Taking AP exams before taking the courses at school

<p>Hi, I'm a junior and I'm planning on taking a couple AP exams by self-studying. The problem is, these subjects are offered at my school, but I'm taking the exams without taking the courses. It's too late for me to take them now. </p>

<p>So I was wondering if I should just take the test and end it there, or take exam this year and take the courses in my senior year.</p>

<p>I'm asking this because I heard that it's best to take the advantage of the courses that are offered at your school. What should I do? Take the courses on same subjects next year or not?</p>

<p>Colleges like it when you take courses. There are some colleges out there who don’t even accept your AP credit if you haven’t taken the course to go along with it.
As someone who’s self-studied through countless AP tests (my school’s a startup so for a very long time no one thought we’d have AP classes in the future available) the course really helps, because you’re self-studying ON TOP OF doing all your other high schools classes. If high school seems a breeze for you now, when you layer on self-study AP after self-study AP, it gets tricky in an exponentially increasing pattern. If I were you, I would play it safe and take the courses. Why do you have to take the exams now? You can always send your scores to the college of your choice automatically and they will accept them.</p>

<p>Wouldn’t it seem pointless though? To take the course after you take the test?</p>

<p>Why don’t you just take the exam after taking the course if you might be able to take it in your senior year? Or why don’t you do something better with your life instead of self studying APs and worrying about what colleges think of the classes you are taking?</p>