Hi everyone, I just joined this site because I was looking for some help deciding on my schedule for next year (I’m a high school sophomore). The biggest factor affecting my schedule is AP U.S. History. In my school, it is said to be the hardest class available and the workload is insane. I’m not exactly sure what I want to do when I get to college, but I am more interested in humanities and art than STEM-related topics. Here are my classes from this year:
Advanced Algebra 2
Imaging (Photoshop)
Advanced English 2
Advanced Spanish 4
Honors Chemistry
American Government
World Geography
So next year I need to decide which AP’s I want to take. I know junior year is said to be the most difficult, so I want to make sure not to overwhelm myself too much, as I do get stressed easily. My preferred choices for AP’s are AP Lang, APUSH, and AP Bio, and I would also like to take College Writing (an elective). However, if I take APUSH, I would not want to take the AP Bio as that would be too much work as I don’t naturally excel at science. If I choose this however, I would have to take either Environmental Bio (which is interesting but very easy) or Physics (which bores me a bit, but makes me look better in terms of college applications). I have spoken to my guidance counselor, and she told me to drop APUSH and College Writing because AP Lang would be too much with those. But despite this, I still really want to take those classes. She is also really pushing me to take Physics, but the concept of it does not really interest me. So basically, I was wondering if any of you have experience with APUSH, AP Lang, or AP Bio and tell me what the work and difficulty is so I can try to make a decision. Thanks so much!
I don’t think your counselor should be pushing to take those classes if you don’t want take them unless they are necessary for graduation. This year, I am a junior and although I am not taking AP Lang and AP Bio, I am taking similar classes. I’m taking 5 weighted, three of which are APs: APUSH, AP Lit, and AP Chemistry.
A lot of my friends took AP Bio before and I’ve heard that it’s not bad as long as you study. Also, I’ve heard that some memorization skills would be really useful so I would keep that in mind. Obviously, none of the AP classes will be easy, however I would say AP Bio is manageable.
In my school, they reverse AP Lit and AP Lang, so I only know one person who has already taken AP Lang. He said it was easier than AP Lit. I’ve generally heard that AP Lang isn’t too hard, depending on the person of course (English isn’t my best subject), and it’s based less on analyzing text and more on knowing rhetorical strategies and specific english vocabulary. If you’re interested in being able to craft a good argument, AP Lang would interest you.
If you enjoy history, take APUSH. I’ve seen a lot of people on here say that history APs are hard, but it depends on the person. Since you enjoy humanities and art, you might enjoy history more than AP Biology. For me, I believe the key to history APs is memorization. As long as you can memorize the events and the details, you’re set and the class won’t be hard. There is a lot of writing on the AP tests. However, your teacher should help the class learn how to write those well. Since it’s not an english class, the key to those essays is just meeting specific parts of the rubric. I hope this helps! Since you’re not interested in AP Bio, or at least don’t naturally excel at sciences as you said, I would recommend taking APUSH and/or AP Lang with Environmental Bio (since physics bores you).