Choosing classes isn’t easy, and with only eight slots per year, it can be a challenge figuring out a schedule that balances workload, GPA, and career relevance. Like many of you, I’ve spent my fair share of time juggling classes and agonizing over if I should take this or if I should drop that. To help students like you make more informed decisions, I surveyed current and former AP students, asking them which AP classes they thought were the most challenging, least challenging, and most worthwhile. Although the sample size was a bit small, there were enough responses to predict a couple of general trends.
Right away, something stands out immediately: Despite being rated as the most difficult class with 37% of all total respondents, AP Lang was also rated overwhelmingly as the most useful class, making up an incredible 48.1% of responses to that question. But why? Why do so many people say that AP Lang is worthwhile? After all, it is rated the most challenging class. As sophomore Uma F. states, “…I’ve already learned a lot from it and it gives you a new perspective and forces you to look deeper into everything. It’s going to be the most useful for college essays and future interviews as well.” Many other students echo this sentiment, with juniors Anvi V, Alex Q, and Alvin Q asserting that “the class is worth it because it teaches you how to write and analyze things,” “pushes you to think coherently and rationally,” and that it “alters the way you perceive the world.”
Something else notable is that AP Gov was rated as the least challenging course, with 40.1% of interviewees stating as such. It is important to be clear that this doesn’t mean that AP Gov is an easy class, however. It is still an AP. As someone who’s taken AP Gov, it is comparatively lighter than some other classes, but there’s still a fair amount of commitment that’s required. AP Gov’s rating as less challenging also doesn’t mean that it’s less useful for college applications. It still counts as a 5.0 for your GPA, doing well on the exam can only help you, and it is a nice class to ease you into the workload of some harder APs.
Furthermore, it’s important to consider more than just challenge rating and a generic metric of “usefulness” when deciding what to take; it is also important to consider how relevant each class is to your career. For example, Josh R, a senior, responded that AP Calculus was his most useful class due to the fact that he intends to pursue engineering, and having prior calculus knowledge will help immensely. Similarly, junior Libby P declared AP Gov to be her most useful class, a result of her intentions to study law after graduation. Finally, it’s very important to consider if you’ll actually enjoy the class you’re taking. If the class is truly fun to you, even the most menial assignments will feel engaging in comparison to wading through a swamp of homework for a class you don’t enjoy.
Overall, based on my own experiences and the data I collected, I would say that the AP classes most worth taking are AP Lang, because of how it teaches you to think deeper; AP Gov, because it’s a good class to prepare you mentally for some harder APs; and APs that are related to the career you want to do, because they will boost your major application more than unrelated classes and it always helps to have some prior knowledge.
