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[Helmaroc]

Hi everyone,
This fall I will be a senior in high school, and I have signed up for a challenging schedule with 6 AP courses (out of 8 total courses). Most of my peers and I suppose most high school students in general allotted their most challenging course-load in their junior year, while for me this will be the most AP in one school year so far. My concern is not so much in my ability or capacity but in staying focused and fully applying myself. Along with the classes I will be active in a few clubs and will need to work on college applications. I know there are a lot of smart people in this community who have experience with rigorous school work, so any advice would be much appreciated.

The specific AP's I am taking are World History, European History, US Government, Statistics, English Literature and Environmental Science. Any advice on taking those courses would also be appreciated. I plan on buying the AP prep books early and reading through them before the school year starts, especially for the social studies.

Thanks!

[nenjin]

FWIW, I remember there being only one thing about the AP classes that mattered: the AP test at the end of the class.

I didn't really find AP classes (in subjects I was good at) hard. Regular classes were so stripped down of actual work so other students could pass, that AP was actually refreshing because it asked us to think critically, and defend our conclusions.

My thought would be: ditch the clubs. Since you loaded up for a difficult senior year, it's doubly important that you pass all your classes and their AP tests. Clubs aren't necessary to graduate, so they should be the first expendable thing on your list if you need more time.

I'm not sure what advice to give you about applying yourself. It's either something you want to do, or you don't want to do. You don't sound like you have motivation problems. It sounds more like you're just stressing waaaaayyyy in advance of the school year. Which is normal. Senior year and college planning is a stressful time. But I'd stay focused on the here and now, and maybe enjoy the rest of your summer. Because it's going to be the last non-adult break you're ever going to get.

[Darulio]

To pass on what an intelligent adult that I respect very much told me, AP classes don't prepare you for college as well as normal classes. Most of them are project and group based, with normal classes being more study based (believe it or not, people in non AP classes don't just sit around brain dead all day). Unless you graduate with honors, there's little point to suddenly taking AP classes now, but if you CAN graduate with honors, that looks quite nice for scholarships and college "resumes".

In short, if AP classes are too much for you, dropping them won't be that huge of a deal.

[nenjin]

Most of them are project and group based, with normal classes being more study based (believe it or not, people in non AP classes don't just sit around brain dead all day)

This was not my experience with AP Lit, AP English or AP Social Studies. Most of the work was done el solo. So it probably differs based on regions and curriculum.

[TheMech64]

As a senior who is literally graduated later this evening, I'll tell you about my AP experience and what I suggest. As a disclaimer, keep in mind that depending on your region, school size, teacher, state mandates, or anything similar, your experience could be vastly different from mine. I'd also like to apologize for the gigantic size of this post.

I've taken 9 APs-- 1 in sophomore year, 3 in junior year, and 5 in senior year. This year--besides other mandatory courses like phys ed--I only took those 5 AP courses (no electives). What are your other 2 courses besides your APs? Also out of curiosity, what AP courses have you taken previously? And of your 6 APs now, are any of them half-year courses or all they all being offered as full year (2 semester) courses?

I won't tell you to not worry about staying focused, because worry is a good incentive here. Personally, through my own drive in addition to peer pressure, I was able to stay focused right to the day of the AP exams. The fact that you plan on buying AP prep books and looking at them before the school year even starts is a great sign, I think.

Filling out college applications is not as big a deal as many think it is. It only seems very time consuming because you spend more time thinking about it than actually doing it. If you are really motivated, you can fill out about 1-3 applications in a weekend (some colleges require a lot more writing than others, though). I would not let the idea of writing college apps get in your way; it will really only consume a few weeks of your time, and it will not significantly influence the amount of work you have to do in any way.

Depending on the clubs, you might want to drop one or two. If you have been in a club for your entire highschool career, colleges like that commitment, so I would recommend staying in those if you need every boost you can get for your college apps. Otherwise, clubs aren't that significant, unless they are for community service or really help you get into your career field of interest, and I would not let them get in the way of your real academic work. If the workload is too much, you can drop almost any club any time during school year; it's much more painful to drop an AP.

I wouldn't worry too much about AP courses being too difficult for you, meaning you won't need to apply yourself 100% all-year long. You'll find out, probably within the first few weeks, which APs you will need to focus on and which ones you don't need to work too hard on. I've only taken a few of the APs you will be taking in the fall, but this was my experience:

European History- not to scare you, but one of the hardest courses and exams I've taken, simply because the amount of content in the course is so vast. It might have changed a bit in the past 2 years, but probably not too drastically. If you start studying well in advance of the exam (at least a month before the exam date, study for like 15 minutes a day at first and ramp that time up as the exam gets closer) you should be fine, though.
US Government- on the other hand, one of the easiest courses and exams I've taken. I found this on par with some of the regular courses at my school; it was almost a joke. You will have to actually learn and pay attention (somewhat), but none of the concepts are difficult to understand or remember.
English Lit- an easy course for me, a moderately difficult exam. This is the most subjective subject out of all of them: some of the exam questions could be rewritten as "which of the following opinions is the correct one?". But the amount of material is nothing crazy and as long as you read some higher-level books you'll be fine for the essays.

To pass on what an intelligent adult that I respect very much told me, AP classes don't prepare you for college as well as normal classes. Most of them are project and group based, with normal classes being more study based

Personally, this has not been my experience at all (with some small exceptions). Almost all of the AP courses I took featured minimal group work, lots of solo note-taking and studying, and barely any projects. The majority of my AP courses also focused heavily on in-class lectures and/or reading a textbook outside of class to learn the course material.

Helmaroc, it is still a great advantage to taking AP courses even in senior year. First of all, colleges will take your course load into account when making admissions decisions, even (perhaps especially) your senior year load. Slacking off in senior year, taking minimal and easy courses will characterize you as a poor and unmotivated student, while taking lots of APs and having great grades in addition will get you noticed. My AP load, the grades I got in those courses, and my past scores on AP exams definitely influenced getting accepted to my college.

However, I would recommend checking the AP policies of the colleges you plan on applying to. With high enough scores, some AP exams will exempt you from college courses or at the very least give you college credit: if my AP scores this year pan out, I could theoretically enter college with 30 credits and be exempt from several freshmen-year courses. But whether or not you can skip courses depends on the AP and your college major. Come next May (exam time) I would focus much more on getting high scores on the APs that can exempt you from courses because that will save you time and money.

Hope that helps!

[SealyStar]

I got straight A's in four APs (Physics, Chemistry, US Government, and Statistics - and I always recite them in that order because that was the daily schedule order) out of five total classes as a senior, while actually not doing a whole lot of homework. In one case this was kind of a fluke, but hey. It all depends on how you learn and work best - I don't learn a whole lot from busywork, so I basically never did any homework that I wasn't being graded on, and occasionally skipped the graded stuff too if it was for a really small part of your grade compared to tests and larger assignments.

Don't follow this example if it doesn't fit you! I'm not saying this is a one-size-fits all good idea; in fact, it's the opposite: a strategy that worked well for me but probably doesn't for most people. The point is that, to the extent allowed by the course itself, you should be able to gauge exactly how much and on what subjects you need to work.

TheMech64 has good points about AP classes and college. Depending on where you go, you can get a substantial amount of credits knocked down from the AP tests (in my case, we had to take placement tests in a lot of subjects anyway, but the APs did hella well at preparing for those). All of the public colleges where I live will at least take the credits for something, as will most (I think) of the private ones.

And they will look good on a transcript; I'm fairly sure I wouldn't have made it into the college I did if not for the senior-year AP-packing (first and second years were kinda bad, junior and senior years needed to make up for it).

I want to say more about the idea that AP classes aren't taught college-style. While that may very well be the case at your school, the overwhelming majority of APs I took, including all the math and science ones, generally followed your college-standard impersonal lectures, notes, homework, and test. Rinse and repeat. Granted, so do plenty of normal classes, so I'm not outright saying APs do it better, but they certainly don't do it worse.

FAKEEDIT: From the last paragraph. All but two of the classes you mentioned aren't math/science things, so what I said might not apply. However, there's a good chance it still does, so don't just assume what you've been told is wrong. In my case, World History and US Gov prepared me for a different aspect of college studying; even though they weren't as lecture-heavy as others, we had to do a lot of reading on our own, and most of the college syllabi I've looked at prescribe a lot of reading too.

REALEDIT: Another thing building on TheMech's points about college apps: He's right that you don't need a whole bunch of clubs if your academics are good; the activities section on my application was downright pitiful and it passed. And the applications themselves can be time-consuming dolores in culo if you put it off, but if you start early it's not tough. I put my first one off until the week it was due, and, again, it wound up passing. If any of the colleges have early action processes (only if they're non-binding, because you don't want to be fucked if you change your mind later), take advantage of them! Winter and spring are a lot more stressful work-wise and even depressing (with all the snow and cold) if you live somewhere north, so knock out as many as you can in the easier and more pleasant fall. I did, and I never regretted it.

[Helmaroc]

What are your other 2 courses besides your APs? Also out of curiosity, what AP courses have you taken previously? And of your 6 APs now, are any of them half-year courses or all they all being offered as full year (2 semester) courses?

All AP courses at my school are on an every other day schedule, all year long.

My other two courses are Middle East History (a standard credit, unfortunately my school doesn't offer an Honors) and the other is functionally a study hall, as long as I get placed in what I signed up for. Sophomore year I took Psychology and Human Geography. I had a good teacher for Psych and found the material interesting and ended up with an A and a 5 on the exam. HUGE was a different story, our teacher was completely inexperienced, only a few years older than us, and only taught for that year before leaving. I somehow ended up with an A but felt I hadn't learned anything and decided to opt out of the AP exam. In retrospect, I probably should have just gone for it but I wasn't confident that I could manage a 4. Policy has changed since then and the school now pays for AP exams so all are mandatory. Junior year I took Language and Composition and AP United States History, I don't have my scores back yet but I'm confident for a 5 in Lang and a 4 in APUSH.

As far as clubs, I'm involved in 3 and I'll probably stick with them because I have officer positions and all 3 are service clubs. Meetings are at most once a week and only an hour or so long and I don't see them being too obstructive to studying.

AP courses at my school usually involve daily lectures with notes and quizzes, with occasional group projects. Social studies courses always have reading assignments for homework and so maintaining pace with your teacher is dependent on doing your reading.

It all depends on how you learn and work best - I don't learn a whole lot from busywork, so I basically never did any homework that I wasn't being graded on, and occasionally skipped the graded stuff too if it was for a really small part of your grade compared to tests and larger assignments.

I have definitely taken this approach with some courses in the past, with mixed results. Once I'm familiar with my teachers and the difficulty I'll determine which classes need the most application.

However, I would recommend checking the AP policies of the colleges you plan on applying to. With high enough scores, some AP exams will exempt you from college courses or at the very least give you college credit: if my AP scores this year pan out, I could theoretically enter college with 30 credits and be exempt from several freshmen-year courses. But whether or not you can skip courses depends on the AP and your college major. Come next May (exam time) I would focus much more on getting high scores on the APs that can exempt you from courses because that will save you time and money.

That's a good point, I'll make sure to check into which scores will be most valuable when it's time to study for the exams.

Thanks for the contributions everyone.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Stats is probably you're hardest AP course. The history courses and AP US GOV are very fun! Enjoy it! The only thing I suggest is to study more for tests and take A LOT of notes. Godspeed. At least you aren't taking AP calc and AP Physics B!

[SealyStar]

Stats is probably you're hardest AP course. The history courses and AP US GOV are very fun! Enjoy it! The only thing I suggest is to study more for tests and take A LOT of notes. Godspeed. At least you aren't taking AP calc and AP Physics B!

Stats was an easy one for me, but that's partly because I'm good at math and the Stats teacher at my school is really great. Also, I was taking Physics B, Chemistry, and Gov (see below) at the same time, so the benchmark for "hardest" was shifted.

AP Gov was hard in my experience, though. There's un montón of material to cover, and you have to be good at both analysis and memorization. But it's also fun, indeed. Again, from my own experience, you end up covering a lot of why the government works the shitty way in does in real life (parties, congressional committees, campaign finance, bureaucratic ineptitude), whereas most civics-type courses give you the Constitution and say "Okay, this is how the government works, and there are no problems with it."

The watered down one, the one you know
Was made up centuries ago...