• APUSH
• AP Psych
• AP Lang
• AP Physics
• AP Gov (self studied)
• AP Macroeconomics (self studied)
• AP Music (self studied)
• AP Calculus (self studied)
I’m in my junior year, by the way. As you can see, I’m actually only taking four of the eight in school as a class. I’m confident that I can get a 4 or 5 on APUSH, Psych, Lang, Music and Calculus, but I don’t really know so much on Physics, Gov and Eco. Is there a way in which I can finalize and schedule my review time to fit into this last month of studying. My grades are not a problem anymore, thank God (I’m the Procrastination Queen), and I’m wrapping up on my SAT, ACT, and CLEP testing, so those should get out the way. I bought review books, but I don’t think that those are merely enough, provided that I freaking self studied for half of the APs I bought.
Thank you so much!
“Ma’am, you’re taking the most AP exams in the school.”
“sigh I know…”
you are nuts to try and take so many AP tests, ESPECIALLY since you have not taken some of the classes. YOU wont do well on all of them and THAT can effect what College classes you have to take because your AP score was too low to get credit.
Take the other 4 next year IF AND ONLY IF those classes are on your schedule…
Stanford , as well as other top school have repeatedly said “admissions is not a case of those with the most AP classes win”- it’s time you paid attention.
“We want to be clear that this is not a case of “whoever has the most APs wins.” Instead, we look for thoughtful, eager and highly engaged students who will make a difference at Stanford and in the world beyond. We expect that these students have taken high school course loads of reasonable and appropriate challenge in the context of their schools.”
Dude… is there a way that you can drop the ones you aren’t prepared for (especially the self studied ones?)
You are a junior. You have your entire senior year to take more APs if you so wish. There is absolutely no need for you to aim to take 8 AP tests now- high achieving juniors will AT MOST take 5-6 AP exams. And as the poster above me said, taking the exams are useless if you get scores too low to get college credit, and they aren’t as important to college admissions as you maybe seem to think.
Honestly, if you don’t think you can do well on the AP Physics 1 exam, it’s not worth it. College will teach physics better anyways, so it’s better to save yourself the pain of wasting money to take an exam you don’t think you’ll do well on.
Also, I would discourage taking econ or gov if you aren’t prepared, since you generally need higher scores to get 4/5 due to those being easy APs for those who take the classes. Also, 3s on those exams usually translate to only getting elective credits, which are pretty useless if you want to fulfill gen ed requirements in college. If you’re aiming for really selective colleges, they probably won’t take any credit for any score for those exams, period.
Ok so I am going to disagree with the other posters, for a few reasons. One, most schools (I don’t think any schools) require you to send in all you aps, although I do think it costs $10 for each ap you don’t send in. Second, regarding gov and eco, princeton review has a great book on us government, and it should take you at most 15-20 hours to study, less if you already know some of it. Macroeconomics is also a pretty easy self study, I recommend ACDCLeadership economics videos, and possibly one more book with practice tests. For physics, this is the only one that you aren’t confident in that can be hard to study. Buy a book (look around college confidential to find one), study, and possibly talk to your physics teacher for help. This is a difficult load, but not impossible. Make sure you are confident in the others that you say you are, take some practice tests for them, but you should be fine. I will say, most schools don’t really care that much if you do well on aps with regards to getting in, so understand the gains you will get from the work, but I think you can do it. I myself am taking 7 aps this May, 2 of which classes prepared me very well for, 1 I have to review stuff outside of class, and 4 I am self studying. Good luck.
