is apcsp worth it?Answered
dont know if this directly relates to admissions... i guess it does in a way 🤔. i have a free elective spot for sophomore year (freshie currently) and i definitely want to do an AP, considering other classes for 10th grade (2 other ap's (whap and apah), 4 honors, one career) i have the capacity for an easy-to-medium difficulty AP and yk i'm asian so computer science is a topic of interest, not for me but just in general so i was thinking of ap computer science principles even though it does not sound particularly appealing; my friends have also told me it's an utterly useless class - other AP options would be seminar, environmental science, or stats (i'll also be in honors precalc next year) - or any others; my school has them all so i'd love to hear any other suggestions. so is ap computer science worth it/even enough to impress admissions more than the other options? (i have an affinity for history and the law, aversion to math, and currently am taking psych and hgap)
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2 answers
Hey so I'm currently taking the ap csp course, sophmore. It is a fun class and all, but it does require you to take time out of your day at home to practice and learn the coding. Like I just did a project that took 2 weeks to do and it was fairly simple to complete. The only thing I consider to be the difficult part of the class is properly writing the code so that it doesn't break. With it breaking if you don't write the code properly, you have to learn to read it and/or get friends or classmates (taking the course) to help you read it.
If you have the option to take AP Statistics over AP Computer Science Principles, I'd recommend that pathway. Stats is not only much more practical for everyday living and will help you develop an analytical eye for data, it's appealing to colleges as well.
I took AP Computer Science A last year (without first taking principles), and while I liked the course, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't really love computer science.
A bunch of my friends took the class just because they play video games and thought it would be good for colleges and all ended up not doing very well: universally scoring 2s on the AP Exam (there were 5 of them).
I don't think colleges would be as impressed with APCSP as with AP Stats, and Stats would be a lot more practical for the rest of your life, you'll actually use the skills you learn in that class.
But at the end of the day, choose what you think you'll enjoy the best, because you'll likely do the best in the class then.
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thanks as well! yeah, as someone who has taken a lot of programming classes already, i don't think it might be the best use of my time to spend that much time since i know how to build basic apps, etc. :)