple. maybe run for office after your sophomore/junior year. they would rather see a couple ECs that you are dedicated to rather than a whole laundry list of random ones.
--can you volunteer?
--join a tutoring service in your school? im sure you are smart enough to help your classmates
--talk to you counselor about other options</p>
<p>p.s. im already at cornell...going to be a sophomore in the fall =0</p>
<p>eek, that's the problem..my school doesn't offer AP environmental science.
-I think English will be hard for my class because they've chosen a new teacher (apparently the old one was too easy) so I'm sure he's determined to work us out this year. we have to read 2 books and write 6 short essays for summer homework
-I've started volunteering at the Carnegie Science Center Planetarium. I'm not sure if this will send the wrong message as I do not intend to major in something astronomy/physics related, but I am nonetheless interested in astronomy
-that's what I want to do..dedicate myself to some clubs..I'm not going to join an array of meaningless clubs, dont get me wrong.
-we get new counselors this year. (they change after grade 10). Hopefully he or she will be of more use than my old one...</p>
<p>yeah..I thought you were older. how is it over there?</p>
<p>I don't think taking 4 AP's junior year is a bad thing.
And I also don't think you should only take ones you are interested in.</p>
<p>I took 5 AP's junior year (Calc AB, Chem, Comp Sci AB, English Lang, US Hist), without having had any before.
And then took another 5 Senior year (Statistics, Bio, MicroEcon, US Gov, Physics C), so far I've only gotten 1 4 on an exam, the rest 5's.</p>
<p>I would say if you are hardworking, and can stick to a schedule, do it. The homework isn't the bad thing, the only time it starts to get stressful is about a month before AP exams.
But then, you only need to learn how to manage your time for studying for the exams.</p>
<p>Trust me, it's not as hard as it sounds.
Not to mention, the fact that taking "the most rigorous curriculum available" is a huge part of whether you are accepted or not.
Go for it, I say.</p>
<p>wow ! 5 APs without prior experience?
how did you manage your time? what ECs did you have?</p>
<p>24
(10 char)</p>
<p>hm? very funny</p>
<p>I am dead serious.</p>
<p>^haha do you mean the show? lol i still managed to get a good gpa while doing my homeowrk in front of the tv everyday for 4 years</p>
<p>No 24 AP tests... just an arbitrary number.
Really there is no number of APs that you should or shouldn't take. You can get into Cornell with only one or two (or even zero for that matter) and conversely be rejected with upwards of ten. Have a normal but manageable number of AP classes and like most things, it's not going to make or break your application.</p>
<p>I know there isn't any magical number. I was just wondering typically how many is a good number for this particular school</p>
<p>you don't understand..my school isn't normal..there will probably be lots of other kids taking 4 APs. heck I know someone who is taking 5.......
I can't wait to finish junior year.....</p>
<p>Um. I was president of the school Book Club, Vice president of FBLA (and won in competitions), Vice president of Mu Alpha Theta (and participated in all competitions), active member of the Gay Straight Alliance, the Computer Programming team, and trying to start up my own non-profit.</p>
<p>I managed my time pretty well. I planned things ahead, so I wouldn't get swamped with them. Every sunday, I planned the rest of my week, and it helped me a lot. </p>
<p>But I also had enough time to enjoy myself, and watch TV, and hang out with my friends when we were all free.</p>
<p>lets not start bragging about AP SCORES please...</p>
<p>in some cases the actual lecture/homework done in class will suffice to prepare you to get a 4/5 on the AP EXAMS, but in schools with not so great AP programs one has to earn that 4/5 with independent study...</p>
<p>i dont remember if you (the op) said you were in junior or senior year, but heres what i would do...take as many APs as you feel comfortable with, if at the end of the semester you dont think you'd make it drop that AP class and see about getting into the equivalent HONORS version...</p>
<p>not sure if you can do that at your school though...</p>
<p>ptl, there are people in my school who have to petition to not have a lunch period so they can take 8 APs in 1 year.</p>
<p>If you have received adequate pre-AP preparation, you can juggle AP with a busy schedule. Many of my students took four APs this year -- some did well in all four. Others did well in three of the four (math was the problem). One student took three as a sophomore and did great on all three examinations. He had four as a junior and will have five as a senior. He admits that he is the exception, not the norm at our school. He was comfortable with the work load, and that is the biggest thing. Make sure you can handle the work load. Nothing is worse than taking lots of APs and not doing well in those classes.</p>
<p>AP courses really vary in terms of difficulty, in the level, and the type. For one thing it depends on the teacher, however generally, your math/science ones will not have significantly more work than previous courses, expect nightly assignments of problems, that should take 30-60 minutes. They will just be harder and faster paced and probably have harder tests. Your humanities and English courses however will have tons and tons of work, but may not be necessarily harder on an intellectual level than previous courses per say, just more time consuming. Essays may be graded harder though than in previous courses. Again thats just generalizing, it really really depends on the teacher. For example in my school AP english had two teachers, one had them write like 20 essays a month, the other had them write only like 10 essays all year. Both read a lot of books though.</p>
<p>I'd never taken an AP class before senior year, of course my school only offers two to non seniors who don't cheat(skip grades in subjects), US History, which I wasn't interested in doing that much, and Art, and besides the fact that I'm awful at art, the only art course I took in highschool was graphic design, which wasn't in the main Art sequence that lead to AP art(I did music though)</p>
<p>Senior year I took 4, BC calc, Physics C, Chem, and Comp Sci. It wasn't particularly harder than any other years imo, I got higher grades even so taking lots of APs is certainly manageable. Of course math and science are my strong suits and I also wasn't taking any history course to compensate.</p>
<p>generally at my school the science and history ones are hardest (or perhaps the most rigorous)..they take up double periods every second day, whereas the English/language/other ones are single periods every day. we have mandatory gym (bleh) so that kinda ruins people's schedules also. but wow 8 APs..it's only a matter of how well you do in the end, right? I don't really think you could keep up with every class in addition to getting 5's on all tests. but there are geniuses out there..lol</p>