Hi do I need to know AP Chemistry before I take General College Chemistry I at my local community college?
I am taking Honors Chem this year and plan to take AP Chem next year. To prepare for the class, I want to take a chemistry class over the summer at the cc, but I don’t know which level/class to pick. I feel introductory chemistry or chemistry for non science majors would be too simple, but I read online just now that General Chemistry I is harder than AP Chem?
My school advisor said that the AP program is probably the worst advanced learning program in the world because ur only prepared for the AP and not the real world. He said that an AP class is honestly nothing near a first semester of a college class.
AP Chem is suppposed to be the equivalent of Gen Chem in college, so if you took Gen Chem over the summer I feel like AP Chem would be too easy (plus I don’t know how it is in your state, but in ours we have to pay the full price for any outside college classes you take, and we can’t take a cc class that is offered at our school). Honestly if you do well in Honors Chem you should be fine for AP. I’m doing the same thing! Probably just gonna look over chem concepts over the summer in an AP review book or something to prepare. I would definitely talk to your guidance counselor for the final verdict though. best of luck!! 
@vgklol I’m in AP Chem, and my teacher has a degree in Biochemistry. She told me that AP Chem covers topic that exactly match General Chemistry in college. In fact, the university she went to uses the same textbooks as us for the gen. chem class. I mean, many Ivy Leagues let you exempt chem if you get a 5, so it has to be credible, right?
Similar topics, at least. Say what you will about the rigor.
General Chemistry is a hard college course that I wouldn’t recommend in a summer format. To give you perspective, the AP Chem course covers roughly the equivalent of a college course’s content (perhaps a bit more or a bit less depending on where you attend HS and where you would take the college course). It does so over 10 months, 5 periods per week. A college course covers the same content over 4 months, 3 periods per week. That’s already much more intense. Now, compress this into a 6-week course… I wouldn’t recommend it. You could take the intro to chem class, or see if there’s an intermediate version. But if you took Honors Chem during the year, you’re perfectly ready to take AP Chem next year. No need to take a summer course. Or, if you want to take a summer course, take General Chem in the Fall, where it’ll be twice as fast paced at an AP, but not super compressed.
@MYOS1634 oh okay thank you! well i don’t want to take it to advance or credits or anything, i just want to learn AP Chem before I actually enter the class so that i wouldn’t have to worry about it too much and can focus on my other APs during the school year next year
If you only want to get a feel for the concepts and not worry about grades or pressure to zoom through it, you should check out Crash Course and/or Khan Academy’s videos (or even MIT OCW’s stuff, since you already have a chem background).
I think the Introductory Chem class should be fine, though.