Is it good to take more than five APs during junior year?Answered
I'm a current sophomore, and I was wondering if it is good to take more than five APs next year? I don't do much community service or anything in particular outside, but I do stress a lot in school. If so, is there any way I can cope this stress to help me with these rigorous classes?
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2 answers
For me, I took 5 APs and one honors class during my junior year, and it was rough. I was able to fit in my schedule with a lot of extracurriculars and two sports. After COVID-19 caused the schools to shut down, I was able to have a lot more time to finish schoolwork, and could be the same next year if this disease does not slow down. You can definitely take 5 APs, but just make sure to stay on top of your work and spend a good amount of time studying to make sure you know the material.
Honestly, coming from a Junior taking 5 APs (Calc BC, Physics C: M and Physics C: EM [grouped into one class], Computer Science Principles, Language and Composition), having taken 2 APs (Calc AB and Physics 2) as a sophomore and 1 AP (Human Geography) as a freshman, you have to have good time management before hand and only take APs that you are passionate about.
For example, if you love Math, try taking Calculus or Stats; if you like English (not I) try taking Lang or Lit; if you like a specific science, then take it as an AP. I would almost recommend trying to do more work outside of school this year to hone in your productivity and time efficiency skills because depending on the AP and the teacher, you may get a lot of homework (looking at you AP Lang and AP Physics C)
I think picking things I was passionate about or were at least interesting really helped me put in more effort into the class and therefore learn more in the process. I think it would be much better to stop at 5 APs but ask people in your school what they think because the workload can vary greatly by school. I would recommend to just do things you think are interesting in and ideally classes with great teachers because the worst thing in an AP class is a teacher who no one understands.
History, English and Science are all about equal and depend greatly on your strengths
List of AP types ranking roughly by workload (coming from experience or from what I heard at my school):
Capstone - I never took it but everyone at my school says the workload is pretty insane
History - A lot of note taking and reading from textbooks or outside sources
English - A lot of practice in reading passages and writing responses or multiple choice questions
Science - Physics probably has the easiest workload, Biology has a decent bit as well with some advanced things as far as I heard and Chemistry is a GPA killer and a super hard class at least at my school.
Math - The Calculus classes are really a lot easier than you would expect but there are days with 1 hour + of homework Computer Science really isn't too bad if you like it and AP Stats is heavy on memorizing the formulas
Art - These shouldn't really count as APs in my opinion but I don't know much about them so I can't say
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Chemistry tends to kill GPA at my schools too. I have a low B right now and am one of the top students in my class.