Is it worth taking AP Classes senior year?

Are a lot of AP classes worth taking senior year?

• I'm a junior now, and so far, I have only taken honors courses at the highest, no AP yet. I realize that AP classes have a lot of benefits even for senior year, but will it really matter in terms of admission for colleges in whether I take AP classes or not? How much value do AP classes have on your transcript come senior year? Also, if I were to take an AP class that was only for one semester (not a whole year), would it be more beneficial to take the class first or second semester? Thanks!

• Answer:

  AP credits are essential for getting into some of the harder schools in the nation. They look great on your college transcript and all sorts of other good things. When you take the test, some colleges even accept your scores as credit for having taken introductory courses in college to say "Writing 101" which saves you money. Now AP courses are only better than honors courses if you can maintain the same grades you had before or get higher marks. If you think you can't hover around the same gpa in AP courses, don't take the AP courses. Getting a C in an AP or Honors course is always worse than straight As in CP (regular) courses. It doesn't matter where you're applying. Since there will always be someone getting an A in any given class, it makes you less appealing. If you're the top of your CP class, it appears better to colleges than being at the bottom of your AP class. That said, AP classes are increasingly more and more important with more and more people applying to colleges. Some colleges require 3 AP credits to apply which can be substituted for SAT IIs depending on the college. It makes a LOT of sense to take your APs first semester and drop whatever you can't handle second semester. Colleges will only see your first semester grades when you apply. Unless you're shooting for the Ivy League, you won't have much of a problem coasting for the second semester of your senior year. You should be able to take easier courses instead of the APs. But it might be a good idea to keep one or two depending on the number you take. Dropping your whole course work like that could raise eyebrows at your college. Though its unlikely they'd ever rescind your application unless you got into serious trouble or couldn't maintain a C average (C is a typical requirement but it varies). So in short, take some APs next year for sure. Take the bulk if not all of them first semester and you'll be smiling all the the way into college without the burden of AP courses to ruin your senior year fun. : ) Also, AP courses are prep for the AP tests. I think you can request to take AP tests without ever having completed an AP course. You'll have to check with your college counseling people or at a front desk or however your school works, but you might be able to skip the second part of prep and still have all the cost cutting benefits of having great scores on your AP tests. This is probably a school by school policy so check to make sure and get details about it.