Hi everyone!
I’m currently a sophomore and I was wondering if anyone had self studied APHUG and AP Psych? Is it hard and how much time did you put into them (I really want a 5!). Also, could you guys recommend some textbooks or prep books for APHUG and AP Psych?
I’m also taking AP Bio and AP Micro during the school year along with other extracurriculars. Do you think self studying those two APs are worth it? Do the number of APs you take really matter a lot?
Thanks!
The number of AP’s you self study will matter to nobody. For college admissions, they would rather you take the class if it is offered.
Having said that, I did self study AP Psych (and got a 5). While not a strategy I’d recommend, I did it over a weekend with Barron’s (which is sorta why colleges don’t put much stock in simply self studying for an exam).
I have no personal experience with APHG, since none of my prospective colleges would offer credit for it. Good luck.
You seem like a bright and talented individual. Props to you for taking so many APs as a sophomore!
Having self- studied these courses both in just under three weeks, I would say that they are fairly easy to grasp and require some effort to pass on the AP exam. I would personally recommend Princeton’s Review for both Psychology and Human Geography. That being said, if you know your content very well and have a sense of knowing how to write noteworthy answers, you should get a 5.
I believe that taking those classes should suffice for now, and if you really believe in walking the extra mile, aim for AP Seminar junior year, and AP Research for senior year. Those courses give you the potential for graduating high school with a AP Capstone diploma (basically a step up from the regular) and a pretty good shot for demonstrating your ability to go above and beyond the minimum curriculum.
Combined with taking a few more APs over your next few years, you can probably demonstrate to colleges your capacity to learn and interest in following your passions in whatever profession you pursue–provided that the APs you take are related to it.
On a side note, however, it is really difficult in my opinion to score anything lower than a 5. Because, let’s face it, a 5 on most exams is basically getting above 70- 80%, granting a huge margin of error and chance for silly mistakes or screw-ups. The only way that someone could NOT get a 5 is if they are truly incompetent, don’t care for the coursework, or have an innate inability to learn that subject ( strongly hinting at not pursuing that profession).
Wishing you luck on your studies and a great rest of the year! Have a wonderful day!
I would take these pearls of wisdom from a user that has been here for 3 days with a huge grain of salt.
With very limited exceptions (e.g. Calc BC, Chinese) the percentage of students getting a 5 is <20%; I would not call those students who do not get a 5 as incompetent.
At whatever point this user graduates from HS and goes to college, s/he will be in for a rude awakening when the median grade for a math/science midterm is in the 50-60% range. Then’s s/he be more than thankful for the curve.
agreeing with @skieurope. if you search ‘2017 advanced placement score distribution’ you can see exactly how many people got what score for each AP. Chinese Language has the highest number of 5s- at 68%; the lowest is Physics 1, with just 5% of test takers getting a 5. FWIW, psych is about 19% and HG about 10%. Imo, the comment section is interesting.
and disagreeing with this:
“Combined with taking a few more APs over your next few years, you can probably demonstrate to colleges your capacity to learn and interest in following your passions in whatever profession you pursue–provided that the APs you take are related to it.”
@skieurope is a super mod for a reason, and is dead right that the “number of AP’s you self study will matter to nobody. For college admissions, they would rather you take the class if it is offered.” All of the selective colleges that I have heard address the topic of APs have said the same thing: 1) it is always in the context of what is typical at your school and 2) they are not interested in an AP arms race- more does not equal better.
APs can help with general education or advance standing. Or make you feel good if you have nothing better to do 
AP Psychology and AP Human Geography are on the easy side — the reason why percentages are lower is because you have freshmen taking human geography and more of the average student taking psychology as it is known as one of the easier APs. I know a good number of people that have self-studied these APs and got a 5 — and it helps to be generally knowledged about the world / an upperclassman with experience from other social sciences and extracurriculars to already know most of the material for some of the APs self-studied. Someone I know took 1-2 days going through a review book and got a 5 on human geography without the course.
I’m just going to assume that you were one of those people in high school that couldn’t get above a C+ in your AP courses, right? Again, Cutoff. Is. At. 70-80%!!! You can basically skip 5 questions on AP Language and Composition Exam (which is what I did), perform well on the essays, and still get a 5. As for Physics, that test, I will admit, was challenging, but still easy to get basically above a B on it.
Now, on to your argument…
Under the notion that you are on the defense for those that can’t understand 4/5 of their entire coursework and knowledge of AP scaling, it is pretty reasonable to assume that you didn’t get a 5 on every test that you took. So you can take these, “pearls of wisdom” and try to comprehend that only lazy and moronic imbeciles can’t make those cutoffs. Additionally, those “facts” about Chinese and Calculus BC being the only outliers scoring significantly above 20%? You might want to check that again, seeing as how both Physics C: Mechanics (28.1%) and Electricity and Magnetism (34.7%) both score significantly above as well. Want more? Take Computer Science A (24.4%) and Comparative Government and Politics (23.7%). And if you even try to say how it’s only a “3 to 4 percent difference,” realize first that tens (and in some cases hundreds) of thousands of people take these exams every year! Therefore, even a change of 1% indicates a variation of at LEAST, 100 more people scoring a 5–as in the case of this analysis. This is still not even mentioning the fact that AP Chinese is most likely a heavily skewed test, seeing as how most people who do pursue that AP are either Chinese or have previous knowledge on the language…
And if you even think that I’m in for a “rude awakening” when I enter college, realize that one only needs discipline and focus in their chosen career to be successful at it and not be the same as everyone else. Those who can’t succeed in basic AP courses and their generous scoring should seriously reconsider advancing in any given profession and how they will continue on with their lives in general. One last thing, however, before I end this comment, can you please, at a bare MINIMUM, try and present a full argument on your subject matter and present valid statistics to support them? It really bothers me when someone as “superior” as a super moderator can’t even take the time to develop a response; as opposed to me, being here, “a user that has been here for three days,” developing much more advanced and detailed rebuttals.
Again, your argument is flawed because of AP Chinese being skewed, Physics only being a matter of adapting formulas, and psychology and human geography being pure memorization and comprehension. And if you seriously believe that skieurope is “dead right” about the number that you self- study being not as relevant as the class itself, it is moreover that he is “dead wrong” about this. Put simply, cheating in the United States is rampant and plagues nearly every class ever taken in high school. From Art 1 to Calculus BC, it is ubiquitous and never- ending in its search to corrupt and deceive.
Now, taking into the fact that most colleges know about this, I’m fairly certain that even you can depict that they have realized this failure in high school education and will more greatly value a high AP score as opposed to a solid A throughout the year and only a 3 in an exam. (This has actually happened to someone I knew in my school and BECAUSE of it, I repeat, BECAUSE of it, he was denied into Boston University)
Onto the last portion…
“1) it is always in the context of what is typical at your school and 2) they are not interested in an AP arms race- more does not equal better.”
So you’re saying that if Studio Art, Seminar, and Chinese, were all the most taken, then I should take it, right? Because obviously taking the “easiest” APs (in accordance to you and Europe’s false arguments) in a given school would be better than taking more difficult AP courses that aren’t as “typical” and more valuable to life–also given that those courses are relevant to one’s future profession. (And before you even try to use this sentence, please realize that it was an attempt at sarcasm.) As to Point 2), I never said an “AP arms race.” If you re- read the quote that you clearly only blindly copied, it states, “provided that the APs you take are related to it.” And since you were unable to determine its meaning, let me simplify it for you. If one chooses to pursue a history major in college, then it would be preferable to take AP US History, Humans Geography, and European History. (I’m assuming this, as this is not my desired profession.) If one were to advance in genetics, AP Biology would most likely be preferable. Because as I am sure you now clearly realize, I never stated overloading on APs that are irrelevant to a desired topic (such as taking APs in Arts when majoring in English). I simply stated taking those that are RELEVANT to future desires and aspirations.
Thank you for being the voice of reason in this calamity! I fully agree to this, as it is both valid that unknowing (in the sense of what courses to choose) freshmen take these courses without prior knowledge to what they encompass, and mostly, I repeat, MOSTLY, bring down national averages in AP scores.
APs are influential for a general knowledge of the world, and if never hurts you to know a little more about what it going on, how it is being done, and for what purpose it serves.
So please, skieurope and collegemom3717, please recognize the errors in your arguments and understand that it is quite easy to earn a 5 on most AP tests (exceptions include the arts and language, due to personal bias on quality of art submissions and level of pronunciation in a language) as recognize by this individual, tangentline.
You know what happens when you assume, but for the record, your assumption is incorrect. Additionally, I scored well on all my AP exams, but thanks for your concern.
I do not need to check again, because I did not say that they were the only ones. Perhaps you need to look up “e.g.” in the dictionary.
Please let me know when you have presented an “advanced and detailed rebuttal.”
Which has nothing to do with the topic on hand. Or is this another of your “advanced and detailed rebuttals?”
Alternatively, colleges might believe that a student knows how to take a 3 hour exam, but does not really understand the material, which is part of the reason why Dartmouth stopped accepting AP credit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/education/dartmouth-stops-credits-for-excelling-on-ap-test.html
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He might think that, but no Admissions Officer is going to tell an applicant why an application was rejected with that level of specificity. The best one can hope for an explanation is “So many qualified applicants, so few spaces.” A rejected applicant may try to do some Monday morning quarterbacking, but it will all be speculation.
Finally a point of agreement, although I would further argue that it is not so much that the freshman have no prior knowledge as much as they are HS freshman. AP’s in theory are college-level classes, and there are few (although there are exceptions) HS freshman who are ready to take college level classes.
Really don’t want to get into this, but as a point of clarification, my comment about what admissions directors have said to me about their view on APs was in response to the original poster’s question about how much the number of APs taken matters. So, I am not saying anything about what/which APs. I repeated what Directors of Admissions from highly selective colleges and universities have said directly to me: they evaluate the APs taken relative to what is available to the student and what is typical in the school (so, for example, students who go to HS where there are no APs are not penalized); and that they do not want students feeling that they have to take more APs just to impress them.
As for this:
To the OP and other readers: this is a HS student given an explanation of another students experience. There is simply no way that the single factor factor of a low AP grade and a high classroom grade resulted in a student getting turned down by BU admissions. And that is not a guess or a hypothesis: I know current BU students who had low AP scores and high classroom grades (and at a great many other colleges, including HYP). It is not uncommon, for many reasons, including a poor alignment between the class as taught and the exam.
Unless you self report - colleges won’t know your AP scores until after acceptance. So I find it really hard to believe someone was denied admission based on getting a 3 on an AP exam…