<p>Here's the deal: I really wanted to take AP HUG (lol) online this year. Unfortunately, the deadline for many such classes was last week; the other schools with no enrollment deadlines did not offer AP HUG. The ones that haven't passed yet are obscenely expensive (800 dollars for FLVS; there is no free "virtual school" for my state (trust me, I've looked intensely)). There are no colleges in my area that offer such courses for people like me. Thus, I have this crazy idea of taking AP Stats online, and then saving AP HUG for my senior year. I was originally going to take AP Stats my senior year, even though I'm very mathematically inclined, just to fulfill a math requirement. All of these courses will go on my GPA, transcript, are accredited, blah blah blah...</p>
<p>In any case, is this a good idea?</p>
<p>AP Stats is definitely an easy AP course, and doesn’t require as much commitment as the others; you most definitely don’t need to be mathematically inclined to memorize some formulas and press buttons on your calculator, and understand some rather trivial surveying scenarios. Seems like a fine idea to me.</p>
<p>Assuming you pass AP Stats, it will be more useful later in your college career than AP Human Geography.</p>
<p>That’s what I thought, but there’s a trade-off: AP Stats is “free” at my school because it’s a public school, while APHG isn’t offered. So I could spend 500 dollars on AP Stats now and spend 500 dollars on AP HUG next year. Or I could spend 800 dollars on AP HUG now and spend 0 dollars on AP Stats in a few years. The implication is that this year I have a ton of free time and the other years I’ll have almost no free time. Or I could just no take simply self-study AP HUG. Since it won’t go on my GPA and I’ll probably attain no college credit for it, I don’t see the point in doing this.</p>
<p>bumpen’. A third option would be to take AP Art History and save APHG for next year (online; community college costs the same amount of money roughly, minus the flexibility and AP preparation). This seems to be the best option, but I’m daunted by what seems to be thousands of pages of material…</p>
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<p>I don’t see any compelling reason to do either of these things.</p>
<p>Well, here are a few compelling reasons for me:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I really want to be valedictorian, and AP tests and grades are a primary means to that end. Also, online classes are a good deal easier than real classes. (evil laughter)</p></li>
<li><p>There are certain AP awards I want to achieve before a certain year.</p></li>
<li><p>APHG and APAH are not offered at my school.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m an underclassman, and I want to demonstrate my capability and course rigor and diverseness of interests.</p></li>
<li><p>My ECs are not incredibly strong, and I don’t think that they will contribute a significant part to my application, so I feel a need for compensation.</p></li>
<li><p>APHG and APAH are genuinely relevant topics to my future field of study in college (polysci, law), and I think that they will genuinely benefit me. Given the fact that I still have time for lots of EC development, APHG and APAH will help me in polysci and law-related ECs as well.</p></li>
<li><p>Our family is not poor but rather upper-middle class, so it’s not as though they’re going to go hungry or something like that. We’re not uberrich either; I don’t want to spend money unreasonably.</p></li>
<li><p>This is not related to the topic at hand. If you could contribute to the purpose of this thread, I’d be very grateful.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>2/3. So you’re under no obligation to take them unless you would enjoy them. And if you enjoy the subjects you may as well just self-study them. You’ll get the AP awards all the same.</p>
<p>4/5. I don’t think this will contribute anything significant to your application either. It shows that you have money to throw around and that you specifically sought out the easiest AP classes you could think of.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Self-studying would confer the same benefits.</p></li>
<li><p>I would argue that this constitutes spending money unreasonably, unless the total cost of the online course and the AP test would be less than the amount of money you’d save because of it when you got to college (that is, don’t waste any money on AP Human Geography). </p></li>
<li><p>Sure it’s related. I’m attempting to resolve your question by asking about the thought behind it.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>2/3 </p>
<p>""</p>
<p>So you’re under no obligation to take them unless you would enjoy them. And if you enjoy the subjects you may as well just self-study them. You’ll get the AP awards all the same.</p>
<p>""</p>
<p>Self-studying does not demonstrate for many colleges that I took the course, thus eliminating in many cases possibility of course transferability. </p>
<p>4/5</p>
<p>By this same logic you could say that ANY class outside of school, such as at a CC, is a waste of time. But as I peruse chance and acceptance threads you can be assured that many, many successful people do not restrict themselves to the academic courses offerings at school. Most people do not refuse a class because it costs a reasonable amount of money. And I don’t think there are easy AP classes, only relatively easy classes. AP Art History requires you to memorize thousands of artworks and authors. If you think about taking AP Art History as a joke class, you are hopelessly naive. The only reason I’m not taking AP Chem or the harder ones is that I haven’t taken Honors Chem or fulfilled any prerequisites for any other courses.</p>
<p>6.</p>
<p>While it is true that I could self study a course, I also want to raise my GPA and demonstrate course rigor.</p>
<p>7.</p>
<p>Honestly, given my future career options, I probably won’t do anything even remotely related to Human Geography and Art History until Junior or Senior Year. Furthermore, it’s not like this is a habitual thing; these will be the last online AP courses I take. I won’t take any course offered at my school online (except perhaps AP Stats; see above). I’m not spending money for the sake of it. It’s just that this year I happen to want to take a ton of AP classes because I have a lot of free time. Next year, I might take linear algebra classes at OHSx or programming classes at a local community college, but I won’t take any online AP classes. This year is the exception to my other years.</p>
<p>8.</p>
<p>^See above</p>