Hi everyone! So here’s the dillema I’m facing right now… this is my current schedule for junior year:
AP Bio
AP Gov
AP Stats
AP Calc AB
AP Comp Sci Principles
Honors English 11
Honors Latin 3
The problem is that I also want to take AP Environmental Science my junior year, but there isn’t any room in my schedule. I don’t find APES super interesting, and it’s definitely regarded as a joke in my high school (basically just field trips), but the teacher of that class is someone I am really involved with because of a club I founded. If I took her class, she would be able to write me an AMAZING college recommendation. Like, truly stellar.
The problem is, I don’t know if I should drop a class in order to take APES. I also don’t know which class I would drop. I was thinking about dropping AP CSP, but I have to get a tech credit as a graduation requirement and I don’t know if they’ll offer that class at my hs next year (this will be its first year).
What’s your opinion? Take APES? Drop APCSP? Drop Stats?
What about dropping stats? Two math classes isn’t usually necessary. As far as APES goes, I highly recommend it. It strongly influenced my major choice and was one of the most interesting classes I’ve ever taken. It cleared up a lot of common misconceptions for me and I genuinely enjoyed it. Plus, if it’s easy, it’ll get you a nice little GPA boost and another 5, which is always a good thing.
@ski_racer
Thanks! I’m not sure APES will fit in my schedule in place of Stats, so I’ll have to ask my guidance counselor about that.
Also, a lot of my friends took stats last year and loved it, so that was part of the reason I wanted to take it. Plus I want to take the SAT Math 2 subject test which involves quite a few stats topics and I can’t trust myself to study those on my own…
Do you think it’s worth dropping a class I want to take in order to get a great teacher rec? I can count on a good teacher rec from a foreign language teacher that I will have had for four years, but other than that i don’t have anyone to ask.
You don’t need AP Stats for the SAT.
Your reasoning makes sense. A great teacher who knows you well is a great reason to take a class, the recommendation is bonus.
As to which class, switch APES/AP Stats.
Update: APES doesn’t fit into my schedule with Ap Bio, so I could only take it if I dropped AP Bio.
I am planning to major in something relating to science, so would it look bad if my only science junior year was APES? APES is definitely regarded as a joke AP class at my school, but is it seen that way everywhere? I will take AP Bio and AP Physics senior year if I don’t take AP Bio junior year.
If I were to take APES instead of Ap Bio I would still have to take AP Stats (which is hard at my school)