I know most of you have heard this question before but whenever I find an answer it is always wishy-washy as they tell you it depends on your personality and school but I just want a general answer on a good amount of APs to take during high school… I feel like I’m not taking enough APs as I haven’t take one AP class yet and next year I’m going to be a sophomore and still have no APs in my schedule. (I plan on taking 5 APs during my junior and senior year)
How many AP classes are offered at your HS? How many AP classes do the top students take all 4 years?
Many HS’s do not allow Freshman and even Sophomores to take AP courses, so you are not behind unless your classmates have several under their belt.
8-10 total for ivies
Parent here: I think 5 seems a reasonable amount…there will be some kids that take 8-10…but they will do well in them too. But that isn’t you…you have to take as many as you can that you can still do well in. And those kids probably won’t get into an Ivy, because not very many people at all get into Ivy’s.
Not taking AP’s by sophomore year is pretty normal…if you think about it, AP’s are college level classes.
Make sure you are taking honors classes.
I would try to fit at least one AP into your sophomore schedule to see how an AP class is like before jumping to taking 5 junior year
Take as many APs you can cram into your schedule, and then take them out as you evaluate whether or not it’s too much work
That’s really questionable advice right there.
How so? What I am saying is that you first need to evaluate how many classes/which classes you can physically fit on your schedule… THEN think about whether or not you want to take them.
At our high school, it’s tricky. If you start out in honors classes freshman year, your progression is into one AP sophomore year (either AP comp sci or AP euro). Then, junior year is practically all AP and that’s your only option! AP Physics (no honors offered), AP US History, BC Calc, AP English Comp. If a student has been taking honors classes, it would just look bad to drop down to reg Physics, history, math, or English.
Carefully choosing freshman classes allows freedom later on. It’s almost always recommended to start off with only some honors classes (in the subjects you like the most) and then add on for soph or junior year if you think you can handle it. If you’re a good student, you have options.
Just fyi, kids I know in four/five AP classes junior year are almost all stressed out and not sleeping all that much.
A good place to look would be the College Board’s website to look at the total number of AP courses taken by students graduating each year. Here is a link to their report showing the number of students taking exams and how many they took. Bear in mind that students can take an AP without taking the test or take the course and not take the test but this would certainly give you a clear idea of what is “normal.” As suggested above, something like 6 - 8 AP courses is normally considered a sufficiently rigorous curriculum