AP classes

[nsyncraider17]

How many AP (advanced placement) classes have you (or your children) taken at one time?

I'm not trying to sound conceited, but I'm a very good student. I have a 4.0 GPA and have always taken advanced classes. Last year I took AP European History, and I got a 3 on the test. This year I will definitely be taking AP English, Calculus and Chemistry. I had planned to take AP American Government next year, but at arena scheduling this week I found out that I can take it this year. Would I be completely insane to take 4 AP classes? I know of one girl who took these 4 classes last year, and she got A's in all of them and is now going to Notre Dame with a full ride scholarship. I'm thinking that if I take all 4, I'll get A's in them, but I might die of stress in the process.

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of situation?

 

[bananiem]

My niece did it. She was agood student too and ended up valedictorian. I think if you're serious about your schoolwork and willing to do the work anything's possible!

 

[HeyMickey]

I never took four at once, but I did take AP classes all four years of high school. I know people who have taken four or more at a time (my little brother is taking BC Calc, Euro History, Chemistry, French, and English this year! Yikes!) and they manage alright.

Would you be taking the exams for all of them, or just the classes? Depending on what college you plan on going to and what you're going into, taking the exams might not necessarily make sense for you. At my university math majors get no credit for AP math courses, whereas I got out of four calculus classes with my 5 on the Calc B/C test. Taking four exams will probably be very stressful since AP's are difficult, but if you have good study skills you should be okay.

Good luck!

 

[dbond]

My daughter took 5 AP courses her senior year, AP English, Physics, Economics, Govt. & Calculus. Eco & Govt were only 1 semester courses so she was only in 4 courses at a time but she took 5 tests at the end of the year! I thought she was nuts, but it was nice for her to not have to take some of those classes in college. Like the above poster said, depending on your major and what college you go to, you may still have to repeat some courses in college, but the credit still counts to satisify something and if you score high enough on the AP test, you get an actual letter grade score which is a great way to start off your college GPA. Good luck!

 

[RUDisney]

I took every AP course that I could. I had 34 credits going into college when I graduated from HS. I used 33 of them and started college as a sophomore. In my sr year of HS, I had AP Calculus, AP English, AP German, and AP Physics. Graduated 27th out of 183 students at a prep school.

 

[HeyMickey]

I too may be able to graduate early thanks to my AP credits - and with a double major in engineering! It'll save my parents and me $20,000 just for that semester and hopefully I can work and make some money before heading to grad school. AP classes are a real asset if you can use them like that.

Oh, and I was valedictorian out of a class of 450... but I didn't get to speak at graduation It's a long convoluted story, but I'm still rather bitter two years after the fact. My high school won't be getting any donations when I've made my millions, that's for darn sure.

 

[ead79]

I took many AP's at once, and it worked out fine. I took AP Biology and AP American History my junior year, and I took AP Government, AP Latin, AP Calculus, AP Physics, and AP English my senior year. It really helped get a lot of the intro courses in college out of the way. However, if you think you'll be so stressed that you can't enjoy your senior year at all, then I would select a few AP's that you think you could do the best in and forego the rest.

 

[bsnyder]

My younger DS is taking 5 AP's this year (he's a senior) - AP Physics, AP English, AP Psychology, AP Latin Virgil and AP Calculus BC. Last year he took 4 AP's.

If you think you'll do well in all of them, then I say go for it. Most competitive colleges put the most weight in their application process on the student's high school course selection, and whether they took the hardest classes available to them.

Good luck with your classes!

 

[jwsqrdplus2]

I took 3 APs in high school, but I never took the AP exams because the college I chose to attend did not take AP exams for credit. They gave their own placment exams.

Have said that, using their placement exams, I placed out of Cal I and II (thanks to AP Calc in HS), and 3 semesters of French (only needed 2!). I also placed into honors chemistry and English.

By the way, I took AP English, Calculus and Biology in HS. So the English and Calculus helped. Took 3 years of French in HS, so I guess that was beneficial, and I had an awesome Chem teacher even though I never took AP. Obviously, the AP Bio did me no good!

 

[fklhou]

MY DS took two lAP classes last year as a junior and is taking four this year as a senior. His advisor advised him to drop one non-ap course but agreed that he could handle four AP classes. I think that he is taking English, American History, Calculus and Phsics as AP classes.

We were told that many private schools will not take any AP scores less than a five for credit and so far this has been the case at the schools he has visited. We were also told that state schools would generally give credit to scores of 3 or above.

Good luck.

 

[DebbieB]

Shows where my head is - I thought they were having classes for annual passholders!

 

[Lynn CC]

DS is in his junior year and is taking AP English, History, Chemistry ...honors everything else. They are double AP classes so that's all he was allowed to take. I had to get a waiver in Gym from the board just so he could take so many!

Good luck with your classes. Did you have work over the summer to do to prepare for AP classes. My DS desk was piled high and it kept him busy all summer. He had to mail packages of completed work to his teacher's homes just so he could take the classes this fall.

Have Fun

 

[supercarrie]

I took AP Biology my sophomore year, AP English Lang, Art History, and US History junior year, and this year I am taking AP English Lit, AP US Govt/Econ, AP Comparative Govt, AP Psychology, and AP Environmental Science (5 classes at a time). I will end up taking 7 exams though. I know people who have taken, and will be taking, 6-7 full AP classes, including taking multiple math/science classes at one time. I think a lot of it depends on how rigorous the courses are at your individual school, but it is doable. You will definitely learn how to schedule yourself well.

 

[wdwfam]

My DS took 6 AP's last year and 1 Honors class, and then took 9 AP tests. He got mostly 5's and a few 4's. Yes, most private schools only accept a score of 4 or 5. He starts Wash. U in St. Louis with 36 hours of credit. This is not counting his French. Since it is a private school, and he is majoring in engineering (probably biomedical) his AP's in History and English will be considered electives. Also, they are not really clear about him starting as a Sophomore. They say that he technically is still a Freshman. Each school is different. AP's are worth it if you want to skip some of the entry level college classes and save some tuition money. I, too, dreaded last year, but he really enjoyed the challenge. Good luck!

 

[tar heel]

At my son's high school, all AP classes were second semester unless they lasted the entire year like calculus. Since the school had block scheduling the most AP classes you could take in one year was four. He took three his last semester -- calculus, statistics and Spanish and made 5s on both of the math tests. He did get college credit for the AP courses and also got six hours freshman English credit based on his SAT score -- I personally think that is crazy. Placing out of the introductory classes and taking a more advanced class instead I could understand, but he didn't even have to successfully complete an advanced class to get the credit. He is an engineering major at a respectable university and can graduate without taking a single English class. His advisor hasn't encouraged him to take any either, but dh and I have. Not sure why I got off on that tangent -- the discussion about colleges awarding credits, I guess.

 

[Annie&Hallie'sMom]

Many moons ago, I took 2 AP classes. Should have taken 3 in hindsight (Honors History was really no harder than AP History from what I was told). Forget the testing & the scores, the AP classes were some of the BEST I ever took. I read more literature in AP English (which was a 2 year class) than I did in college. I always recommend these classes because they offer so much!

 

[CyranoJones]

My daughter started out with AP classes in her sophomore year but then switched over to the actual college credit classes offered through her high school. She ended up only having to take one core course for her first year of college and is actually a semester ahead. At $100 per 3 credits, it was a deal that couldn't be beat.

And I'll toot her horn for her...she and two of her friends decided that none of them wanted to give the valedictorian speech. So she really slacked off and graduated 4th out of 256, lol.

 

[tkd lisa]

A slightly different view here. I do agree, go ahead and take whatever class load you think you can handle. But, I recommend you at least consider not testing out of them in college. I was an excellent high school student (3rd out of 450). My school didn't offer AP as such, but I took a full year of calculus, two years of chemistry and a year of physics in high school. When I got to college, I found out that those classes basically were the same as my first two calculus classes and all the chemistry I was required to take in college (3 semesters worth). But the level of college was so different from high school, that I appreciated not having to struggle to make grades in those classes, so I could put the study time towards classes I didn't have a background in. If I had tested out of the college classes, my freshman year I would have been dealing with all new material and it would have been much harder.

Bottom line recommendation. Take the classes in high school, then use the college classes as a chance for a relatively easy good grade.

 

[alabamaalan]

Wow, y'all have a lot of choices.

My high school had a graduating class of 160 and the only AP class offered was English during our senior year. Everyone who was taking advanced classes had AP English; there were no seperate tracks of AP vs. College Prep

They started adding more classes for the groups graduating under us, but we were the first class to have any.

Just before starting college, I took the CLEP or challenge exams for every subject that I could except for English (since I had a 5 on the AP exam).

I got to skip a sememster that way and save some money!

 

[honeywolf7]

The two AP classes that were offered at my High School were AP Biology and AP Calculus. I was in Precalculus instead of Calculus since I didn't take Algebra I until my Freshman year. The reason I didn't take AP Bio is that I really didn't want to dissect a cat. I took AP English, AP Government and AP U.S. History. I got 4's on all of the tests except for English which I got a 5 on.