Some background on myself: I definitely am not typically a STEM-focused students, my lowest grades are in math and science though I still barely manage A’s in those classes. I think I have a relatively high aptitude in those subjects, but have difficulty making myself focus in them. I think that Computer Science may be different as I realize the importance of learning to do basic coding. AP Psychology would be interesting enough, and incredibly easy, but I worry that it would look less impressive on a transcript and not count as credit at many colleges. Another key point for me is that while AP Psychology at my school has a long-time teacher who is fine but certainly not great, this is the first time AP Computer Science is being offered at my school and so the teacher is not yet known. I’m a bit concerned that I will end up with an inadequate teacher, I won’t know who it is before I sign up for classes. So, to recap, I think Psychology is more of a sure thing and probably a bit more interesting, but that AP Computer Science really has the potential to make me both a more attractive applicant and give me some important real world skills, although with a bit of risk. So which should I take?
It sounds to me like AP Psych is more up your alley and has the benefit of having a known quantity as the teacher.
CS principles should be a good overview of CS for both prospective CS majors and non majors. It should not be just a course on coding. http://cs10.org is a college course that is one of the models of CS principles.
bump
I am a high school computer science teacher and currently teaching AP Computer Science Principles. This is the first year the AP exam is being administered - across the country. I find it a challenging course to teach mainly because there just isn’t a proven curriculum out there yet and not much in the way of assessments, etc. to practice with for the exam, other than the samples from the College Board. The AP exam is not language specific so your teacher could use any programming language to teach the course - from Scratch to C. Also, this AP exam is unusual in that, in addition to the regular multiple choice section, there are Performance Tasks which are completed in class (your teacher is supposed to give you 20 hours in class to complete them, and you can work on them on your own too). These tasks are submitted online via a digital portfolio on April 30th, several days before the actual exam date. One is an Explore Task, where you do some research on a computational innovation and produce an “artifact” to describe it…and the other is a Create Task, where you complete some sort of computer program (in any language) that demonstrates a few of the main ideas that they ask for. There is not a lot of math or science required for this course. I think you would do well if you are a creative thinker.
So, all of that to say, it is a big giant question mark. We aren’t really sure how the colleges are going to use the AP credit - some are applying it as science electives.
Also, to avoid confusion, this is a different course and exam than AP Computer Science A. That course is well established and is based on JAVA programming. I find it way more of a challenge for students than the Principles course.