Will I be overwhelmed next year?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

<p>I really would be grateful for any advice you have for me! Thanks =D (My questions are at the end!)</p>

<p>Will I be overwhelmed next year? I’m shooting high during my Junior and Senior years, essentially taking the hardest classes possible. </p>

<p>Junior Year – First Semester:
- Public Speaking (Required course, will try to get out of it if at all possible)
- Honors French 4
- Honors Spanish 4
** - AP Biology **
** - AP US History **
** - AP Stats **
- Honors Choir
- Trig</p>

<p>** Junior Year - Second Semester:**
- French 4
- Spanish 4
** - AP Bio **
** - AP US History **
** - AP Stats **
** - AP English I **
- Pre-Calc
- Honors Choir </p>

<p>I realize that this is not as hard as some of your school's class loads ... but it's enough to scare me! (My Senior year is insane though, compared to this!)</p>

<p>** Time I have available to do homework:**</p>

<p>This is all relative, because some weekends I have Debate Tournaments, Show Choir Rehersals, etc.</p>

<p>Before School <a href="Please%20only%20reccomend%20me%20to%20use%20this%20if%20I%20only%20have%20to!">b</a>**</p>

<ul>
<li>If needed, I could wake up at 5:30 and study until about 7:10. I would not be able to study any later than this in the morning, seeing as I have Early Bird PE everyday at 7:30.</li>
</ul>

<p>After School <a href="This%20is%20where%20it%20gets%20tricky...">b</a>**</p>

<ul>
<li>First time I would have available to study is ~ 5:00. I would be leaving school then, and most nights, I would have the rest of the night available.</li>
<li>On Mondays and Thursdays, I have Show Choir Rehersals from 6:00 - 9:00. On these nights I would be able to get about ~30 minutes if needed to study before, and only time afterwards to study.</li>
<li>Friday nights in the Fall, Winter, and first part of Spring are currently used ... no study time would be available.</li>
<li>Saturdays are available from about 4:00 to (Whenever I get tired)</li>
<li>Sundays are available for studying.</li>
</ul>

<p>So it looks like I have a decent amount of time to study... but I feel overwhelmed!</p>

<p>It would be great if you could answer my...</p>

<p>Questions!!!</p>

<p>1) Are there any study tips that could maximize my study time... or general rules for studying for my AP classes?</p>

<p>2) Has anyone taken the above APs or classes and could comment roughly how much time I should dedicate to get an A? That would be awesome! (And would be very important.)</p>

<p>3) Besides being social in my EC's, to get a 4.0 UW would I have to give up alot of my social life? I'm prepared to give some of it up, but I'm not sure how much I would have to give up. </p>

<p>Thank you for reading this, and hopefully you will be able to answer my three questions!</p>

2

<p>I think you should be fine. Heck, there are people who can handle having EC’s, a social life, all on top of SIX AP classes in a year… it all depends on how you manage your time. I’d highly recommend that you make a schedule for yourself. Set a kitchen timer if necessary - sounds funny, I know, but I often find that timing myself really helps. I usually end up with an hour or so of free time all to myself.</p>

3

<p>Hmmm. Alright. I was talking to this year’s Juniors on FB (well, the smart ones ha) and asked how they managed it, and the current Val of the Junior classes pretty much studied ALL night, until about 1:00 … every night.</p>

<p>Which is why I am asking CC :)</p>

4

<p>^ I think there are too many geniuses on CC for you to get an accurate answer. XD</p>

<p>But… I think you can handle the course load. Getting an A might be a little tricky though. =/</p>

5

<p>Yes, but can you answer the 3 questions so that I might possibly get an A? :P</p>

6

<p>Only you can know… strangers aren’t going to be able to tell you about your study habits and if you’ll be overwhelmed or not</p>

7

<p>I’m talking in general. Relating to YOUR experiences.</p>

<p>As mentioned before, how many hours did you have to study a night for the APs you had? Did you have to give up much of your social life to do it? Any good study tips that helped you ALOT?</p>

<p>I wanted to learn from you guys, not you guys predict for me. I just gave you some background of me.</p>

<p>~Thanks</p>

8

<ol>
<li><p>Set aside at least 30 minutes a day to studying for each AP. Even if you don’t have homework… sit down a review. You’ll retain more information and be prepared. And then when you do have homework, you won’t have to study on top of that nearly as much.</p></li>
<li><p>You can’t answer this, because the course is different at every school and with every teacher. It really varies.</p></li>
<li><p>When you’re being all social… only hang out with your friends on Saturdays and Fridays. Do NOT hang out on Sundays or school nights. Study on Sundays. Start early.</p></li>
</ol>

9

<p>Hrm. 30 minutes is enough? Maybe my idea of an AP is wrong. People are complaining how they have to study at least 2 hours a night… I thought it was a class meant to fail people lol.</p>

10

<p>Okay, my bad</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I kinda contradict AUGirl. I say only study if you really need to. Just do the homework and figure out each class so that you know how to get the A. I think it really helps to know the exact formula for grades, points available, etc. Don’t procrastinate, and when you undoubtedly procrastinate make sure you prioritize well. </p></li>
<li><p>Depends on school. My school’s AP classes don’t have a huge workload, but others do.</p></li>
<li><p>In my experience, school never impacted social life. I gave up my social life completely for three months last fall for an EC activity, but once that was done, it’s all been good. I agree that you should focus hanging out on Saturdays and Sundays, and try not to schedule anything in the mornings on Sat or Sun either so that you can catch up on sleep</p></li>
</ol>

11

<p>When I say 30 minutes… I mean when you feel like you have absolutely nothing to do.</p>

<p>When you have homework… do the homework.</p>

<p>But I agree with 10scholar that you need to figure out from your teachers what you need to do.</p>

12

<p>Ok. Have you taken any of these classes? What did you guys get in the class and on the AP exam?</p>

13

<p>you will die. </p>

<p>It will be solely because of AP stats, hardest AP evar.</p>

14

<p>Was that a joke? Or is seriously hard?</p>

15

<p>Seriously, AP English and Stats are easily accomplished without studying. Spanish won’t need to study if you get everything done in class and it’s an easy, very easy language to learn. I learned it just through listening from my parents speaking and living in Mexico for 2 years.</p>

<p>It’s not tough to handle 6 APs as well as self study for 2 :)</p>

16

<p>Oh thats cool. You didn’t really help me though :P</p>

17

<p>1) Studying in 15 minute intervals. After 15 minutes take a 2 minute break. Then continue. After you have finished the chapter, write notes on key facts, note page should be no longer than 2 pages for a chapter. Then continue on until you finished the prep book. Then review your notes, try to connect the key ideas to the main idea and then see if your right.</p>

<p>2) I have studied for AP Bio. Studying to get an A is easy. Since bio is mostly information and connecting them to one another. memorizing vocabulary words and their functions is key. Some will be easier to memorize than others, thus you must create devices for yourself to memorize. I made up a song! But i’m not sharing.</p>

<p>AP US History is the same as bio. A lot of memorization of dates, unless your like my friend who is a history buff, memorizing the MOST important event sin history is the key issue here. They are the ones that are mostly tested. Major events usually tie in with other events so its much easier to memorize the major ones.</p>

<p>AP English is just easy, anything you read or write is practice. Read newspaper, time magazine, and practice essay topics from past exams.</p>

<p>AP stats is easy, just read the review book. One of the easiest self study tests out there.</p>

<p>3) Your schedule does not seem busy at all compared to mine lol. And I would suggest, if you do feel overwhelmed, talk to your Choir leader and ask for only 1 day practice for you if you feel the need to study a lot more. But you will find that studying will shorten over time when you start to get the gist of your study pattern and how fast you can read/remember. </p>

<p>AP tests are difficult, the exams from your teachers should be mildly difficult for the entire class, if everyone, yourself, included are scoring constant 95+, you should ask your teacher to revise his/her tests. This is what I did for AP Cal BC, and 3/4 of the class dropped in grades while mine maintained its A :). </p>

<p>All in all, your social life will not be hurt at all if you know how to manage your time wisely. I did it with some procrastination as well as out of the blue hang out times. You will find that some days you don’t HAVE to study at all. When those days occur, go hang out, eat ice cream, movies, or hang out with family.</p>

<p>You will be fine, wait until you have 6 AP tests, 2 sports, 2 self studies, prep class, and practice for X instrument, then you will feel the pain of overwhelming yourself.</p>

18

<p>I mean, maybe my school is just ridic easy, but this schedule doesn’t look that hard to me. My junior year, I took AP English Lang, AP Calc BC, AP Human Geography, and AP Art History, along with advanced French. I had dance 4 days a week, I played two instruments, I tutored younger students 3 or more hours a week, I volunteered a few hours each week, etc. Some weekends I had math or quiz team tournaments, some weeks I had ballet every day 'till 9 (before performances), some days I had Ski Club and didn’t get home 'till almost 10. And like you, I had to get to school at 7:30, because that’s when my school starts.</p>

<p>Maybe it’s just because I don’t think of staying up 'till 1 AM every night as hard work though. And I have to say, I also don’t have much interest in a social life. I go out maybe once every other week. Fridays and Saturdays, I’m at dance, but Sundays, if I want to go out, I can.</p>

<p>The only ones I’ve taken are AP Eng, which is very, very easy, and APUSH, which required me to do about 4 hours of work every Sunday. I did it all at once, no breaks. Had I spread it out, it probably would have been easier. I was a really bad APUSH student though. I hate US History, I gave up reading after about 1950, one of the AP essays was about something that happened in the '60’s, so I got a 4. Alternately, my sister found APUSH very easy, broke the curve on every test and got a 5 with no study. And she had a lower GPA and a lower SAT score than I! AP Stats is almost universally considered a very easy class, so no worries.</p>

<p>You really don’t need to study that much. I think you’re just getting worried. I’ve never just sat down in general to “study” a class without a test coming up. I did however get a B for first semester in AP Calc BC (all other AP grades were solid A’s, many the highest in the class). </p>

<p>Just calm down.</p>

19

<p>So I’m hearing what, just 30 minutes a night of homework per AP class, usually?</p>

20

<p>Well, I never ever had any homework and I took more APs than you will have. But then there are some kids who have fewer and have a ton of homework. It depends on the school and your ability to comprehend/need to study/efficiency. You’ll find out pretty quickly how much homework you’ll tend to have, but until then, it’s impossible to say</p>