I am currently a junior and I need to choose AP courses for my senior year. I have already taken AP Chemistry, AP English Language, and AP CSA this year. Right now, I am certain that next year I will take AP Calc BC, AP Physics, and AP Literature. Do you guys have any advice for other AP courses I should take? I am looking at AP Spanish, AP Comp Pol, AP Gov, and AP Stat. Which one of these do colleges consider the most “challenging”? Since these are senior year courses, the AP tests do not matter.
Pick what makes sense for your future or interest you or have better teachers, not for what colleges will think. But gov, comp gov, and stats are not regarded as the most rigorous APs.
I do not know what I want to do in the future, so my goal right now is to get into the best college. I also know that these courses are not the most rigorous, but I’d still like to take the most challenging one.
If you want to base your course selection on rigor alone (which I would not do) you can ask your guidance counselor which courses are considered the most rigorous in your HS.
I would suggest AP Gov of those listed. You have most of the the core subjects covered. AP Spanish could be useful for the future, though you’ve almost certainly already met the highest four years/level four of a foreign language requirement.
Comp pol/gov (1 each semester) would be the most interesting and a good complement to your other choices; if you can only take one of the two, take Comp Pol because it’ll broaden your horizons (also, the basic US government intro class is very common in college so you can probably take it no matter where you go.)
Take Spanish Language if you took Spanish 3, but if you took Spanish 4 already you’re good; it’d likely be considered the most rigorous choice.
Spanish: if you want to improve your skill at Spanish. Could help toward a college’s foreign language graduation requirement.
Comparative government: if interested.
US government: if interested.
Statistics: may not be too useful if you take calculus-based statistics in college. May be helpful if you want to get an introductory sampling of what statistics is about.
The difficulty of any course will depend on the student’s aptitude and on the teacher’s expectations.
Whether stats is hard as not what I was addressing. My point was that all AP courses are not viewed by many colleges as similar in rigor. And a non-calc stats class, which AP Statistics is, is not seen as rigorous as other classes. That said, where it makes sense, it can be worth taking.
everyone at my school who had taken ap spanish says its not worth it. if you’ve already taken 4 years of spanish, there’s not much of a point. That being said, if you are actually interested in spanish then by all means go for it. I took AP stats and its definitely not one of the more rigorous ap classes.