I’m considering taking AP Bio, Stats, and Spanish, I would like to know the difficulty of those classes and to see if I could handle all three for my junior year
My son had two AP classes this past sophomore year, AP bio and AP Calc AB. He made a 3 and a 5. The bio was much harder for him than the Calculus, and in fact far fewer students make a 5 in AP bio than in Calc, and my son made his first high school B for a semester in AP bio. My son is taking five AP classes this fall and is planning to quit his 20-hour-a-week job, which I think is a good idea. I’m likely to just give him an allowance.
You know how good a student you are. Did you have an “A” in regular bio and in Spanish III? If you had "A"s in these courses and good math grades then you should expect to do well in the AP classes. If you made a B or below you are more likely to struggle. That’s my view, anyway.
My kid had 3 APs junior year (french eng and gov’t) and 4 senior year. Multiple APs require a lot of time management, which is actually a really good thing to be working on. D had time consuming ECs, and was often not home to start HW until late in the evening, which meant that long nights became her norm. Overall, it was rough, but she felt it pushed her as a student, and has certainly paid off at her school, where she is ranked as a junior after her 1st year
I think it really depends on the school. I took AP Bio, Stat, and Physics and didn’t find it too bad. In Stat we had no homework and barely any tests and Bio was a pretty relaxed class. But again that all depends on the school. Try to find some people who took the classes and ask them.
My D took APUSH, AP Lang, AP Bio, AP Art History + math + physics her junior year. It was a tough year, but she did well and got all 5s. That was not unusual at her school. There were many others who took AP Calc and AP Physics also instead of the honors courses.
But, does that mean anything to you? No, it depends on your school and your curriculum. You should remember that Ad Coms will compare the rigor of your classes to what your school offers. You’ll also want to make sure that you can handle the course load based on your pre-AP preparation.
It depends on the science teacher. In one high school AP Bio was tough. But otherwise it looks ok. But kid #2 only had AP physics and AP lang and AP History junior year.
Students on this site are always asking questions like this, but it’s hard to answer. You need to consider–how strong and efficient a student are you, how hard are these classes as taught at your school, how time-consuming is the rest of your courseload, do you have study halls, how much time will your EC’s and other obligations take, and how much sleep do you need to be healthy and happy? We don’t know the answers to most of these questions. Look at what the students at your school who you think are comparable to you are doing. Ask them how hard these classes are at your school. My daughter found AP bio a lot of work, stats fairly easy and spanish not that hard, but she had to work hard the first semester because of a weaker background.
Depends on the student. Depends on the teacher. For my kids and their teacher, the answer would be that it was not too hard,
I took APUSH, AP Bio, AP Psych junior year!! Was not bad AT ALL. Bio was a lot of busy work (my teacher in particular)… but I got a 4 on the AP and I thought I didn’t pass. So its not bad
If your high school is like my D’s, the difficulty of the class depends greatly on the teacher. How tightly that correlates with pass rates on the AP exams themselves, I’m not sure. With all the AP guidebooks available out there, I suspect the latter is more dependent on the student than on the way the course was taught.
Will this be your first year taking AP classes? I think that may be a factor. A lot has to do with time management and discipline rather than innate intelligence. The teacher also matters a bit. What you want is a good teacher. You want to avoid getting A in the course and then failing the AP exam.
My daughter took three AP classes her junior year, AP.Bio, AP Lang, and AP World. Of the three, World was the most work, not hard, just work and Bio was the most rigorous but it wasn’t particularly hard. She ended up with 4’s on all three exams (and B’s, so the grade and score aligned pretty well).
AP Bio will be hard. It is hard for anybody, period.
AP Spanish and AP Stats are very easy for some. Some do not take AP Stats in HS leaving it for college to bump up college GPA with an easy A. Again, only you can assess your background and abilities in these classes.
In our school the teachers so over prepare the kids for the exam (one in particular) that it’s always a hard course. Not that the material is so hard - there’s just so much of it. Most kids get 4s or 5s on the exam. My non-science kid got a 5.
AP Stats is easier than either of the Calculus APs. My kids had no issues taking Calc along with several other APs. It will probably not be much more time consuming that your current math course.
AP Spanish will depend on how good you are at languages and how well prepared you are for the course and how good the teacher is. Many students find the audio portion of the exam particular difficult. You will be asked to read authentic documents - everything from literature to advertisements. Take a look at the AP page and see what you think: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/3499.html?excmpid=MTG243-PR-32-cd
I had one kid who did an AP language (Latin) and thought it was easy, and another who bailed on language (also Latin) before he got to the AP course.
I took one AP as a freshman and one AP as a sophomore
It really depends on your school. At my kids school, AP Bio is considered one of the easier AP science classes. AP chem and AP physics are considered harder. This means that in AP Bio you’re not competing with the top the top students. AP stats is considered to be the math class you take if you’re not able to take AB calc, BC Calc or multivariable calculus. It is taken mostly by students who have never taken an AP math class before. It is not one of the harder classes. AP Spanish is hard but We have a class called AP Spanish for native speakers where the top students tend to flock.
“I would like to know the difficulty of those classes and to see if I could handle all three for my junior year”
School, student, teacher dependent. No one can answer this as everyone will have a different answer based on their child’s or personal experiences.
Do you like science, math, Spanish? Did you take the highest level courses (Honors, AP) in these core areas in your first two years? If yes, did you do well or did you struggle? What are you taking in addition to these courses? What ECs are you involved in? Any other things going on in your life that might play a role in your performance in these courses? (I don’t need answer). Have you talked to your counselor and gotten some guidance? Good luck
It depends on the student and the teacher. AP Stat is considered one of the easier AP. AP Biology can be challenging for some. While AP Spanish would largely depend on your background. Two-third of the students taking AP Spanish exam has a heritage background. However, there are also some non-native speaker getting a 5 in the exam.
Yea, I’m Hispanic but not the greatest Spanish speaker
As others have said, a lot really depends on the teachers in your school. You’d be well served asking students who’ve already taken the class, assuming some have not graduated.
Unlike Chinese and Japanese, heritage speakers of Spanish are not greatly outperforming the non heritage speakers. In 2014, 27% of heritage speakers scored a 5 vs. 19% of non-heritage speakers. I’d be more worried about bio, where 6.2% scored a 5 TY.
7700 in 2014 (including me 
- not an insignificant number ).
My D too. 