Should I take AP Calculus AB?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I’m an upcoming senior this fall 2017 and we just currently registered for our classes next year. One of the biggest factor when I was marking my choices was that I didn’t want to overly stress out my senior year and screw up my gpa or anything at the end. I picked:

AP Government
AP physics (may or may not change to biology)
Spanish 4
Regular English 4
Drawing (requirement for A-G)
Regular Statistics

Overall: My GPA should be around a 4.3 if I achieve all A’s in all of those classes.

Now, my math skills aren’t as sophisticated as others as I am sometimes slow to understand a topic (In Pre-Cal Honors right now), but I do have an A in the class (somehow… I have no idea). Most of my friends right now are taking AP Calc AB and many of them say its super super hard as H.W is about 3 hrs long per day and many of them have B-'s or lower. Even worse some said calculus credits (or even the calculus itself) is very useless in life. If that’s the case that I’ve been hearing, am I SUPPOSED to take Calc (in wanting to go to a UC school) or is it just for the fun of it (if you really love math)? I heard colleges dont admire you taking an AP class and having a C or lower, and if I were to be in AP Calc right now, I would’ve probably had a C or a low B.

Interested college major: Undecided

Colleges I want to apply:
UCLA
UCI
UCD
UCR
(Maybe few more UC’s)
(2 community colleges)
(Few Cal- States)

2

It depends on what you want to major in, but I’d say if you want to go somewhere like UCLA, AP calc would probably be a smart move, as it is very competitive there. Not sure about the others, but a B or C in a harder class usually looks better than an A in an easier class (it shows that you’re challenging yourself, which is what colleges want). So I’d say just take the AP and bust your butt to get the best grade you can get (a B would not be bad), but it’s ultimately your decision

3

Sure, Calculus is pretty intuitive as a subject and with AB having a slower pace for the material it would be pretty easy for people to learn the subject material in the time given. There are a bunch of resources on calculus and to not do AB because it would be too hard is nonsense, especially if you can save money and time in college by getting a 5 on the AP test.

4

Calculus is very useful in college for certain majors. So if you are interested in Math, Engineering, Economics or even pre-med you will need calculus. I would suggest taking it so you have more options for majors in college.
Get a tutor up front (NHS usually does that) and go to your teachers extra help hours.