Hey all,
I’m a junior and taking 3 APs this year (BC Calc, United States History, Chemistry)
I was thinking about self-studying the following:
-US Govt
-Human Geography
-Micro/Macro (not sure which)
-English Language and Composition
Feasible? Necessary? Any advice?
I know colleges don’t look at AP scores when considering admissions, but I want to be able to test into higher level courses during undergraduate years.
Any insight would be wonderful!
Depends on the colleges you want to go to, check their site and go through to find their AP credit.
Usually state schools tend to accept AP credit with a 3 and you get a bunch of units, whereas in privates they have enough money to ask you to take their course. I would only self study a class that you really don’t want to take in college, if you’re poor and need to save money, or it has to do with your major. I’m a junior as well, and I’ve decided just to self study AP English Language (maybe Lit? my teacher said Lit was easier for some reason…) because I’m planning to go to state and get rid of the GE from there (I didn’t take the class because it’s a tedious class in my institution and I know I can’t handle it).
But, good luck. 
I think it’s doable to study one or two exams. Four may be a lot.
I did this last year (self-studied Calc, Gov, Micro/Macro (both), and Human Geo). It’s definitely possible, but you’re going to have to be pretty dedicated. A few months is enough time to study enough for all of them. Necessary? Maybe not. Feasible? Definitely, if you set your mind to it. For instance, I had to pretty much stop going to games and practices for the tennis team and instead worked inside review books and read through them.
What you need to do is learn material for the test. Not your curiosity. Not to fully learn a normal school’s curriculum at a class’s pace. You’re absorbing knowledge to regurgitate onto the AP exams in May.
Know that there are a lot of resources online. Look for study guides, review packets, and actual released tests online aside from your usual review books.
Get Larry Krieger’s Crash Course for Gov and do the practice tests. Krieger is a godsend for those AP Tests (I don’t know if it’ll be different, but his APUSH Crash Course/Insider’s Guide was ultra helpful as well). That’s pretty much all you need, but you can go to Barnes & Noble and look at practice tests from other review books as well.
Do all you can to know the basics of APHUG, but don’t spend too much time with the details; the exam I took had almost nothing about what I read in the review books and I ended up guessing on about 80% of the multiple choice.
If you’re picking between the two, pick Macroeconomics. It’s easier to learn, easier to understand, easier to memorize, and easier to take as a test (with a higher curve for a 5).
For English Language, practice writing essays. Seriously. Establish what stylistic choices you’ll be analyzing most, and be ready to write three essays on things you may have no interest in. The passages will be similar to SAT CR, except you’ll have to know a lot more about the technical stuff like notations, tone, etc.
Review books are your best friends, but sometimes they’re not enough. Immerse yourself in the material you’re learning because the class isn’t there to do that for you. Good luck!
@capitalamerica whoa thanks for the extensive advice!! Did you use any textbooks to study for the AP that you could recommend?
@t3rryd4ctyl I didn’t exactly use textbooks, really (just AP review books). Textbooks generally take much longer to read and contain a lot of extraneous information you don’t need to know, which basically wastes your time in learning for the tests. I think the only one I used was because I was doing Economics that year in FBLA, which was some McConnell-Brue textbook - a standard AP textbook you may be able to get from your high school. Everything else doesn’t really need a textbook from what I’ve gathered.
thank you!