Do colleges (like top 20-30ish, ivy’s) care if you took an AP your sophomore year?
An AP sophomore year would be nice, but most colleges are okay as long as you take honors classes
It really depends on your school. At my school, APUSH is the only AP available to sophomores. At other schools, this may not be the case. In most cases you should be fine as long as you’re taking honors classes. Good luck!
All colleges and universities understand what the AP’s are and what they are not. What they are not, are college classes. What they are, are somewhat rigorous high school classes. The college Board has done an excellent job trying to co-opt public education by enticing student to take their classes and their tests thereby lining their pockets. But, many excellent high schools have rigorous classes without any “AP” classes. Some of the most rigorous public and private schools offer zero AP classes. And many educators are dismayed by the idea that education has been reduced (in the minds of many) to a race to collect AP medallions. Enough of it already. Thank you Scarsdale for being one of the schools saying “no more”! What matters to even the most competitive (or maybe especially to the most competitive) schools is that students take rigorous classes that make sense for them to take in light of their interests, their goals and in the path to become as well educated an adult as possible. Your curriculum provides colleges with information about the extent to which you have done that, given the circumstances you are in and the offerings you have access to (in your own high school or by accessing opportunities outside your school).
If you are aiming for the very top, having the most rigorous classes your school offers is what matters. If you aren’t offered any AP classes sophomore year, don’t worry about it. However, most schools, as least from what I’ve noticed on here let, let sophomores take a history AP. If that’s par the course for your school, I’d take one.
Top schools care about academic rigor. If your school lets you take APs sophomore year and you want to get admitted to a competitive school then it would be in your best interest to take an AP (assuming you can do well in it).
Top schools will want to see a total of 4-8 APs, carefully chosen. So, you could take one sophomore year, two junior year (including AP lang), and three senior year. Or two junior year and three senior year. Or three junior year and three senior year.
They’ll want to see:
4 years each of English,Social Science/History, and Science (including bio, chem, physics + 1 AP among those if possible/if aiming for STEM)
Math up to Calculus (at least precalculus, unless you have something else that strongly offsets this, such as two foreign languages at level 4 or AP)
Foreign language up to AP (or level 4, unless you have something else that strongly offsets this, such as very advanced college classes in math or CS)
Each year, you should have 5 classes (or more) at AP or Honors level.
thanks everyone so much- freshman year i took 3 honors this year i’m taking 4, next year i plan on 3 APs and 3 honors. there are a few APs offered but i didnt take any- i probably could have done at least 1 but whatever. thanks