Let me cut to the chase. Next year is my Sophomore year and, due to the fact that I am taking chorus (an honors class) I will be unable to take an AP without bumping something important off of my schedule. But it seems like the perfect time to take some APs - I should have a reasonable amount of free time as I am not involved in any sports and only some of our school’s clubs are fully open to sophomores. (And there’s no telling what I’ll be involved in.)
As for my choosing, here’s why I picked these two:
AP Enviro Sci - I’ve taken Environmental Science already and will be taking honors bio next year, and I’ve heard that a lot of the material covered in the AP ESci course overlaps with biology. Thus, it’ll be fresh in my memory and I’ll have much less new stuff to learn and more stuff to just review. And, seeing as how I’m thinking of becoming a zoologist, this class definitely pertains to my interests.
AP Psychology - This is a field that I am also genuinely interested in and, in my school, is offered as an online course anyway. I figure self-studying isn’t too much different than that. Also, I’ve heard it’s not too difficult.
I know I don’t NEED to do this. I’m doing it to improve my discipline and, yes, to have more AP scores to submit to colleges. I’m also potentially interested in being a National AP Scholar Junior year - but we’ll see if my schedule permits that. (It likely won’t.)
So! Coming from those of you who’ve self-studied for either (or both) of these courses, what materials do I need? What are the best resources for these tests? Is there anything you wish you’d done or known before self-studying?
Thank you all for your help.
Make sure your are taking APs for the right reasons…if you self-study, that is, not taking it for HS credit, colleges don’t really take that into account for admissions. If you are doing it for possible college credit…then that is okay I guess…but don’t think it helps with admissions.
Certainly you have the option to submit your AP test scores to prospective colleges? If I do well on the self-studied APs then that’ll be two (or one, depending on what I study) four or fives added onto the list.
In any case I think I could use the exercise in discipline, at least with one self-studied AP.
I self-studied APES freshman year and am currently self-studying AP psych as a sophomore. Doing this has improved my study skills tremendously and given me the opportunity to cover content I never could have at my small high school. I highly recommend the Princeton Review guides for both of these exams. I also got the textbooks online (Freidland & Reyla and Myers). It seems that you want to do these APs for the right reasons, and I definitely encourage you to do them. Schools allow you to self report scores, and if you are coming from a high school that offers few APs, self-studying can help you stand out as being academically capable and motivated.
Have you considered taking one of these AP’s as an online period outside of school? This way you would still be able to take the course, have guidance by an instructor, and most likely score better on the AP exam. Having an instructor of any kind would be a huge benefit, it’s always very helpful to have someone assign things for you to do, and motivate you to do better. Depending upon how your school works, they may calculate the AP course into your GPA if taken as a 5th period, which could potentially boost, or hurt it. I’m a student who is very committed to band, and it makes me unable to take courses about health sciences, or take science AP’s (I plan on going to either an undergraduate nursing program, or med-school). Refusing to quit what I love the most, I’ve signed up to take an Anatomy and Physiology course as a 5th period at my school (standard schedule having 4 period per semester). Some students can self-study and succeed, but even some of the students who take the course provided by a teacher at their school don’t do well enough on the exam for any college to accept it as a credit, or count it towards hours required to graduate.
