Thanks for looking at this, please comment on an’t problems you foresee or any advice you have! Also, any AP exam that is a self-study or Non-AP Class means I start studying the summer before, because I’m pretty busy during the year with other stuff, so I start preparing early.
Here’s a simplified version, with * meaning self-study: *AP Psychology, *APES, *AP Physics 1, APUSH … *AP Economics, *AP Statistics, AP Biology, AP Calculus BC, AP Lit. And Comp., AP Music Theory
Unless you’re sure that all of your self-study courses provide college credit (at your colleges) or you REALLY REALLY REALLY like the material at each and every AP course I suggest you don’t. That is a helluva a lot of work and even though your courses to SS are “easy”, the range is huge and you don’t seem to be studying what you like. If you are not interested in what you’re studying its really hard to succeed. You’ll just end up with a bunch of 3s or 4s.
I know for a fact that most higher ranking schools don’t offer credit for all or most of the courses you want to self-study (except econ). So you just want a piece of paper with some 5s on it? Academic prowess shouldn’t be the focal point of your app. Spend your time doing something you really enjoy and express it.
I plan to self-study only one or two APs:
AP Microecon: I will take AP Macro in senior year and since I will recieve credit for it at most of the colleges I want to apply to, I want to move up to a higher level econ class (it interests me), so i’ll save some time.
AP Comp Sci A: I like Comp Sci and programming. I know quite a bit of Python and HTML and have been wanting to move on to more conventional (or non-conventional) languages. This would be a good intro to Java, but I don’t know if I’d like to learn Java the college board way, or my way. I might not even self-study this.
Thanks for answering! So, I have thought about what you said, and realized how much work this would be. For AP Psychology and Environmental Science, I’ve already put a lot of time into, so i’m gonna still take those, cuz they have been interesting. I know I said i’m self-studying physics 1, but really I have a class that teaches it all to me, I just need to become familiar with the format of the exam. For economics, I have a class that is not AP at all, but it will introduce me to it this year (as a junior), so I will see if I enjoy economics, otherwise I wont take it. For Statistics and Calculus, I will for sure self study those because I love math and it would be something i’d enjoy. However, I think I will forget the idea of self-studying Music Theory, as that would be a lot of work to handle along with my other classes. Thanks a lot for the advice!
Forget about self study of Calc BC if you don’t even have a grounding in a Calc AB right now.
My thoughts about each of your self studies.
Psych: Manageable since you already put work in.
Enviro Sci: Same as Psych.
Physics 1: No way. You will already have a huge load of work in physics. And you have to have an impeccable understanding of the concepts. 5 rate is about 5%. So no even with class (non-AP as you said) won’t cover it in the detail you need and lab experience is important af.
APUSH: you are taking the AP class so go ahead.
Calculus BC: You are kidding me, if you haven’t even started working on AB material yet there is a very small chance that you will be able to cover all of the material and have the understanding/grounding in those concepts to succeed in the AP test. So Not recommended to self study. If it was the AP Class I would say go ahead but you are just doing the non AP class which won’t prepare you at all for BC.
Econ (Both): For gods sake. The regular class does not equal the same information given in the AP classes.
Statistics: Sure, go ahead. Pretty simple but with the amount of work you think you can do you are fooling yourself.
Music Theory: Nope unless you have pretty good relative pitch, have been playing piano and learning theory, you can’t self study.
tl;dr
If you plan on doing all this in one year, then have fun with fatigue and loss of social life. This is also after the fact that you will have other actual classes which you haven’t mentioned. Your experience with each subject. (E.g. Math: what level of math are you at?) Colleges don’t care if you self study APs. Have fun with testing fatigue during AP week. Also you are probably going to get a score from at most of 4 for most of these subjects. Calc probably 3 or 2. You are not going to be able to understand every subject to the best detail unless you spend 24/7 on School work.
Not trying to harass you but self studying core subject (Calculus BC) no matter how much you like the particular subject is not feasible with that much work load.
Alright, I would NEVER expect a normal economics class to teach me what’s on the exam, I meant that if I enjoyed the class junior year, I would start self studying the summer before senior year. With Calculus BC, I’m planning on learning AB stuff first and then the BC stuff the summer before senior year, not just diving straight into BC. And as for AP Music Theory, I have played guitar for over 10 years and already have a deep understanding of Music Theory (so I would most definitely be ABLE to self study it), but I know my abilities and know that adding Music Theory would be too much for me to handle.
However, I think I accidentally made the impression that I’m completely depending on the class for all the info. on the Physics 1 exam. I’m not (you’re right that would be suicide lol), I have been learning the material this summer with a textbook, and will hopefully master it by Christmas.
P.S. I’m not planning on doing all of these in 1 year, sorry I didn’t specify in the simplified post. AP Economics and the ones after are the AP’s I’m planning on doing senior year. The others are for junior year.