Opinions on Self-Study Course Load for 2017-2018

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
1

Dear CC Community,

I am currently a junior, going to be a senior, attending a relatively small public high school in Texas. Because of my school’s small size, they only offer 9 AP classes. As of this school year, I have taken 4 (Statistics, Chemistry, APUSH, and English Language), and am expecting 4’s to 5’s on all of them. Next year, I will be taking the remaining 5 classes available to me (Calculus AB, Physics 1, Biology, Government, and English Literature). In addition, I plan on self studying several AP courses on my own in order to improve my understanding on some of my favorite academic subjects, get college credit, and hopefully improve my college application. The courses I plan on self studying are Calculus BC, Physics C Mechanics, Environmental Science, Psychology, and Computer Science A.

Here’s my reasoning for all of these choices:

Calculus BC: Because I will be concurrently enrolled in my school’s Calculus AB course, I believe that with the help of my teacher, I will be able to effectively learn all of the topics for BC that aren’t covered in AB. Not only that, but I will be able to get the classroom experience that is necessary for such a difficult class.

Physics C Mechanics: Similarly to Calculus, I will be concurrently enrolled in my school’s Physics 1 course, which (from what I’ve read) covers similar topics to Mechanics. Strangely, this class is taught with calculus at my school even though it is supposed to be an algebra based course, but this may prove advantageous to me because Physics C is calculus based. Again, I will be able to work with my teacher to learn what I need to for the AP test, and hopefully get the classroom experience to help improve my understanding of the topics.

Environmental Science: One of the easiest AP tests, and one of the most common ones self-studied by people at my school. It will add to my portfolio of science courses, which will be a focus in my college application. Because it’s easy I don’t think I will need to worry about the absence of a classroom environment.

Psychology: Another easy AP test; Psychology is (kind of) a science, so like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, this will hopefully help improve the emphasis I have for science on my college application.

Computer Science A: I have taken my school’s CS I and II courses, and have proved to be very good at it. However, my school doesn’t (yet) have an AP CS course, so my only option would be to self study for it. I’ll be able to work with my current CS teacher and go through the curriculum without it actually taking up a class period, and this will, again, hopefully make it obvious that I love science on my application.

Now, I know that studying 10 AP classes (or 9 depending on how you count it) will be very demanding of me, but I believe I am capable of doing well regardless. However, before I go through with this plan, I would like to know if colleges will care that I am self studying so many courses, because they will have no way to gauge how well I am doing on my own with no grades, scores, etc. So my question is will this improve my college application for my senior year?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

2

I’m not an expert or anything but I’ve read in several threads that self-studying senior year doesn’t really improve your college application too much because of the lack of scores as you mentioned…Also AP environmental science is known to be one of the easiest AP test but don’t overlook it too much because I believe it’s also one of the tests with a high fail rate because of students underestimating it…Good luck!

3

Self studying any year will not improve your application. I’ll recount a story I have told here many times:

When I was going through the admissions process, I went to an Exploring College Options event, which had reps from Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Duke, and Georgetown, among others. During the Q&A, someone asked, “What do you think of applicants who self-study for additional AP’s over and above the AP classes they take?” One rep responded, “Please don’t do that. We’re not impressed by that.” The other reps all nodded.

While there are benefits to self studying a coupe of classes, including intellectual curiosity and potential college credit, strengthening your application is not one of them.

Also, you may know this already, but you cannot take both the Calc AB and BC exams in the same year, and many colleges will not give credit for both Physics 1 and Physics C: Mech.

4

Self studying won’t improve much on your applications.