taking AP exams, self-study, without a class?

<p>Parent here. My son is considering taking the AP Bio test at the end of the year, as he has schedule conflicts ( small high school, not many AP's offered, schedule conflicts), perhaps using the available AP test prep books and buying a AP level Bio textbook. He did get a 760 on the Bio SAT II test, and has two full years of high school Bio, regular and advanced already, with A grades.</p>

<p>Have any of you done this with good results and done well on the AP test? Methods used? Would appreciate any feedback. please. Thank you.</p>

<p>I've done it. I just read the prep books and take the practice tests. It's gotten me a 3, 4, and 5 on three self studied exams this year.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ap-tests-preparation/369861-self-studying-aps-improving-your-app.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ap-tests-preparation/369861-self-studying-aps-improving-your-app.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Read that topic.</p>

<p>I self studied for two AP exams and got a 3 and a 4, which isn't too shabby considering I only had a month to prep for them. If you buy the prep books and start studying early, it's not hard to get a 4 or a 5.</p>

<p>I am happy to hear that you all had great results using this method. I will discuss this with my son, and it will help in his decisionmaking, which is his, after all, as he's the one who enrolls in the classes! We appreciate the links and information also.</p>

<p>With a 760 on the SAT II Bio and two years of bio in high school, this sounds like it'll be quite simple for him, honestly. He should definitely go for it.</p>

<p>I agree your son should go for it.</p>

<p>My daughter took AP macro in the fall of her senior year, but wanted a lighter academic load spring semester so she dropped AP micro. In May, she used a prep book to study for one day on macro (received a 5) and one day on micro (received a 4). At least for some courses, you need not take the course to be well prepared for the AP test. She also took AP bio, and felt the test involved alot of memorization, but otherwise was quite reasonable.</p>

<p>I think he should go for it as well. AP Biology is considered by many one of the easy AP science exams. If it was AP Chemistry, it would be harder.
I took the AP Physics C: Mechanics exam with only one year of honors physics and ended up with a 5. All I did was read the AP textbook at my school, and I watched the Physics: Classical Mechanics lectures that you can watch for free on MIT OpenCourseWare. That helped a lot with the intuition considering MIT has some of the best teachers in the world.</p>

<p>I'm thinking about self studying and take AP tests too. But my situation is: I'm gonna be senior this year, and the AP tests take place in Mar when the admission process is already over. So should I devote some time to study ? If so, I will want to take AP Cal, Chem, Phy. But I also have SAT,ACT, Toefl (international), college essay.</p>

<p>I did that with AP Chemistry (since I didn't have room on my schedule and was filled with AP Physics) and AP Music Theory since my school didn't directly offer it. I got a 5 in Music Theory and a 4 in Chem.</p>