The importance of AP courses in high school
August 6, 2012
Two of the most important numbers that will appear on your college applications are your GPA and SAT scores. While these certainly tell your prospective school how much you excel overall as a student and how great a test taker you are, they don't reveal one important aspect of your character - how much do you challenge yourself?
Passing classes and quizzes with flying colors is important and essential to getting into your top schools, but colleges want to know that you're a student who knows how to set goals and rise to challenges. What's more, you'll find that college academics are far more amorphous than high school. There is no honor roll, and self-motivation is key to reaching the top of your class. College asks more of you than being well rounded - you need to excel toward being the best in your field.
In that regard, Advanced Placement (AP) classes are the ideal primer. Not only will they give you a great glimpse inside the world of college academics, they will pop up on your application as medals of honor, proving that you pushed yourself beyond the limits of typical high school coursework.
So as the new school year starts and you think about registering, dropping and rearranging your schedule, be sure to take a few AP courses into account. Looking for help navigating those waters? Consider these tips for getting into college.
1. Keep AP credit in mind. One advantage of AP courses are the college credits you can glean from them. While not all schools recognize AP Credits, the ones that do may offer you the option to leap ahead of bland survey and 101 classes.
2. Don't stretch yourself. If you've known you'd be an English major since 3rd grade, don't push yourself to take AP Chem just because it's there. Just as you won't be expected to major in five different areas once you're in college, you shouldn't expect to excel in five different AP courses at once.
3. Don't let your GPA suffer. At the end of the day, your GPA is no less important than AP credit or the prestige of taking a challenging course. If you're in over your head, perhaps it's time to step back a level. This isn't failure, it's practicality, and you should be commended for recognizing it.
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