Stressing About Which APs to Take

Applying to College
1

<p>I'm currently a sophomore and I hope to one day attend a top tier, highly selective university (my current favorites are Stanford, Georgetown, and UCLA). I'm picking out my courses for next year and I've been having a huge struggle over what to do regarding science...</p>

<p>I have two future scheduling options: I can either take AP Chem as a junior and AP Bio as a senior, or AP Bio as a junior and AP Environmental as a senior.</p>

<p>My personal preference would be to go with the combo of AP Bio/APES - I am very interested and passionate about the environment, and I have little to no interest in taking AP Chem after HATING Honors Chem this year. However, this brings up a conflict... according to most of the people I've talked to, I should definitely take AP Chem if I plan on going to a highly selective school. I know that APES is generally regarded as an "easy" AP by colleges... do you guys think that taking APES instead of AP Chem will be detrimental to my chances of getting into an elite school? BE HONEST. I know most of you will tell me to do what I want to do, not what will look good on my resum</p>

2

<p>OH, and if it helps, I will DEFINITELY not be studying anything scientific or mathematical in college or after… my passion is Government/Politics/International Relations/etc. I am a pretty good student in math, however; I’ll be taking Calc AB next year.</p>

3

<p>AP Chem is considered more rigorous than AP Enviro, evem among those who are “passionate about the environment”.</p>

4

<p>Right… I understood that part, but do you think the difference in difficulty between APES and AP Chem is substantial enough to play a role in college admissions?</p>

5

<p>You’ll never know. Follow your heart.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

6

<p>Don’t stress.</p>

<p>If you hate chemistry, don’t take it. It is better to take an AP class in which you are actually interested and do well than to take an AP class that you hate and not do as well.</p>

<p>Your high school classes shouldn’t just be one bullet point for getting into college; you should enjoy them too, otherwise you’ll be miserable! If you don’t want to take chemistry and you have no interest in it, why repeat it?</p>