Ap courses how many

Try to establish a good balance of AP and honors or regular courses, prioritizing APs that complement your interests, strengths, and career aspirations. Our free chancing engine takes into account your history, background, test scores, and extracurricular activities to show you your real chances of admission—and how to improve them. Your application will be evaluated in the context of your school and the opportunities available to you.

If, for instance, your school offers three AP courses and you take two of them, your application will likely be more impressive than a candidate who took two APs out of the 18 offered at their school. The ideal number of AP courses is different for each individual. Even with the COVID pandemic having interrupted in-person schooling, teens still need to move forward with high school course planning as per usual. There are 38 AP courses offered by the College Board but very few schools offer even half that number.

If you hail from an under-resourced high school that offers a limited number of APs, this will not be held against you as long as you take advantage of the opportunities that are accessible. Attending a high school teeming with Advanced Placement options means that the expectations for participation are raised. At highly selective Kenyon College, the average admitted applicant took 4. University of Georgia students averaged six AP courses while in high school.

Going up the selectivity chain, the average at Harvard is eight AP classes. That said, you won't impress colleges with a laundry list of AP courses, especially if they have no relation to what you want to study, and especially if it drags down your GPA or you don't pass the exams.

The goal is to challenge and enrich your high school curriculum, not to spread yourself thin. Our one-on-one online AP tutoring services can help you prepare for your AP exams.

Get matched with a top tutor who got a high score on the exam you're studying for! You need to challenge yourself, but not overload your schedule.

Also keep in mind your target schedule depends on which type of college you are trying to get into, and the AP availability at your school. As a general rule, you should aim for the following AP class numbers:. This will end up being between 7 and 12 AP courses. Selective Schools Top : APs in most core courses, plus one or two additional courses. This will end up being between 4 and 8 AP courses. Less Selective Schools: APs in some core courses, or in courses related to your anticipated major.

This will end up being between 1 and 5 AP courses. But how do you fit these courses into a four-year high school plan? This is our suggested schedule for a relatively ambitious student:. Freshman Year: Consider taking one or two AP classes that are less demanding and build on skills from middle school, including Environmental Science, Human Geography, or Psychology.

In your core courses, take honors classes if possible so you can begin earning prerequisite skills for tougher AP classes down the line. Sophomore Year: Take one to three AP classes. Continue to take honors courses if possible in your other core classes. Take as many as you can handle without spreading yourself thin, and make sure you will have time to study for the ACT or SAT this year.

An Ivy League hopeful might take 3 to 5 AP classes, while if you're aiming for less-selective schools, 2 to 4 would be enough. Senior Year: Take more APs in core subjects and additional subjects, again being careful not to overburden your schedule and to leave time for college applications. It's not uncommon for applicants to highly selective schools to have as many as 5 or 6 AP classes senior year, but keep your own schedule and limits in mind. Adding one more AP class will not have a huge effect on your college chances at this point, but it could significantly reduce the time you spend on applications and therefore hurt your admission chances.

Be careful about burning yourself out, especially senior year. You will need to devote lots of time and energy to your college apps! Below is a chart summarizing the above information. And again, these rules aren't hard and fast, as there is no set formula for admission to the most selective schools. The bottom line is to take the most challenging cour se load you can handle while also doing very well academically. Your target schedule could also look different if you spend a huge amount of time on one activity, like playing an instrument or doing a sport, speech and debate, or college-level research.

This is especially true if you compete or participate at a national level. When choosing AP classes, prioritize subjects that are genuinely interesting to you and you would like to continue in college before you choose AP classes just for the sake of AP.

Also, think about your grade level and experience with AP classes before signing up. Don't jump into four AP classes your sophomore year if you've never taken them before.

Learning how to study for the exams and pacing yourself is tough. This can be hard with just one or two exams, let alone a handful. All Rights Reserved. The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University. Recently viewed. Find Your Dream School. AP Home 5 Guarantee Tutoring. Get Started Now!