Hello,
Our private high school does not allow any AP courses (only honors) for freshman and sophomores. They allow 2 for most juniors, and 3 if you have are recommended and have a certain GPA. I am currently a sophomore (male), but need to hand select my course load for next year in the next few days. Here is my question: I’m a solid A student in all honors courses. I hope to focus on some combination of business and technology in college (Ivy league hopeful, but aren’t we all :). I have strong extracurricular activities related to both business and computer science – and I really love computers and programming. I want my GPA to remain strong. I am in honors pre-calc this year (my only current B+, which I hope to pull up to an A or A- by year end) and intend to take AP Calc AB in jr year . Question: I feel pressured to take 3 APs to remain in the highest tier of “rigor”. Should I take both AP Comp Sci A and AP Principals of Comp Sci in addition to AP Calc next year? Is that feasible? Do the two courses build upon each other? Would it be confusing in any way to take them both at the time? Should I instead space them out and take one of the comp sci APs senior year? (and take something like AP US Hist in jr year?)(My other courses jr year include H Hist, H Eng, H Physics, and several other required courses). I really love coding and working with computers. I spend a lot of my free time focused on coding/tech. The teacher at our school is known to be “not very inspiring” / not the best/ and a tough grader. What if for some reason I don’t score a high A in the class, but all of my achievements outside of school focus on computer activities? Could it backfire on my application? Any advice is much appreciated!! Thanks so much.
In terms of rigor, ask your counselor what it takes to get the “most demanding” indication on the counselor report that many colleges ask for as part of the college application.
AP CS principles is a broad overview of CS and how it relates to everything else, suitable for both possible CS majors and non-CS majors. It is very useful from a knowledge standpoint, though much less so from a college (subject) credit standpoint.
AP CS A is programming and data structures for prospective CS majors, though it is not always a match for introductory level college CS courses.
I am currently in AP CS Principles, so I can speak from experience on that standpoint. We are in unit 5 at the moment and 2 of the 5 units have been coding intensive, but everything is taught in the class and it is not as in-depth as AP CS A would be. My class uses JavaScript as the programming language, but it is up to the teacher as to which language to use, so you would have to check to see what language your school’s AP Principles class uses. There are also various “Unplugged” activities and general information about computing and technology in general which I find very useful. I agree with the above commenter’s take on the class. It is not an extremely difficult class for me (I am also a current sophomore, and I entered the class with little programming and computer science experience). Since you are focusing on computer science/technology as a subject of interest, I assume that you already have some knowledge of computer science and its applications, which should benefit you. As it is not my most difficult class and I have multiple honors and PLTW classes that I would consider more difficult, I think you would be fine taking this class as a junior concurrent with other AP courses.
As for AP CS A, you would probably want a background/prior experience in CS and Java before taking this course. It is generally considered more difficult than AP CS Principles, but if you are proficient in Java, it shouldn’t be too difficult (again, it depends on the school). You mentioned that your teacher is notoriously a hard grader. In this case, it might be helpful asking students who are currently in the class how they feel about the class and asking the teacher or administrator for your school’s pass rate and 5 rate on the AP test.
Are there any other AP classes you would be interested in if you did opt to spread out your CS courses over 2 years? Perhaps an AP Science or AP Gov or Econ?
I hope this helped and if you have any specific questions about AP CS Principles, let me know!
It seems you already have enough coding knowledge to pass APCSP with flying colors since it’s just basic coding concepts and Javascript. APCSA should be easy for you. I would recommend not taking APCSP and taking another useful business course, like AP Macroeconomics or other business courses that are more business-related. Depending on your coding level, you wouldn’t have to take APCSA because it’s just the basics of Java.
Thanks @ucbalumnus . Great point. I will definitely check with my assigned counselor on the rigor issue.
Thanks HS Student. Hearing about your experience is very helpful.
Thanks @needtosucceed27 . My school does not offer any AP economics courses, but I have participated in a number of summer business and entrepreneurship extracurricular programs.
On a related note, if I do end up taking 2 AP Comp Sci classes, would it be detrimental to take AP statistics as jr and then AP Calc AB as a senior? As opposed to taking them in the other order? I took Honors Algebra 2 in 9th (A), and am currently taking Honors Pre Cal in 10th (but not sure that I’ll end up with a solid A). Thank you!!
That’s great! I actually commented on your post because you are pretty similar to me; we both want to be involved in business and programming for our careers.