<p>I took two APs this year (AP World and AP Bio) and I received Cs in both of them last semester. I am terrible at bio and I have a very, very incompetent history teacher. Only about one person is getting an A in his class.</p>
<p>All my time got sucked into bio, and in turn, my grades suffered horribly. I got three Cs, three B's, and one A. I barely got a 3.0 weighted.</p>
<p>This semester, I am doing a bit better, but not great at all. This is not good, considering the importance of sophomore year.</p>
<p>I'm sure that if I never took AP Bio, then this would have turned out differently. Now my parents want me to only take two APs next year (AP Calculus AB and AP English), and I kind of want to as well.</p>
<p>Are two APs too few for Junior year?
Or is taking fewer APs and getting better grades better than taking more and getting a low GPA?
I have to do VERY well in Junior year to even have a chance of going into a decent college.</p>
<p>I have the option of taking APUSH, but I really don't want to. I have a feeling that I would get a C in there, and the teacher is apparently VERY difficult.</p>
<p>Our GC told us that colleges like to see AP’s but they shouldn’t be taken for the sake of taking them. colleges also don’t like to see bad grades in AP’s (I would guess < 80%). In our school you can’t take them til you are a junior and most of the kids who take them as juniors take 1, 2 max. Seniors usually take more but it is the rare senior who takes more than a couple of AP’s. Usually it is just the ivy league hopefuls who load up on them. I think the bottom line is this. AP classes vary from school to school. In some schools the classes are very difficult - in others maybe not so much. There’s a difference between lots of homework in a class and a test that most of the class fails. In our AP bio class, class averages for tests can be in the 60’s. Our kids do tend to do well in the exams, but to get to the exam you have to go through a grueling course that can harm the GPA. Not worth it.</p>
<p>My son took 2 in junior year (French and English Lit) and 2 in senior year (Calc and US Gov). Refused to take AP Bio because of the huge work load. He got As or A-s in all of them and 4-5 on all the tests. He was accepted at every college he applied to. I think you should only take the number of APs you can handle, no matter what you see other students doing.</p>
<p>AP World and Bio are (mostly) memorization. APUSH would be the same. How strong are you in math? A’s in Precalc? How about A’s in honors English? If the answer is no to both, then you might want to reconsider that schedule. A couple of additional C’s would pretty much mean the mid-tier UCs would be a reach.</p>