<p>Hi. I'm a sophomore and I just finished my first semester. First off, let me tell you my schedule and final semester grades.
0. Chem Honors - A
1. Japanese 2 - A
2. World History Honors - B
3. My School's Dance Team
4. English 2 Honors - B
5. Algebra 2 - A
6. AP Psychology - A</p>
<p>As you can see, I have 2 B's...which I am not very happy about. This is what I think the reason is. As a freshman, I hear everyone say that you have to take at least on AP in sophomore year and that AP Psych was the best one to take. I, being a vulnerable freshman,signed myself up for the class and took it this year.</p>
<p>In the beginning, I was able to maintain all A's, and was almost sure that I would get straight A's just like I did last year. Then, I thought that in order for me to get into a good college, I should focus more on my AP class. That was when everything went downhill. My other grades started slipping as the workload for Psychology became too much. I sleep at 2 am, and I'm not even a junior yet! I was only able to get my Algebra, Chem and Japanese grades to an A by doing well on the finals. My World History and English classes, however, are a different story.</p>
<p>Now that it's second semester and the AP test is coming up, I am wondering whether or not I should drop AP Psych in order to get straight A's second semester. My goal is to get into Stanford, so I want my grades to be as perfect as they can be.</p>
<p>TL;DR: I focus to much on AP Psych, causing me to get almost all B's for my first semester of sophomore year. With the AP test coming up, should I drop the class?</p>
<p>I apologize for the length of this post! I'm just really anxious at this point.</p>
<p>If it’s killing your other classes maybe it’s recommended to drop the class. I think it’s better having a 4.0 gpa with no AP’s rather than a 3.67 GPA with one AP and no sleep. There’s a lot of people at my school who got into great colleges without taking all the AP’s possible simply because they weren’t interested in them. Other people might say it might hurt you to drop a hard class, since colleges want to see you take the hardest schedule possible. It really depends on whether you are generally interested in the class. I’m in the same dilemma also, whether I should take AP English language next year, even though I’m not really interested in it and would prefer to focus more time on AP Chemistry and AP Calculus.</p>
<p>You should know that AP classes will always require more work than honors classes. Getting into Stanford will require taking the most rigorous courses at your school, which I’m assuming are AP. Psychology is reputably the easiest so dropping it could be a sign of things to come.</p>
<p>Thanks for your insight! I liked how you compared having a 4.0 with no AP to a 3.67 with an AP. That really helped. Thanks again! And I think you should take not only what interests you, but also what you can handle. So you should consider what you like first, which is AP Chem and/or Calc, and then see if you can handle adding AP English Lit into the mixture.</p>
<p>Oh great. Now I feel so pathetic lol. I can’t even handle the easiest AP course out there! Anyway, thanks for telling me that. It’s better I was told now than having taken other AP classes in the future and then dropping out of them. Maybe Stanford just isn’t for me :/</p>
<p>I think you misunderstood my post. Your school’s psychology class may be the hardest in the school, or maybe you’re less interested than you would be in other AP classes. I was just trying to warn you that AP classes are a lot more work than honors and learning to manage that is very important.</p>
<p>So AP Psychology is a 2 semester class? It is offered only second semester at my son’s school, so at the time of the AP test, they have only had a couple months of the class. It is a very difficult class at our school. Guess that may be because it’s being crammed into 1 semester! I have never heard that it is considered an easy AP. Government and Economics, both 1 semester classes at our school, are considered easy. Guess it all depends on the teacher and student!</p>
<p>Oh I see what you meant. Sorry for misunderstanding! I thought that AP’s were just Honors classes with big tests that count for college credit. There really is a difference, huh.</p>
<p>Yup. At my school, all classes ate 2 semesters or four quarters long. It’s still challenging, though. And now that I think of it, whether or not a class is easy really does depend on the person.</p>
<p>That’s interesting. I just assumed that AP Psych, Government and Econ were 1 semester at all schools. Wonder if our school has a lower AP test passing rate than other schools. My kids passed the AP tests anyway, even on some tests where they only took honors and not AP, like APUSH. They just took the honors US History and still passed the AP test. At our school, there really isn’t much difference between honors and AP. Like you said, it really does depend on the person. My son thought Psych was super easy. His best friend thought it was the hardest class he took in high school - harder than Ap Calc, AP Chem, and AP English 4. And they were in the same class. AP English is killing my junior right now.</p>
<p>That’s amazing how your kids were able to pass their AP tests with just one semester of learning the material! That’s really inspiring. And I wish them luck in their AP English class!</p>
<p>I took AP Psych last semester! What kind of stuff are you guys doing that’s keeping you awake so late? Our class was pretty easy, I spent about an hour studying psych a week, max, but I feel extremely prepared for the AP test… haha my friend flipped through a textbook a week before the AP tests and made a 5 last year.</p>
<p>It’s the vocabulary! We get about 25 words a chapter, and I suck at memorizing terms. Lol speaking of memory, my lowest test grade was on the memory unit. But basically, I study vocabulary cards all night because the tests just keep coming and coming. What’s really scaring me is the AP test. I feel overwhelmed by all of the vocab I’ll have to relearn. That will definitely take up all of my other classes’ time.</p>
<p>They really had great teachers, chocolatecharme. They purposely didn’t take the APUSH class because they liked the Honors teacher better. I convinced them to try the AP test anyway. The school was against it, I suspect because the thought my kids would not pass and that would hurt the school’s stats, but the school couldn’t really stop them, so they took it and passed. Anyway, if you do decide the drop the AP Psych class, you could still take the AP test.</p>
<p>loltired, the Psych class at our school has lots of reading (trying to finish an entire textbook between the start of second semester and the AP test!), tests, quizzes, and worksheets. There is a lot of work. Not much work in the Gov’t or Econ classes, though. Just depends on the teacher. Good luck on your AP test.</p>
<p>chocolate, does failing the AP test affect your class grade? The AP scores don’t come out until long after you get your semester grades. So just worry about your class grade and not the AP test. Then decide to take or not take the AP test. It’s not required, is it? So what if you fail the AP test?</p>
<p>Oh, I got you. We had vocabulary quizzes twice a week with anywhere from 20 to 50 words. Have you tried using quizlet? Saves the time of making vocab flashcards.</p>
<p>@Barfly Ours did too! Except no one read, lol. Teacher recommended that we read 10-15 pages every night, except it was fine just reading the barron’s book and paying attention in class. We don’t have econ at my school, but I really want to take microecon sigh,</p>
<p>Oh, Loltired, I forgot about Micro and Macro econ. Which one is the AP? Our school has the AP as well as honors econ and non-honors because econ is required to graduate. Kids take Gov’t and Econ senior year, each for 1 semester, as their required social studies. Sorry you can’t take it, but you can in college! And shame on you for not reading your assigned readings. Not really - sounds like you are doing fine with skipping the readings! Good luck to you all.</p>