You want to challenge yourself. And you want to show admissions committees that you can pass college muster by taking rigorous high school courses.
Taking an Advanced Placement (AP) class in high school and scoring well on the related AP subject exam is a smart choice.Accepted applicants at selective colleges typically have taken multiple AP classes.
What is Advanced Placement?
Advanced Placement (AP) is a program run by the College Board (the same folks who make the SAT and SAT Subject Tests) that offers high school students the chance to take college-level courses in subject that interest them. View the full list of AP subjects.
AP exams are given each year in May. View 2019 AP test dates. Depending on the AP subject, exams are typically a combination of multiple choice and essay questions. AP exams are scored out of 5. Earning a score of 4 or 5 will help you impress the admissions committee at your dream school, and it may help you place out of required introductory level courses during your first year in college.
Check with your school counselor for a list of AP classes in your high school. While there are 38 total AP subjects , they are probably not all offered at your school. I n general you should try to take courses each year in English, science, math, the social sciences, and foreign language. Colleges want to see that you are taking on challenges when available, so if your school offers AP courses in any of these areas, you should consider taking them.
2. Where Do You Excel?
Do you love languages? If you’ve been taking Spanish all through high school, you might consider taking AP Spanish Lit or AP Spanish Language as a senior. Are you a history buff? AP U.S. History could be your chance to shine. Consider your past academic performance, and choose subjects that you’ve had previous success in. Artists, take note! There are even AP Studio Art courses in drawing and design.
If it’s your dream to be an engineer, for instance, taking AP Physics 1 or AP Physics C allows your transcript to reflect what you say about yourself in your application. AP classes signal to admissions officers that you’re ready for college work. Plus, these courses (and good AP scores on the corresponding exams) can eliminate the need to take foundation classes when you get to your university and allow you to immediately focus on your area of specialization.
How Many AP Classes Should You Take?
The key is to build the most rigourous high school schedule you can while still finding success. Signing up for all AP classes can be a recipe for disaster if you also have other important commitments, such as sports, drama or other extracurricular activities , on your schedule. Remember that colleges look for balance, and a straight academic plate, to the exclusion of everything else, does not make for a well-rounded high school resume .
Bottom Line
If you’re completely at a loss, you can’t go wrong with taking AP courses that correspond to first-year introductory level courses (history, science, and foreign languages). If you do well on your AP exams (scoring a 4 or 5), you might be able to place out of a lot of these required courses, earning college credit and saving you tuition dollars.
We can help make your AP courses easier! Make sure your hard work pays off by working with our expert AP tutors throughout the year.
Students looking to earn admission to highly selective colleges should take multiple AP classes to bolster their applications and demonstrate they can handle challenging coursework. Some college admissions experts recommend taking as many as 7-12 AP courses before applying to the most elite universities.
While challenging yourself with AP classes is commendable, maintaining a balanced schedule is crucial. Avoid overloading on too many AP courses in a single semester. Balancing your workload with a mix of challenging and manageable classes prevents burnout and ensures excellence in each subject.
While two weeks to prepare for an AP exam is not ideal, you can make this time frame work if you performed well on assessments throughout the course and only need minimal content review. Plan on spending these two weeks practicing free-response questions and taking full-length practice exams.
Generally speaking, I often advise students to aim for around 40-50 hours of study time per AP exam, spreading this out over several weeks or months so it doesn't become overwhelming.
How many AP classes is too many? In general, college counselors recommend taking 5-8 AP courses. That said, there are lots of factors to consider when enrolling in AP classes, beyond the ones previously mentioned. The other biggest factor to consider is which AP classes your high school currently offers.
Colleges like them both. Both honors and AP courses are rigorous courses that most high schools weight more heavily on your transcript. AP courses, however, culminate in the AP Exam. Good AP scores show colleges you are ready to succeed at college-level work and can even earn you college credits.
Applicants aiming for highly selective colleges usually take 5-6 AP classes this year, but keep your limits and schedule in mind. At this point, adding one more AP class might not have a huge impact on your college chances, but it could reduce the time spent on applications to a great extent.
If you manage to take 11 AP classes throughout your high school stay, that's enough (33 credits on average) to skip a whole year of college. While that may too much, even a couple of classes can be enough to give you a semester ahead of your peers coming into college.
To be a competitive candidate for admission, you will need to take at least 8 AP® classes, more if you can. It is a good idea to take 1 AP® course in each of the following core disciplines: English, Foreign Language, History, Math, and Science to impress the admissions officers.
An Ivy League hopeful might take 3 to 5 AP classes, while if you're aiming for less-selective schools, 2 to 4 would be enough. Senior Year: Take more APs in core subjects and additional subjects, again being careful not to overburden your schedule and to leave time for college applications.
Taking 6 APs might be perfect because you already have taken 6 APs before and got all As and 4s and 5s on your AP tests. Or it might be getting over your skis as the expression goes. I think it depends on what your track record is thus far.
I recommend taking only 2 APs sophom*ore year, 4-5 Junior year, and 3 to 4 Senior year. That puts you in the 9-11 range which more than enough. Also keep in mind that if you apply to Brown with 12 APs, you've wasted your time since they give you ZERO AP credit.
Give yourself plenty of time to revise into the course material, practice exam questions, and review important concepts. To make your study sessions even more effective, consider creating a personalized study plan that organizes your learning into specific topics within the subject.
Thankfully, not many students leave the exam with a 1 unless complications arise during the test and they need to leave, or they are just trying to take the exam without knowing any of the material. In fact, on the AP® rubric, a 1 is described as “no recommendation”.
A score of “1” is the lowest score students can receive on an AP exam, and typically indicates that a student was largely or entirely unfamiliar with a course's content.
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