Should I take AP ES or AP Comp Sci A

I’m currently picking classes for my senior year, and I’m deciding between these two classes. This is the first year AP ES is being offered at my school, and I had the teacher my freshman year for biology so I think he would be a good teacher. I already know a good deal of Python so I’m hoping that Java would be relatively easy to pick up, but AP ES looks a lot more fun. I’ll be majoring in physics or math in college, so objectively I know I should take CS… but AP ES still looks more fun, and hey it’s my senior year why not have some fun

Rest of my planned course schedule:

  • AP Lit
  • AP Gov/Econ
  • AP Physics C
  • AP Stats
  • Leadership (required for student body officers)
  • Dual enrollment multivar calc, diffeqs at local community college (one per semester)

If you have any tips and/or recommendations, please let me know. Thanks!

AP ES will show that you can perform in-depth labs and understand worldwide issues. AP Comp Sci will show that you can self-teach the intricacies of a computer language along with advanced math.
Depending on your college and major they may be looking for one or the other of these two different things.

I agree with you that CS would be the “right” answer from an application standpoint, for rigor and alignment with major. But with 4 APs and an advanced math course, I don’t think that’s as big a concern.

If you’ve shown previous CS capabilities through coursework or ECs, I think taking the course that interests you more is fine. (Or even if you haven’t…)

Obviously this varies from person to person, but as someone who has taken both courses I’ve personally found APCSA to be a more exciting class because we got to make cool little programs and games and it was more free in its structure, whereas APES was more of like a standard, textbook/lecture based class.