Currently I am choosing my classes for next year. I am a rising Junior and these are the classes I have chosen so far:
AP Biology
AP Literature & Composition (our school offers this class first)
Trig/ Pre-Calculus Honors
Spanish 3 PreAP
Speech (have to take this to graduate)
US History or APUSH
I am unsure if I will be able to handle another ap class, but on the other hand I want to take the most challenging classes available. Please advise if I should take apush and go for the extra challenge.
P.S. i am a dedicated student who is willing to put in the work. I am currently in all honors classes and am earning mostly As.
Thank you
If you are willing to sit down and do the work I definitely suggest going for APUSH. The class isn’t really “hard” material but it does require alot of reading and dates memorization so be ready for that. Plus 3 AP courses after a year of all honors seems like a nice balanced upgrade in course rigor IMO.
If you’re interested in pursuing a career in (i.e) medicine, then definitely go for AP Bio. If you’re interested in (i.e.) law, then APUSH would be a better choice. I know both classes have a lot of content, I’m in APUSH right now, and there’s a lot of information and homework to complement it. AP Bio has more to memorize, but has a higher pass rate. Many people (myself as well quite frankly) regret APUSH considering the workload–long textbook chapters, time consuming homework. Lots of hardworking, smart AP enthusiast students have opted out of APUSH but will take other APs like AP English. But I will tell you have have really learned the real untouched US History by taking the class, and my vocabulary and writing (in skill and time) did improve. You should decide on your own; perhaps you can sit in APUSH and decide if you want to stay or transfer to the non-AP US History course.
I’m taking APUSH right now, and I would only recommend it if you’re not interested in studying history in college and you know you can do well on the AP exam OR if you’re extremely invested in history. I took WHAP the previous year, and it was far more stimulating (intellectually) to me than APUSH is, simply because WHAP covers so much more material and delves into a greater variety of cultures. APUSH does help push you to become a better writer, as do many other AP history classes. However, as other posters have noted, it is a very study-intensive course, particularly regarding dates, people, and places - although these do not hold as much importance in the course as they do in WHAP.
Thanks for the comments! I think I am going to take APUSH and if it is too much work and/ or not interesting within the first two weeks I will opt out to regular.