Should I take AP Government? Is 7 too many APs?

Pre-College Issues
1

Hello, I suppose I’m looking for some help making a decision. I’m a rising senior and am having trouble choosing if I should take AP Government or not.

My schedule so far looks like this:

  1. Accel Calculus 2 video streamed from our state technical institution
  2. AP Macro Econ
  3. AP Physics C
  4. AP Spanish
  5. AP Stat
  6. half a year of on level gov / half a year of current events
  7. AP Lit/Comp

My initial plan was to take on level government/ current events as an easier class since i have 6 other AP leveled courses. But after receiving my schedule, I found out that one of my favorite teachers was moved to AP Government. I know i could do it, but I also feel like I shouldn’t totally overwhelm myself senior year. So my questions are:

How much homework and how hard would you say AP Gov is? (I know it depends on the teacher/student, but just a general opinion would be great)
Is AP physics C hard? As hard as AP Chem?
Would on level government look bad to top universities such as Princeton and Williams?
What would your opinion on the whole matter be?

2

Normally I would say that 7 AP’s for a senior is too much, given that you also have that hidden class: College Applications and Essays. Rising seniors always underestimate the work that will entail and the amount of time involved. However, and it depends on the teacher naturally, stats, macro, and gov are not really that demanding from a workload perspective.

Is it mechanics and E&M? If so, IMO, much, much harder than Chem.

As long as your GC checks the “most rigorous” schedule box on the Secondary School report, I doubt they will care either way.

Personally, I wouldn’t take 7. As a senior, I took 2 AP’s and 2 post-AP’s and I did just fine in the admissions bonanza. If a favorite teacher is teaching gov, swap out something for AP Gov. Did you take AP Lang? If so, I would drop down a level in English; if not, I would drop Macro. If you’re not planning on majoring in STEM, AP Physics is overkill. Depending on your college major, stat with calc in college may be more beneficial than AP Stats.

These are just suggestions. You need to play around with options, since you gave us little background about yourself.

3

Thanks so much for your input!

Here’s some background on my past APs:
Chem, Calc BC, Lang, US History, Bio, and World History. I’ve received fives on every exam, and high 95+ in each class.

I don’t have any physics background, but a lot of students at my school (many of my fellow juniors last year did this) just jump right into Physics C and don’t seem to have a problem maintaining an A in the class, but very few students pass the Exam at the end of the year.

I don’t plan to get perfect fives on the exams this year with this many being taken, but do you think this class load would be too much?

I don’t play any sports, and I’ve decided to not continue my job, but I do take part in many clubs, babysitting, and volunteering.