Should I take AP Stats or AP Calc AB?Answered
I am picking my courses for junior year and I am taking AP Bio, AP Lang and an AP Math. The problem is I don't know if I should take AP Calc AB or AP Stats. My school does not offer AP Calc BC and I have not taken an AP classes yet, and my school does not offer honor classes. My AP Bio teacher is rumored to be really bad and most of the time I am going to be self studying for at least 2-3 hours. If I take AP Stats, that will free up my schedule a ton, but the teacher sucks, and I'm currently at pre-calc, so I don't know if I am going to be wasting my time taking stats over calc junior year. Nevertheless I am taking both of the classes and I just need some other opinions outside of family and friends. Also if I do decide to take AP Calc, will it be a too big of a jump, because AP Bio and AP Calc are considered, in my school, two of the four hardest APs (Chem and Physics are the others), and currently my schedule is very light and not as rigorous as 3 AP classes would be. Would it be too difficult to adjust to this or will I get the hang of it pretty quickly?
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It depends on if you are going to college to study a STEM field or Humanities. If you want to be an engineering or science major, then you want to take AP Calc now and that will serve a double purpose. 1.) It prepares you for college better and 2.) It will help you prep for the math section of the ACT or SAT.
If you are going for STEM at a top school, you might want to take AP Physics and AP Chem next year. AP Physics Mechanics uses Calculus so it's better to know it if you are taking it.
If you are going to be a humanities major or a business major, then take AP Stats. Stats is important for all business majors, and even for psychology or political science and Pre-Med as well.
Alternatively, you can take AP Calculus or a dual-enrollment Calc or online college calc. over the summer. It doesn't matter when but you want Calc. done and over with if you are going to be a STEM, Engineering major.
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Thank you for your time reading this question! I am planning to go premed at a UC (UC Irvine realistically). I plan to major in Biopsych and I want to have the most success in order to get into medical school. Should I still take your recommended course of AP Calc first, or should I give biology my all in junior year because that is where I am most interested? I do not plan to take AP Physics or AP Chem though because I am not interested enough to take those advanced classes.