<p>Quite briefly, I'm a tenth grade student in a city where the nearest IB school is two hours away in Calgary. I know IB is much more widely used in Canada than AP, but there are no IB resources online, while there are a decent amount of AP resources. So I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to take some AP courses on my own time (I can certainly handle it). I'm planning on going into a career in Theoretical Physics, as my interests and natural abilities certainly point to that field. McGill University in Montreal has an intriguing program to get me started down that road... A joint undergraduate program in Mathematics and Physics. I've also heard they have good graduate programs as well, which I will obviously be going into as well.</p>
<p>As it stands, the classes I am taking right now are the "high stream", but they are not "advanced", so to speak. My two main reasons for wanting to take some AP courses are:</p>
<p>1) To get a bit of a challenge, and learn a lot in the process.
2) To prepare myself for the Mathematics/Physics program at McGill.</p>
<p>The courses I'm looking at taking are:</p>
<p>-AP Calculus AB or BC... Does anyone know the difference between the two?
-AP Physics B or C... I've heard C is more Calculus-based, so C would probably be the better choice.
-AP Chemistry, maybe.
-AP Biology, if I have the time. Probably not, though.</p>
<p>Is this a good idea? Any other suggestions?</p>
<p>AP Calculus AB or BC... Does anyone know the difference between the two?</p>
<p>AB is your first semester of Calculus at a University ( or Calculus I). BC is your second semester of Calculus at a university (or Calculus II)</p>
<p>I'm sure that either taking IB or AP classes is going to challange you. I would rather do IB, although you can do both at the the same time. Some classes are somewhat correlated, like IB psych SL and AP psych (althouhgh it is not exact syllabus).</p>
<p>I think it'd be a great idea to self-study some APs. It definitely shows colleges that you're serious about going beyond what your school offers to learn the subjects and to challenge yourself, which is a very good thing. :)</p>
<p>Physics is a tough major, so it's definitely a good idea to take AP Physics in high school to reduce the chance that you will wash out (even if you wind up repeating basic physics in college).</p>
<p>I work in a college admissions office as a Secretary, Colleges don't want you to take Ap's., that means less Money for them. It makes absolutely no sense to take Ap classes, even as many schools are starting not to accept them and grad schools almost never do.</p>