Should I take AP Physics C or AP Enviro?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p>I'm not a math person, and this year, physics HN has been my hardest class ever. Next year, it'll be harder and I don't want to ruin my perfect 4.0 taking a harder AP science when I won't enjoy it or need it in my life. Do colleges just see a class as "AP" or do they openly discriminate against easier ones like enviro or psych? Thing is, the new science chair is teaching ap enviro and she's going to make it very difficult in terms of practical projects, she won't just lecture and make it "easy." What's also influencing my decision is that I plan to take 6 AP's next year (senior year).</p>

<p>My schedule:</p>

<p>AP Lit
AP Combined US/Comp Gov (They make us take both but only give us credit for comp.)
AP Latin Vergil
AP Euro History (or if not enough sign up, AP Human Geo)
AP Calculus BC
AP Physics C: Mechanics/AP Enviro
Journalism 4</p>

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<p>take enviro - its more work at your school, but if your struggling with hn phys (is HN honors?), youll die in AP</p>

<p>AP enviro is more work but no applications / real understanding, just you spitting otu facts</p>

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<p>APES (Environmental) is like bio - lots of memorization and lots of work, but nothing conceptually difficult.
I agree, if you had trouble in honors physics, APC will be killer, especially since you are not a math person. APC has tons of calculus that you have to apply on top of all the concepts.</p>

<p>[Do colleges just see a class as “AP” or do they openly discriminate against easier ones like enviro or psych? ]
Colleges know that it’s an “AP” course, in that it has a much higher workload than any regular class. So they’ll respect APES much more than a regular course. However, when you’re in the realm of APs, APES is one of those “joke” classes in that it’s curriculum has yet to meet the standards of many colleges. In terms of how colleges look at your transcript, APC will likely be looked at as more rigorous, and they treat it with more respect.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the input! Unfortunately, at my school, APES won’t be a joke class because of the teacher… :/</p>

<p>Also, please note that for me, struggling in a class means getting an A- as opposed to an A… But physics honors has been the first class where I feel unable to get an A, which stresses me out a lot.</p>

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<p>bump…</p>

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<p>At the university where both my daughters attended, one of the criteria for the honors program and merit scholarships were whether students took the most rigorous courses available to them. In this case, AP Physics C or AP Chem (or even AP Biology) IS considered more rigorous than APES. If you are considering applying to colleges that will either award you placement or actual credit for AP credits, you’ll probably get more mileage out of AP credits in physics vs. APES.</p>

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<p>I’m taking five APs this year–four of them are the same as the ones you’re taking (PS LATIN IS ****ING AWESOME). I consider myself pretty good at math, but AP Physics B made me really work for my A-. Conceptually, it was pretty difficult. I was scared enough not to take AP C, and am glad I didn’t. But if APES has lots of work, I’m not quite sure how you’re gonna handle that courseload. Is your school just really easy or something? Remember, you have college apps in the fall, and you’ll want to relax/socialize a lot in the spring. Not to mention you might have leadership positions in APs—my question, then, is whether you really need to take AP Euro? While not difficult, and very interesting, in my experience it necessitated a lot of (busy)work. It’s not like colleges don’t view five APs as really rigorous. Or if you’re really interested in AP Euro, drop Gov… Feel free to PM me if you want some more advice; even though I don’t know what you’re school’s like I am taking most of the classes you will be so I think I could shed some light if you have any specific questions… Good luck.</p>

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<p>Sorry, when I said that it was a “joke” class, I didn’t mean that APES was necessarily a trivial A, though this is certainly the case in many schools. At my school, it probably has a medium workload; we get projects pretty frequently, but it’s not that bad.
When I said it’s a “joke” class, I meant more along the lines of many colleges not respecting it as a true college-level course. More and more colleges are accepting APES for credit these days, but as far as I know, many top colleges still don’t acknowledge it.</p>

<p>So I guess the question now is whether you’d risk not doing well in AP C, as it is conceptually difficult, or whether you’d play it safe in a lower AP, APES, although it requires a huge workload.</p>

<p>

I was not aware that there were leadership positions in AP courses… o.o</p>