AP Stats or AP Calc - AP Bio or Anatomy
I’m currently a junior who took all honors and one AP during my freshman and sophomore year. Because of some personal issues my grades weren’t the best (still passing).
This year I’m in regular level classes and AP Lang but in the stages of planning my senior year classes.
I’ve gotten my grades up but not perfect and need some help deciding what classes to take.
My possible schedule will be AP Lit, Gov/Econ (regular bc I’m not great at history), marching/symphonic band, AP Spanish, and theology (catholic school requirement).
This leaves me with 2 spots to fill.
One requirement is math which is my first question.
I’m planning to talk to my teacher about having AP Calc as an option so if all goes well I’ll be deciding between AP Calc and AP Stats. My freshman year I took Honors Geometry, my sophomore year was Honors Algebra II/Trig, and this year I’m in regular precalc. I’m doing very well in precalc (A+, 90s and multiple 100% on quizzes). I enjoy the class so I’m considering AP Calc but I don’t know what will be the best for me.
ALSO: I’m planning to study neuroscience with either psych or just go ns with premed track.
My next problem is a bit more confusing. I’d really like to be able to take AP Psych next year but that will conflict with the rest of my schedule.
I can either take AP Biology or regular Anatomy (my school doesn’t offer AP Anatomy). My counselor thinks that if I take AP Bio then I should have a study hall (I’ve had one all three years) and skip AP Psych, or take Anatomy and AP Psych.
So, my options are:
AP Bio and Psych but no study hall
AP Bio and a study hall
or Anatomy and AP Psych.
EDIT: okay update- so I talked to my teacher about AP calc and she says that while she’s willing to let me do it, she’s concerned about me overloading my classes with aps, and the fact that because im taking regular precalc this year (even though I’m doing well), she’s worried that going to AP Calc will be a big jump. I asked for extra help options and she said that she can’t offer that but I can use Khan Academy and such during summer work to keep up.
I don’t know what will be the best considering my college major desire and workload in the three classes.
Help!
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2 answers
The best courses to take are always the ones that are the most rigorous, given that you can do well in them (ideally, more than just passing). So be wary of overloading your course schedule with too many APs! Based on that, it might be best to do AP Bio and a study hall.
As for your math courses, I would say go with AP Calc! Both AP Stats and AP Calc (AB I assume?) are known to be fairly rigorous— pick what you're good at and will enjoy!
Hey, there!
I get why stuff like this can be confusing, I'm right in the middle of choosing my classes for next year too. Honestly, if your a senior next year, that's especially scary because there's no choice of "I'll do it next year". Anyway- if you're planning on going down the field of neuroscience, the Anat. and Psych combo is going to be your best bet. Especially since Anatomy isn't an AP class, that's going to be one less AP exam off your shoulders. About your math class, I'd say you should be fine taking either depending on what you're comfortable with. Prefer graphs, percentages, and analyzing data (Stats) or calculations, equations, exponents (Calc)? However calculus is definitely going to be the more difficult of the two so be sure you can manage it because we don't want you getting burnt out.
Hope this helps! (P.s. nice job on getting high grades in your precalc class. If it's anything like my school, it's the more difficult of the two junior options.)
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