If you do AP exams...

[Janeway]

Do you always purchase an AP course? or do you study the AP course material at home and prepare for the exam? 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Do you always purchase an AP course? or do you study the AP course material at home and prepare for the exam? 

 

I have designed several courses that I taught or guided at home that met AP criteria (mostly history/government).  One son did AP Computer Science with the online course from Amplify (now called Edhesive https://course.edhesive.com/). DS2 is doing AP Latin with The Lukeion Project.

 

I am doing two more syllabuses now (English Lit and US History).  DS2 is interested in self-studying for a couple more courses.  He seems to think he could get through Human Geography or English Language without doing a full course.  I think he's probably right on the English Language, but I'm not sure about Geography.

[dirty ethel rackham]

One of my kids self-studied for an AP exam.  We didn't get a course approved, so I could not list it as an AP course on his transcript, but we did find a syllabus online that would be preparatory for the exam. 

[GoodGrief]

For the most part, we have purchased AP courses. I think my daughter will be taking the Chinese Language and Culture exam in May though, without an official AP course as prep, because her dual enrollment Chinese course fell through for second semester.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I've designed several AP courses myself.  My oldest has taken a few AP courses online this year but that has been for 1 of 2 reasons: using subject matter experts (foreign language and math are two such subjects) or at her request to facilitate transitioning to non-mom teachers.  Perhaps not everyone would need to subscribe to reason number two but I highly recommend considering reason number one when planning ahead.

 

 

[mumto2]

We did Calculus without a formal course. We did do the review on Coursera. Barron's review book. Planning to do more using the review book this year. English Language and Computer Science.

[JeanM]

My older ds has taken four AP tests so far. For two of them, he took the class at the local public high school (they allow part-time enrollment). The other two, calculus and physics, he did at home without an official syllabus. Luckily for us, the school is willing to let him take any AP test he wants, even ones for which they don't have a class.

[carala eva]

I bought a AP course online for my daughter, it is good, she learn AP Chinese language and culture course, hope she can pass this test.

[merylvdm]

I didn't like teaching to the test so I only got the kids to write APs where I knew we would cover the material. I used whatever I had planned to and then just got them to work through the Princeton Review book for the subject 2 weeks before. 

 

We used Sonlight and did use their Brit Lit course which was designed so that students could easily take the AP Lit afterwards. Mine also did AP Lang. All 3 did AP US History - s used a course which I devised and I now make available free to anyone (it's on FundaFunda.com).

 

One son taught himself Java and then wrote the AP Computer Science. Some did Economics, some did Government, some did Spanish (they did have a teacher for that) and one did Chemistry. They got between 3 and 5 on their exams (largely reflecting the effort they put in) and all ended up as AP scholars with distinction.

[AK_Mom4]

DD15 did the AP Calc AB test this year self-study without any difficulties.  There are lots of syllabi out there you can find online and the previous years tests are available for practice.