I am currently taking AB, and I’m straddling the line between an A and a B. I have half a mind to just not take BC and only take Stat, but aren’t AB and BC one class in college or something along those lines? Would I ruin myself by cutting my Calculus class in half by not taking BC?
As it stands right now, I am planning on taking AP Bio, AP Physics 1, AP Psychology, Honors Spanish IV, and AP Stat, plus another class, next year.
If I don’t take Calc BC, would I have to retake the entire Calculus curriculum in college for GED?
First off, don’t bump a thread after 45 minutes, it’s just annoying.
Depending on the college, if you score well on the AB exam, you’ll get credit for the first semester of calculus. BC is the second semester at most schools. Whether you want to take BC and stats concurrently is up to you.
It depends upon the college. At most colleges, calculus is a 4 semester sequence, although most students do not go that far. If your future plans only require one semester of calculus in college, and you ace the AP exam, then you don’t need to take more. If your future plans require calc II and you have credit in calc I, then you would need to take one semester in college, which many students do. Or you could bite the bullet and take BC in HS and ace the exam. However, as I told you on your other thread, 3 sciences concurrently is nuts. So 3 sciences plus BC plus AP Stats is a recipe for disaster.
What do you want to major in?
If you want to major in STEM, my advice would be to retake calc 1 in college unless you get a 5 on the AB exam; it’ be better to take BC so that you don’t break that sequence, and start in calc 2 in the Fall of college freshman year.
If you want to major in business or economics, you can do whatever - in college, take the second and final Applied calculus class.
If you don’t want to major in these, start with a one-shot statistics class.
In most cases you’ll have a placement test anyway, so you’ll have to review everything through the very beginning of calculus.
In college, you take up to 5 classes each semester. You’ll register for your Fall classes in the summer, and for your Spring classes around November.
As for your schedule: drop AP Psych. Take it in college. Make sure you take English and history or government or economics. Honors would be fine, unless you’re hoping for a social science major, in which case drop one of your science AP’s.
@skieurope: If 3 sciences concurrently is nuts, is 2 sciences still not advised if I take Stat instead of BC? (So my schedule would be Bio, Physics, and Stat, w/o the BC and Chem)
Calc 1= AB, Calc 2= BC, but depending on the college, the Calc 1+2 sequence may be different in terms of depth or examples, compared to the AB-BC sequence.
yes, AP Psych is an easy AP, but it doesn’t add rigor to your schedule and you’re missing English and a social science, which are core courses.
Psychology is listed as one of them. I’ve already taken GOPO (5 on the test), I took honors WH freshman year, and I’m taking APUSH currently. Psych next year would be the fourth, I’m pretty sure.
Yes, but it’s not a core class. You can take it in addition to another social science. For college admissions, you need to take a course such as history, government, economics.
In addition, it’s entirely too many Ap’s. You’ll appear like an “AP junkie”, a kid who just stockpiles AP’s.
You need to make a carefully considered selection. As Stanford said “it’s not a game of who has the most Ap’s, wins;”
Take Honors English and AP Psych if you wish, but AP Psych on top of everything else seems like way overkill. I would take Honors Economics or Honors Government instead to keep your schedule balanced.
@MYOS1634 By the end of senior year, I’ll only have taken 8 APs, if I take Psychology. I took the AP test for Government and Politics after an Honors course, so that doesn’t really count as an AP class… 8 APs is overkill?
My school does not offer Comparative Government and Politics or Economics.
The graduation requirements in history are:
I’ve taken WH, Civics/Economics (GOPO), and I am currently taking APUSH. My options for an elective in social studies, therefore, could mean either Psychology, Euro, or Human Geography. I am genuinely interested in Psychology; if that makes me seem like an “AP junkie,” there’s not really much I can do about that haha.
Well a lot of your AP’s are going to be concentrated in one year then…
No, 8 AP’s isn’t overkill, but your senior schedule sounds like a nightmare.
If you’re interested in Psychology go ahead, no one’s stopping you
As much as I admire @MYOS1634 , I disagree with this. A social science is a social science. AP Psych is no better or no worse than AP Macro/Micro/USG/Comp Gov. No college lists as a recommended HS preparation “X years of history/social sciences (except AP Psych).” So to the OP, if you want to take Psych, take psych. It’s certainly not going to move the needle one way or the other.
That’s more manageable, but you know your own skill set best. Again, it really depends upon what you want to study in college. Personally, I would opt for BC over stat, because stat in college is much more intensive (an it’s calculus based) than AP stats, while there’s not much difference in most cases between BC and college calc II. But again, in the long run, either option is OK.
^Actually I will agree with you and disagree with my earlier self. Seeing the very large amount of AP’s OP is taking senior year, I was thinking it’d be best if s/he took English and History honors (or another social science honors), and that the OP was attracted by Psychology solely for the AP designation. So, I was trying to push for a more reasonable schedule that included a typical senior honors social science (econ, gov, history)… but the OP has already taken those classes, and is genuinely interested in Psychology rather than in the AP designation - so to me it’s valid.
I am still concerned this schedule is excessive though.
@MYOS1634, @skieurope, which of the following schedules is best, considering I can’t really get out of taking Calc in college anyway, and also noting that I enjoy writing and reading, I am good at memorizing things, Spanish has never been a challenge for me, and that my math base for Physics 1 is pretty strong?
or
or
I should note that I am not planning on going into a math-intensive major, although I wouldn’t rule out the “ST” part of STEM. Therefore I don’t intend on taking Calc 3 in college.
As a side question: You all have been throwing the words “Calc I,” “Calc II,” and “Calc III” around. Is AB the equivalent of Calc I, and BC is Calc II? Or are AB/BC combined equivalent to Calc I? Or are they both equivalent to Calc II? Don’t really get the name change.
As a side note: My school does not use a block schedule. The schedule I choose is my schedule for the entire year. I don’t know if that makes the schedule seem more or less rigorous, but I just thought I should at least mention that little tidbit.
