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AP US History?
As some of you may know first-hand, AP US History is a rigorous United States history course. It's essays, tests every week, and more essays, plus the midterm is known for being supremely difficult.
According to my friends who have taken it, APUSH (as we students so fondly call it) is hell on earth.
Our summer work for APUSH is: Six essays as well as a 1-page-long introduction to ourselves. Due 19th September.
But...I'm not sure if i want to do APUSH. Or rather, if APUSH is really a class for me. Because:
1. History is my least favorite subject.
2. I'm already taking Honors Math Analysis, Honors English III, and Honors Physics
3. I play varsity volleyball, track, and lacrosse
4. I'm in a lot of extracurriculars/volunteer programs
5. PSATs & SAT IIs, enough said
6. Last year, I tried taking on honors history too, but I had to drop it after a month because I wasn't used to all the work. If I had stayed, I most certainly would have failed the semester.
The problem is, I don't have another AP course on my schedule, and I really need to have one so my chances are higher for getting into Princeton University (or Columbia).
Also, I want to wait and see how APUSH is for myself. BUT, I don't want to do the essays and then end up dropping the class. Also I could not do the essays, but end up keeping the class, which would mean I would have to pull 6 essays from deep out of my ass in a tiny amount of time.
so..what is your opinion? should i take it or not? thanks a lot in advance!!
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Maybe give some free advice about: School?
i agree with the other person, this is a class where you actually have to be somewhat interested in some of the material. your schedule is already tough. colleges wanna see you exceed. they would rather see you exceed in an honors class than fail in an ap class.
also, its gonna be really hard if you have a lot of extra curriculars.
i agree, it would be nice to have on your transcript, but in this case i think it would be better to just take honors or regular instead of ap.
hope i helped !
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To take APUSH and do well in it, you have to WANT to take it. Taking the class because you feel you have to is not going to do you any good. If history is your least favorite subject, you will not like the class. And if you don't like a class where you have an insane amount of work in, you're not going to do well.
You list out six reasons of why you shouldn't take the class, but don't even bother listing reasons why you should take it.
Come on, you know the answer here. You just want to be told not to take it, so I will; don't take it.
However, if you ignore my advice (it's extremely slipshod most of the time, anyway), here are some links with notes you can use from each chapter. They're extremely useful and saved me hours of work, because I don't have any morals when it comes to copyng APUSH notes off teh internetz.
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if you are truly set on going to princeton or columbia, then definitely take it. colleges love AP courses. however, the class seems like a lot of work especially with an already difficult schedule on top of sports, extracurriculars, and SATs. if history isn't your best subject, have you considered taking a different AP class and dropping to honors history? any AP course will be extremely difficult, but maybe taking a subject you like and understand better would make the year a little easier. just keep in mind that if you plan on getting into an ivy league school, you have to be prepared to do the work it takes to get in. & always remember that it'll pay off in the end!
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If you can't handle it, don't take it.
You don't want to set yourself up to fail.
An AP course that is pretty easy & still related to History is AP Us Governemnt & Politics.
There are rarely any essays. The AP exam was a joke. You would be taking it right around election time (as it is a first semester course), so you would probably have a very interesting course (I took it fall of '07 when we were still looking at all the '08 candidates, etc).
There are NO DBQs like in APUSH (thank goodness!), and it's a lot of fun to learn about the government &/or discuss what you know.
AP European History is difficult, but some people say it's easier than APUSH. IDK about that, though. If you live in the US, I would think APUSH would be easier because you would know more about US History.
Anyway, if you don't think you can handle it, I wouldn't take it.
If you have the opportunity to take the class & drop it without it hurting your GPA if you aren't doing well in it, I would really encourage you to do that.
I want to say you should at least try it, but I understand not wanting to take a course that you don't believe in yourself with.
If you haven't been able to handle honors history classes in the past because it's too much work, then DON'T take APUSH.
AP US Gov't & Politics isn't a lot of work. It's a lot of knowing about the governemnt, paying attention in class, and note taking. That's basically all I did in my APGP course.
Think about the pros & cons, and consider an other AP classes you could take.
AP classes look better than honors courses (although they both look way better than regular).
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