Is it a good idea to drop an AP class?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>I am currently a high school senior who is looking at some of the top colleges (Penn, Princeton, Cornell, etc). This year, I am taking AP Spanish V, but this class is really demanding time-wise, and it is difficult for me to keep up with my other 4 AP classes. Throughout my first 3 years of high school, I have taken Spanish 1, 2, 3, and 4 Honors, and therefore decided to take AP this year. </p>

<p>So, as a student who has taken all honors and APs throughout high school, with a 5.95 weighted GPA, 4.00 unweighted GPA, ranked top 1%, with an interest in business administration/finance/systems engineering, and looking at extremely selective schools, I have three possible options:</p>

<p>1) Stay in the course, work extremely hard and spend numerous hours studying and doing homework, and possibly not get the grade to complement the work. This will possibly affect my GPA if I don't get an A, and give me a constant great deal of added stress throughout senior year, on top of college apps and other senior year coursework/EC's.</p>

<p>2) Drop from AP Spanish to Regular (non-honors) Spanish. My school only offers an AP level and a Regular Level 2 Spanish, so therefore this class would be a breeze and I would barely have to work to get an easy A. However, as it is Level 2, it will automatically lower my wGPA even if I get an A, and it may look bad on college admissions since I took 3 years of honors and then dropped a level. This drop from AP to Level 2 will not show up on my transcript however.</p>

<p>3) (Have to get administrative approval for this) Withdraw from AP Spanish and take another AP course such as AP European History. AP Euro is far less rigorous and demanding, I will be able to get an A, and still maintain my wGPA as it is another AP. However, withdrawing from AP Spanish will show up on my transcript as a WP - Withdrawal Pass.</p>

<p>As you can see, I am in a very problematic situation, so any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. The biggest question I have is that after all my hard work in high school, which of these three options will least affect my college admissions chances (assuming all other aspects of my application are strong)?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Assuming that having taken Spanish 1 through 4 means the equivalent of 3 or 4 years of Spanish drop the class and take AP Europen History.</p>

3

<p>I see #3 as the most beneficial. Although it does show up as a withdraw, you will be replacing it with another AP or equal rigor course so I don’t think it will be too big of an issue. I wouldn’t go with 1 because you still have other apps and such to think about</p>

4

<p>If you don’t get an A, I’m not sure it would be the biggest blow to your gpa. However if you feel that AP Spanish is too much, I would go and replace it with ap Euro, since that is the 2nd best option</p>

5

<p>I can’t believe that at your school, AP Span has more homework than AP Euro. All the AP histories require so much homework - I am concerned that adding AP Euro on top of your other 4 AP classes might be too much. If you are considering switching the APs simple because you might get a single B, when one considers your overall curriculum and GPA, I think you may be over thinking this. If instead the AP Span class truly has that much more homework than AP Euro, then I guess consider switching. At our high school, the AP Span class is 2-30 min of homework a night – the teacher is adamant about that. And the vast majority of students get 4s or 5s on the AP exam. It is sad that there are still teachers out there who think a massive amount of homework correlates to better grades or scores.</p>

6

<p>Drop it, its not worth not being accepted because of a Spanish course, go for AP European History.</p>

7

<p>Colleges love students who have experience with multiple languages. Don’t drop anything. The point of taking an AP is that it’s supposed to challenge you. It’s not just for showing off to admissions officers. Stick with it. </p>