I’m having trouble deciding if I should take AP human geography next year for my freshman year. I know that this is considered “one of the easiest AP classes”, but some thoughts hold me back from taking in.
My thoughts: students have told me this class has “a lot of work”, so I’m afraid that I won’t have enough time to focus on my other classes. my other main classes are: Pre-AP english, Pre-AP geometry, Pre-AP Spanish 2, and Pre-AP biology, so I may need time for these because they are advanced . Also next year I will be doing tennis outside of school(2 practices a week 1 and a half hours each. we hardly have tournaments though) and 3 clubs (each of them meet a couple-2ish-times a month and sometimes do activities on the weekends). Also I have mild OCD, which cause stress in school sometimes. Finally, if i didn’t take it i would take world geo- a non advanced class which is SUPER EASY, so I can focus on my other classes. Now finally, I was told that if you take all advanced courses, you will spend 3-4 hours homework each night, but I’m a slower worker, so I will probably take a bit longer.
thoughts keeping me from not taking it. 1) taking this will look good on my collage application. I’m looking to try to get into either UT or UCSC hopefully. 2) I’m interested about the world. 3) I go to a kind of competitive high school, so it could slightly boost my GPA. 4) my teachers have told me they believe I can do this on top of the other APs, but told me to caution myself 5) The teacher of APHuG told me that “this class is easy, as long as you do your work, which there is a lot of - 1 and a half hours when you have the class”
With all of the information I have provided you all with, do you think I should take it? I’m more to the no side, so will collages majorly take into account that I did not take this class? And finally
will my application be strong enough if I don’t take this class ?(some background of advance classes I plan to take : 10th- Pre-ap algebra 2, Pre-ap english 2, Pre-ap Spanish 3, Pre-ap chemistry. 11th- APUSH, community collage english[during the summer so it won’t get in the way the others],AP phycology, AP photagraphy, pre-ap physics, pre-ap pre-cal [note that I will only have to go to school 7 out of the 8 periods, because of the english over the summer] 12th- AP calculas AB, AP biology, community collage english[ in summer as well], AP government [ 1 semester], AP economics [1 semester]
I think you should take it, the content is very simple and seemed very common sense. Also, you pre AP classes shouldn’t be hard, even if they are advanced/honors. Ask students from your school who have taken it.
I think you should take it. I loved the class, found the material engaging, and the exam was easy. I really think you will enjoy learning the material.
Yeah, just take it
No, colleges won’t hold it against you if you don’t take AP human geography.
However :
If you do intend on taking AP 's, it’s a good gateway class. Essentially you learn the AP methodology and therefore in later years have it down and can focus on the content.
If you live in Texas, it may affect your ranking for public universities - you’d need to be top 7-8% and students often ‘play the ranking game’ by taking AP’s.
Two other things :
Out of ut and ucsc, both public universities, one is OOS. It means it’ll likely be unaffordable unless you have a college fund with 250k in it.
As a freshman, you shouldn’t fixate on specific universities. Remember you in the 6th grade ? And how different you were from now ? Well, you’ll change just as much before 11th grade. It’s good to project and think of colleges, but the best thing to do is to get a book like insider 's guide to colleges from the library and try to figure out what sounds cool to you. Another good thing is to visit different types of colleges, even if you’re not interested in applying there : a small LAc, a Tech school, your state flagship, a Catholic university, a 'directional’public university…