Choosing your AP courses is one of the most important scheduling decisions you’ll have to make as a high school student. Unlike your standard graduation requirements, which you have to take, like it or not, APs can be much more subjective to your interests and can be used to strategically demonstrate rigor, showcase your intellectual interests, and even earn you college credit.
At Marks Education, we help students navigate these scheduling decisions thoughtfully and balance their personal intellectual capacity with what colleges like to see in the admissions room. That’s why we’ve written this blog to help answer questions parents and students often have. While we can’t anticipate every student’s situation, this blog is all about helping you make intentional choices and feel prepared to tackle AP decisions. If you still have questions at the end, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us now for more information!
How do Colleges Evaluate Coursework?
First and foremost, it’s helpful to understand how colleges read AP coursework and what they’re looking for when it comes to curriculum rigor– one of the most important factors in the transcript reading. Colleges overwhelmingly choose students who challenge themselves across the five core academic areas: English, Social Studies/History, Mathematics, Laboratory Sciences, and Foreign Languages. Taking APs in these areas is not only demonstrative of your intellectual versatility but also communicates that you can handle college-level work across various disciplines.
On that same note, admissions officers take the time to review your school profile before assessing your application, and are therefore considering your transcript within the context of what your specific school offers and how you chose to take advantage of those opportunities for growth. So, while that means your transcript isn’t “competing” against students with different levels of opportunity, if your school offers competitive coursework, especially within your field of interest, that you elected not to take, colleges will likely wonder why.
Choosing APs Based on Your Goals and Strengths
There are many factors to consider when you’re choosing AP courses. While it’s always wise to prioritize the 5 core subject areas, there are certainly ways you can tailor your choices within those core areas around gaining experience in a particular field of study. However, tailoring your transcript around your interests will look different for every student at every school.
In practice, for those interested in STEM fields, we tend to recommend that they prioritize math and science APs that relate directly to their major. If you’re interested in studying engineering, for example, colleges may expect to see courses like AP Calculus or AP Physics. Pre-med students, for example, might benefit from taking AP Bio alongside some strong math prep. Why? Showing your depth of preparation in these foundational subjects signals your readiness for college-level study, and doing well in these AP courses might help you test out of some of the large intro-level classes that you’ve been dreading.
For students interested in the humanities, it never hurts to have taken heavy literary and analysis-focused AP coursework. We may encourage students interested in the humanities to take the two AP English courses (literature and language), or other complex courses like AP Economics, AP U.S. History, or foreign languages. Success on these tests shows important analytical and communication skills that colleges consider essential for these fields. Demonstrating your capabilities in these departments is likely to serve only as an asset in the college admissions process.
How to Determine Your Level of Rigor
Your current academic performance is the best predictor of AP readiness. Colleges want to see that you’re challenging yourself, but they also don’t want to see that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew and are drowning. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re earning A’s and B’s in honors chemistry, you may be ready for AP chemistry. However, if you’re struggling with foundational concepts, jumping to the AP level could be counterproductive and end up hurting more than helping.
You should also always consider the specific demands of different APs and how they might impact your study habits if taken alongside one another. Content-heavy courses like AP U.S. History and AP Psychology often require 2-3 hours per week in reading alone, and might not be best tackled together, especially if you’re not a fast reader. You might be better off taking only one reading-heavy AP per course cycle, and balancing it out with more skills-based tests like the AP Calculus or AP Physics exams.
Remember, too, teacher recommendations should also take center stage in this decision-making process. When teachers recommend that you do or don’t take specific courses, listen to them! Their guidance is reflective of their understanding of the course, but also of your capabilities. Don’t take their review as an insult but as an honest assessment of your abilities and trust that your teacher has your best interests at heart. While there are always exceptions and cases where a teacher’s recommendation motivates students to push themselves, we urge families to always take the advice of teachers and counselors to heart when making their schedule.
Conclusion
While we hope that this blog provided helpful information to steer future scheduling conversations, in any case, with over two decades of college advising experience, at Marks Education, we know that every student is unique and this blog couldn’t possibly have addressed the spectrum of nuance that exists in every student’s transcript and goals. If you’re interested in more personalized scheduling advice, we’d love to hear from you! Contact us now to schedule a free consultation and learn more about our exceptional educational advising services.