<p>I see a lot of people on CC that post their admissions results and they take a lot of APs.
1. what if you take only a few APs? will that decrease your chance of getting into a good college?
2. what if two people have similar averages, extracurriculars, essays, scores, recommendations and all that stuff? will colleges choose the person who took more APs?
3. is it better to a) take 2 APs and get 4s/5s & 90s in the class OR b) take 3 APs and get 3s/4s and 85s/90s in the class?</p>
<p>No its better to take 10 to 15 AP’s and end up getting all A’s in them</p>
<ol>
<li>The more APs (that you can do well on), the higher your chances</li>
<li>yes</li>
<li>IMO take 2 and get better grades.</li>
</ol>
<p>I dont see that logic. Why take more AP’s and go for low grades? Why not take 4-5 Ap’s and try to get all A’s in them?</p>
<p>As long as you take the most rigorous course load your school offers you’ll be fine.</p>
<ol>
<li>Three AP’s versus say, nine AP’s would decrease your chance, yes. Good colleges want to see that the students they accepted took the absolute hardest classes they could and succeeded in them.</li>
<li>Not necessarily. If the cap was larger then there’s a high chance the person with more AP’s would get accepted. If the cap was small, say 1-2 more AP’s, that wouldn’t necessarily make get them in but it could only help them.</li>
<li>Why not just take 3+ and get all A’s and 4s/5s? :)</li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t bite off more than you can chew. </p>
<p>Take the hardest classes you can get A’s/B’s in. Not many people can handle a schedule that looks like this</p>
<p>Sem 1:
AP Gov’t
AP Biology
AP Chemistry
AP Calc</p>
<p>Sem2:
AP Stat
Honors overachievers
AP Music Theory
AP US History</p>
<p>haha i wish i could take all of them and get 5s & 90s in all classes but that’s too hard :(</p>
<p>1) it’s not precisely about the number of APs. the point is to take a rigorous schedule relative to what your specific school/ area offers. basically, take advantage of your opportunities.</p>
<p>2) see 1. colleges will choose the person who took the greatest number of hard courses out of what was available to them.
person who takes 2 APs (when their school only offers 2) is better than person who took 4 APs (but had the chance to take, let’s say, 7)
however, keep in mind that no one will ever have identical extracurriculars, essays, etc. so this <em>exact</em> situation would never occur</p>
<p>3) (a) is better. you do NOT want to bite off more than you can chew. been there :(</p>
<p>how do colleges decide how many APs were offered? for example my school has majors so if i go into major a i can take this AP but if i choose a different major i can’t take it.</p>
<p>Quantity is not necessarily better than quantity. I’m sure colleges would rather see you take AP Calc BC and AP Physics C one year rather than AP Environmental Science, AP Psych, AP Human Geography, and AP Gov. Though you’re taking 4 AP’s in the latter as opposed to 2 in the former, those 4 are generally regarded as easy APs.</p>
<p>Most colleges don’t even consider AP tests (AP courses, yes) in the college admissions process.</p>
<p>So go ahead and take what classes you like. Also, do well :]</p>
<p>OP, your school’s profile which gets sent along with the college shows how many APs are offered at your school or at least how many (and in what subjects) AP tests were taken by kids in your school</p>
<p>A kid in my grade only took one ap class (ap calculus) and got into Northwestern RD. Kind of disproving the notion that more ap’s will help you…</p>