<p>^Good to see someone in the same boat as me. Due to the difficulty and other things, I am going to start studying AP Physics this summer. MIT OpenCourseWare will certainly be useful, though I definitely will be look at it along with a review book such as that of PR so as to prevent touching things outside of the AP curriculum; MIT seems to have a LOT of extra, crazy stuff.</p>
<p>APUSH: Taking next year, so I’ve done my share of research. Depending on how good your class’s textbook is … AMSCO is a great in-depth review book, REA is great for month-before-hand testing yourself and prepping. They’re what I’ll be using next year. AP Chem: DON’T USE BARRON’S. OMG. I used Barron’s, and it was overkill. Too much superfluous information. If you were self-studying it’d be good, but for taking a class, what you really want out of a review book is for the really essential information to be targeted. So get PR. AP Comp Sci: Didn’t take, not a programmer, so I can’t really help you. But the overall opinion on CC seems to be that Barron’s is best for Comp Sci. AP English Language & Comp: Yep, really easy to self-study for. I personally self-studied (took it last week) and used PR, and I found it more than adequate preparation. I keep hearing good things about Cliffs though, so idk. But PR worked for me. AP Lang’s MC is basically the SAT reading comprehension (with slightly harder passages to read…), and the FRQ is pretty identical in layout to your WHAP, APUSH, etc. exams. The fact that you’ve already taken WHAP and will be taking APUSH in a classroom setting makes me say self-studying for AP Lang and AP Euro shouldn’t be too hard, purely in terms of the logistics of knowing how to write those essays.
In my opinion, while AP Lang is easy to self-study for, it’s not mentioned in your typical list of “easy-to-self-study” APs simply because it’s not easy to self-study for everyone. It’s easy for people who do well on the SAT CR and can hand-write a strong essay in 40 minutes … which sounds like you. AP Physics C: Taking next year as well. My textbook will be the Resnick, Halliday, and Krane “Physics” Volume I (for mech) and II (for E/M), and I’ll study with Barron’s. AP Euro: Never taken, but I have a friend who self-studied (used PR I’m pretty sure) and got a 5. I haven’t heard about REA’s Euro, but the other two books I’ve heard to be good for Euro are Cliffs and Modern European History.</p>
<p>Soo. Now that the books issue is covered, onto the craziness analysis. May I ask what grade you’re in? Judging from the fact that you took two APs this past year, I’m guessing you’re a rising senior or junior. If you’re a rising junior, I would strongly suggest putting off a few of these APs until senior year (I’d go with physics for one; two AP sciences in one year is bound to be killer). It’s just a little overboard. And if you’re a rising senior, why do you want to self-study this many? Do you hope your AP credits will help you graduate college super early? Because if you’re a senior, the scores won’t come in time to include on college apps, and your self-studied subjects won’t appear on transcripts or mid-year reports. I conclude that you’re either a senior who really wants to graduate college early, or a junior who should probably postpone a couple of these exams until next year. My two cents.</p>
<p>In terms of self-studying ease in general, I’d say English and Comp Sci should be a breeze for you; physics and Euro will be more challenging (but doable if you’re self-motivated) to self-study. If you’re a junior, I’d wait until next year to take physics and Euro simply because you’ve already got a science and history.</p>
<p>Barron’s and PR have completely different writing styles. If you’ve used either of them for any subject, you know what I’m talking about. In general, Barron’s tends to be dry and straight-forward, but also leans towards superfluous. PR might be more talkative, but also maybe easier to understand.</p>
<p>Still not recommending self-studying Physics.</p>
<p>Also, MandieJ suggested you hold off your self-studies until senior year, so I believe you might have misread. You have to consider how busy you will be in your junior year (with college applications, keeping your grades up, etc.). If you self-study in senior year, consider the effects of senioritis, especially in the second semester. In my case, I was far busier junior year despite only having 3 AP classes, whereas I had 5 AP classes + 2 self-studies for a total of 8 AP tests senior year.</p>
<p>^I wonder what you meant by “etc.”? I can think of…taking and getting a good SAT score, but what else? Also there’s college applications in junior year?</p>
<p>Senioritis and the fact that colleges won’t know the scores of the (proposed) self-studied APs by the time of applying in senior year are two reasons why I think I should self-study now.</p>
<p>I feel right now that I’ll have the most effort put into AP Euro (due to quantity of content) and AP Physics C (difficulty).</p>
<p>Most colleges say they don’t use AP scores for the admission process. The effects of self-studying and getting a good score may be worth as little as being in NHS for all we know.</p>
<p>I meant searching for the right colleges (which can be difficult if you actually narrow your choices to a reasonable number), but it actually would be a good idea to write an essay in junior year - you won’t be stressed at all as a senior. There’s also scholarships, and any extracurriculars.</p>
<p>4khaos made a typo; he meant “college apps, keeping grades up, etc.” for *senior *year.</p>
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<p>Since you’re a junior, I would definitely recommend holding off on one or two of those classes until senior year. You’re right, though, holding off on the self-studied courses wouldn’t make much sense because colleges wouldn’t see them on your application. But perhaps you could hold off on APUSH and/or AP Chem until senior year? That way the AP course will still show up on your transcript, even though colleges won’t see the exam score. And taking them in an actual classroom setting should help stave off senioritis. :)</p>
<p>Don’t fall the for the common myth that the senior year activities don’t matter to colleges. Most college applications have conditional fine print that says you must get a certain grade/gpa/AP grade your senior year even though you have been “accepted”.</p>
<p>(Source: one of my relatives works in one of the largest California state colleges - many sad stories…)</p>
<p>Here’s a great page that shows all of the statistics on every AP test from last year. This will give you good idea of which test is the hardest and the easiest.</p>
<p>I self-studied 11 APs this year along with 7 that I took classes for.</p>
<p>I would say that AP Language was pretty easy. Honestly, You could just use Princeton Review to learn the new terms then wing the essays, that’s what I did, and it wasn’t hard at all.</p>
<p>I’ll be doing Euro self-study next year. Get REA Crash Course and Modern European History. Very enjoyable reads. I might get PR closer to the AP if needed.</p>
<p>Environmental Science
Art History
Calculus BC
English Literature and Composition
European History
Biology
Physics B
Government
Comparative Politics
English Language and Composition
Macroeconomics
Microeconomics
Human Geography
World History
Computer Science
Chemistry
Physics C Mechanics
Physics C Electricity and Magnetism</p>
<p>I still have to take the last five though, this week is late testing.</p>
<p>Bumped. This thread’s going to get a lot more active later…school finished today (yay). Although, I’m more focused on the Subject Tests that are coming up (Math II and World History for me).</p>
AP Lang’s MC is basically the SAT reading comprehension (with slightly harder passages to read…), and the FRQ is pretty identical in layout to your WHAP, APUSH, etc. exams. The fact that you’ve already taken WHAP and will be taking APUSH in a classroom setting makes me say self-studying for AP Lang and AP Euro shouldn’t be too hard, purely in terms of the logistics of knowing how to write those essays.
May I ask what grade you’re in? Judging from the fact that you took two APs this past year, I’m guessing you’re a rising senior or junior. If you’re a rising junior, I would strongly suggest putting off a few of these APs until senior year (I’d go with physics for one; two AP sciences in one year is bound to be killer). It’s just a little overboard. And if you’re a rising senior, why do you want to self-study this many? Do you hope your AP credits will help you graduate college super early? Because if you’re a senior, the scores won’t come in time to include on college apps, and your self-studied subjects won’t appear on transcripts or mid-year reports. I conclude that you’re either a senior who really wants to graduate college early, or a junior who should probably postpone a couple of these exams until next year. My two cents.</p>