How many AP classes should I take?Answered
Hello! I am wondering how many AP classes (and which ones) I should take especially to impress universities such as Stanford, NYU, UCLA, and more. I'm currently a sophomore about to start my junior year and I feel like I'm starting late when it comes to taking AP classes. I don't want to overload myself with these classes and everything else I'm doing, and just wondered which AP classes would be better to take and how many I should do.
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3 answers
It really depends on how many your high school offers. My school is really small, so they only offer AP Psychology, Biology, Calculus, and Spanish. I am planning on taking all that my school offers besides AP calc. Also, if you are interested in a particular subject or you know what you want your major to be in university, you should take the AP/Honors classes that your school offers on that subject. I don't think you are starting late; my school only offers AP classes junior and senior year. Just take as many as you feel comfortable with based on your other classes and extracurriculars.
How many you take should depend on how many your school offers. For example if your school offers 7 i think taking 4 is a good number. For picking which ones it depends on the ones offered. If your school offers a wise variety try to stick to core subjects if you don't want to take to many. I think an exception to this would be if they offer classes in the field of your major area of interest. It would look weird if I said I love psychology and want to be a psychiatrist but not take my schools AP psyche class if it is available to me if that makes sense. Colleges want to see you take advantage of the opportunities your school offers and that you tried to go above the minimum required. Selective schools will usually require you take an extra credit of math or science that only require 3 to graduate.
There is no magic #... All top colleges put you in the context of your school and area, I'm from northeast WI at one of its larger cities, so I'm expected to take a lot but I don't need to go insane. Try to put them sooner than later if your school allows, and I think in most cases though, go at least for 6-10 taken by the time you've applied. I ended up taking like 2 honors classes & 4 aps the last three years as I couldn't take any freshman year at my place... I'd say a good rule of thumb is to be taking like at the very least to be taking as many as the top 3% of your class at least, but there is an exception for people with great ECs where you can just be in the top 25%... I know kids who got into Ivys by taking a ton, and know some who didn't do a ton but had amazing ECs. ECs are a far better predictor of success since thousands of people get 5s on 10 exams, but very few are pro-athlete material or state orchestra 1st chair. Also, a lot cooler than getting a 5 on AP Bio! Spend X10 effort on ECs and your essays, since those are the things that actually impress. Still, bad scores will not reflect well on you if you don't study for APs... Good luck, rigor is important, but that doesn't necessarily mean APs (CAPP, IB, Honors (Music), etc.)
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