<p>By the end of high school, I may only have 7 total AP classes, as opposed to 8. I was wondering if gpa matters over the pure number of total AP classes. For example, if someone has only 7 AP classes total for high school when other people have 8 total, but the person with only 7 total APs has a higher gpa, how is this seen? I am considering not taking one AP Class to make some room for college applications, and just have a less stressful overall. If I have had honors (even if they were not weighted) classes before, does that make having one or two less APs less serious?</p>
<p>Some people I know just take as many as possible per year, and just hope for the best. I only took 3 APs junior year, but up until now I have had all As. I don't know how this semester will work out yet.</p>
<p>So, is having one or two fewer APs all that bad, as long as gpa is still decent?</p>
<p>Well, it’s more the entire transcript in consideration than one or the other. Your grades will be considered in light of the difficulty of your classes. That said, there is a small yet somewhat significant difference between seven and eight AP classes. Small because it isn’t a big different. “Somewhat significant” so no one will reply “then that’s the same as 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 1 and 0!!” Also, I suppose it is generally agreed upon that some AP classes are seen as more difficult than others.</p>
<p>As long as you’re taking challenging classes with good grades, you’re in good shape. Seven AP classes with an A in each looks impressive.</p>
<p>I can see what you mean. So maybe a difference of one or so is not that much. I understand what you mean when you say, “so no one will reply ‘then that’s the same as 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 1 and 0!!’” Have you had much previous experience with this sort of stuff (regarding admissions, and all the drama that is high school)?</p>
<p>Anyways, thank you. I can only hope I can also manage As in my classes this year, but I just wanted to clear this up while I can still make changes to my schedule.</p>
Haha, not with this, but people on this website jump on these things. Saying there is no significant difference between a 2260 and a 2270 SAT will often lead to someone saying that that must mean that 600=2400, and I just wanted to build in my rebuttal.</p>
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Well, work hard, and I wish you the best. If I gather things correctly, you’re a senior with 4 AP classes? Or did you take some sophomore/freshman year, too? Anyway, four AP classes with other honors classes would be a challenging schedule (maybe not the most, but it is challenging).</p>
<p>You are correct that I would have 4 AP classes. The thing for this year was that I needed to make up one semester of a class that I should have had during junior year, but since there was kind of a health concern, I tried moving to a less advanced version of the same class, but I could not get in until first semester was over. Now I have to just make up that first semester during my senior year.</p>
<p>I am not sure if you are familiar with the UC schools (University of California), but seeing as they only “count” sophomore and junior year, would it be problematic if I was missing a semester of a junior year class? (this will, of course, be taken care of before I graduate).</p>
<p>And do you happen to know about the total number of classes? Is having only 5 classes a bad impression to give? (this happened junior year since I couldnt get into a class until second semester)</p>
<p>How many classes you have is dictated by your school. The standard seems to be 6-8, but I’ve seen from 4-12. If you missed a class because of a health concern, I would certainly advise you to include an explanation of this. I cannot, however, advise you on where to put this on the UC application, as I am only familiar with the Common App.</p>
<p>Yes for our school it is 4 (absolute minimum to still be able to stay in school) to 7 or 8 (which is sort of rare). I have been told that if you take fewer classes, but they are all harder in material it is not that big of a deal. </p>
<p>As for the missing semester–it’s technically only misplaced. I was told by my counselor that it would not be really something to worry about over admissions–as long as they see you are in progress to take it, then nothing bad will happen.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, are you yourself a college student or someone involved with college related affairs?</p>
<p>I’m a high school senior that has been deep into research for college admissions. If the semester class was misplaced because of a health issue, you can still make a note of the reason, if you think it could be a problem. If not, then don’t worry about it.</p>
<p>Well, my course load would be difficult to compare to yours. After two years, I made the choice to leave the AP program and take all (nearly all) of my classes as dual enrollment classes at a local state college for free. Through talks with admissions officers from schools of varying selectivity, it seems that this course load will be judged as “among the most challenging available to me”. The difference being that schools like my state flagships would take 2 years worth of my dual enrollment credit, and schools like Harvard will take none (they take AP/IB, though). It’s a give and take, and I found it worth it, either way, since the dual enrollment classes personally suit me better.</p>
<p>If you post another topic, I may see it. If you would like to directly contact me for questions, feel free to send me a private message. I would be glad to answer questions, though certain questions may be better suited to posts, as there are those more knowledgeable than me on a lot of topics.</p>
<p>Update, I just found out it doesn’t matter when you take a semester long class. It just has to be before the end of high school. I know people who are getting their last fine arts credits in one semester too! haha, so I am doing the same thing, getting those last few miscellaneous requirements (such as art)</p>
<p>Yea ok. That might be a bit late. I just realized, with my final schedule (this thread is old), I ended up having 6 aps total…kind of on the low side. I had hoped for seven, but there isn’t really much to do about that now. And this extra one class was just some "graduation requirements’ i needed to fill. Other people did their art credits or health classes earlier, but I haven’t yet, so I needed to do one this semester. It was easy though.</p>