Unfortunately because of how my scheduling has worked out the past few years, I have yet to take AP Chemistry and AP Biology and I am a junior. Right now I am leaning towards doubling up in these classes senior year, which I have heard is difficult but I am certainly up to the challenge. However, I particularly like environmental science and am even considering this as my major in college. This is considered an “easy A” and an unimpressive AP especially at my school, which makes me hesitant to take it, especially since I know chemistry and biology are going to be important for my major in college and taking these APs is very important for students looking to apply to selective colleges. Would it be dumb of me to skip over environmental science in favor of the more challenging AP sciences, despite my interest in it? Thanks.
If it also helps, I am not leaning towards biology and chemistry simply for admissions reasons. I really love both of the subjects and am torn by the fact that I like all of the subjects but am also looking for rigor.
The answer to your question is: It depends.
What colleges are you targeting? What will your other classes be?
That said, I would discourage you from taking AP Bio and AP Chem concurrently. In addition to the time commitment required by virtue of being AP’s, each requires a lot of time for labs and lab reports. For many schools, these classes are either double-periods, or require additional time before/after school.
Just so you’re aware, that vast majority of students who take these classes are seniors. It’s only on CC that so many seem to take it earlier. But the users here are not representative of the real world, or even of those applicants applying to HYPMS.
Have you taken (regular) biology, chemistry, and physics?
You just said it right there.
“I particularly like environmental science and am even considering this as my major in college”
Never and I mean NEVER avoid taking an AP because it looks less impressive than another. I am taking the course next year because even though I am not majoring in it, I loved the ecology unit we did in Honors Biology and are about to do in AP Biology. Now, if it was something you never liked and are only doing it because of the AP or it is easy, colleges will see right through that and you’ll be looked down at.
Definitely agreed that you should take environmental science. If you love it, it’ll be even easier, and when you write your college apps in the fall most schools will ask you for a potential major. It’s not binding, but if you say ES and they see you’re taking the AP class, that will look more impressive than choosing a less-related but more impressive-looking class.
I can’t speak to AP Bio because my school never offered it, but I did take AP Chem and AP Env Sci concurrently last year and it was definitely doable, as they tended to take different learning and studying styles. Chem was more formula memorization and proper application (usually each problem has 2 ways it can be solved), while ES was little math and more critical thinking using concepts studied in class (e.g. what would happen to an ecosystem if these things were altered). Given what I know about biology as a subject it would involve lots of memorization and a moderate amount of math.
What science classes have you taken?
@thebetterhawkeye
I sort of forgot to say what you do in AP Biology lol.
First of all, the only math involved so far is plugging in numbers. That’s it. If you have taken 6th grade math, then you’ll be fine.
I would say the tests we have are 50% memorization/50% analyzation. That may seem fair, but at least for our tests, you might have to remember 3 or 4 chapters at once, which can make it difficult. I had an A- in Honors Biology and currently have a C in AP Biology (Semester grade is a C+ or something). If you don’t form a study group, don’t take the course or you’ll fail. It was made to make people work together.