I take AP US History and my teacher screens students by making them write an essay to get in. He reads the essays and he'll only take people that he believes are genuinely interested in history and aren't just taking it for the fact that it's AP and they could get college credit if they took the exam. He has the right to turn anybody away. If you didn't write the essay, you can't enter the AP class.
But it's sooo amazing! I love my class and my teacher. Chambo is sooooo down to earth. He teaches like we're his equals while most of my other teachers teach like we're idiots. We've been through the discovery of the New World by the Spanish (Mexico/South America) and the English (The US), and even a bit of the French (Canada). We talked a bit about the Russians (Western US), too. We made it through the American Revolution, past the Elections of 1824 and 1828. We pondered the Spanish-American War, the French and Indian War, and the Texas War for Independence. We're just now getting to the Civil War, but we also hit on the Columbia Exchange, Women's Civil Rights in the 1800's, Jackson and the Indian Removal Act, Lewis and Clark's Expedition, along with a few other topics.
But I dare somebody to beat this:
We got to watch an episode of South Park because it was relevant to our discussion about the Mormons and Westward Expansion by Missionaries.