Should I take all three of these APs in the same year?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Im a freshman thinking about what classes I should take for next year and I would like to take AP Stat, AP World History, and AP Comp Sci. Along with these three APs I would be taking German 3, Precalc Honors, English honors, and Chem honors.

2

I would not take AP Stat, being that you are only taking Precalc honors at the same time. AP Comp Sci and AP world will be fine with your 4 other classes. Does your HS allow you to take 7 classes?

3

A I think AP World is a suitable fit (most sophomores in my area take AP world. Have you considered AP Bio (assuming your currently taking Bio) or even AP psychology? I didn’t take AP stats or Comp Sci so I can’t speak on the difficulty of the classes, but for my school you are not allowed to take either class until you are either a junior or in most cases a senior

4

yep 7 classes

5

I cant take ap bio until i do chem and I dont think that i can do those other APs either

6

AP Statistics only requires Algebra 2 as a prerequisite. Now, whether the student can handle 3 AP classes is something only s/he and maybe the parent(s)/GC can answer. Some students do fine with 4, while other struggle with one. But 3 APs as a sophomore might be a lot.

7

Is AP CS the A course or the principles course?

Principles is more generally helpful (in terms of knowledge, not AP credit) to all students (including potential CS majors and non-CS majors); A is mainly for CS majors who will go to colleges where it matches the introductory course.

Although either is equivalent to a one semester college course (so theoretically not a heavy workload), CS courses with programming assignments and projects can be rather time consuming compared to other courses. However, workload and difficulty of CS probably varies greatly from one student to another (probably particularly for the A course).

8

I agree with skieurope and ucbalumnus. It sounds manageable for a highly motivated student. AP Stats doesn’t require the completion of pre-calc or calc, and I have a friend who took it concurrent with Honors Precalculus and did just fine.
I am currently taking AP CS Principles which has a very light workload (at least at my school) and is very manageable even without any prior computer science or programming experience. AP CS A, on the other hand, would probably require that you have prior experience from a prerequisite course or from independent study of Java. I can’t speak to the workload for AP CS A as I haven’t taken the class.
AP World has a substantial amount of reading and DBQ work, so be prepared to spend a lot of time on it, but I know plenty of sophomores who have taken it (it’s actually offered to freshmen at my school as well), so it’s certainly do-able.

9
  • AP World History is a breeze if you can memorize events and compare, contrast, and connect them to other events (I took it freshman year, was pretty easy for me)
  • AP Comp Sci (A or Principles??) is really easy. I'm currently in Principles, and it moves at a very slow pace that even regular-level kids don't struggle with it. I've heard that A is pretty easy too.
  • I've heard that AP Stat isn't hard, but you should have a very strong understanding of math leading up to and including Algebra II.