Do students generally take AP biology and AP chemistry without first taking regular biology or regular chemistry?

[JadeOrchidSong]

Title says it all. Thanks! 

[Roadrunner]

There are some really extraordinary kids on this board who have done this without first taking an intro course. I would think for most kids a good honors level course (at last for chemistry) would be advisable prior to AP Chem. I think AP Bio is probably less likely to need a prequel, but I am told it is better taken after AP Chem because Chem background is very helpful. 
I also think it depends on a child’s age. Again some kids on this board have managed those courses at a young age, but you will have more luck without introductory courses with older kids. 

[AEC]

Most AP Bio classes require that you have taken chem and a previous bio class.  Most ap chem classes require that you have taken a prev chem class. It can be done without that, but the classes are already a full load and a lot of work even with the pre-requisites.

[JadeOrchidSong]

Ds15 will take Bridge to AP Calculus 1 in the summer. Then he will take AP European history, AP calculus 1 and AP chemistry. He took chemistry with Grandpa during elementary years. He is very motivated. 

[daijobu]

Check the class you are interested in for its own prerequisites.  Sometimes AP bio will require chemistry as a prereq for example.

My own dd took AP chem at PAH freshman year without any high school chemistry prior, just middle school level science.  Sophomore year she took AP bio at SOHS, which I think required a year of chemistry prior.  Otherwise she'd had no high school biology prior.    

[cuckoomamma]

My older dd had done a few lectures from Thinkwell AP bio before taking AP bio as a sophomore but hadn't had any prior bio before that. She took AP Chem without prior Chem. Got a 5 in both or a 5 and a 4, can't remember :)

[Reefgazer]

For the typical student, I would not recommend either of those without a solid high school biology or chemistry first.

[lvmom]

This is the exact thread I was searching for...dd will be a 9th grader next year and we are in the planning stages. I am overwhelmed reading through the info on AP classes. Growing up in early 90s, you took your bio, chem, physics, and an AP science your senior year. But I hear and see at my local ps that kids take AP all throughout in various classes? I'm perplexed! But looking through this thread, the comments vary...some have taken the AP classes with no earlier intro class and others recommend against it. How many AP's are these kids expected to take to demonstrate rigor,etc. as homeschoolers (or just as teens)?

[8filltheheart]

22 minutes ago, lvmom said:

This is the exact thread I was searching for...dd will be a 9th grader next year and we are in the planning stages. I am overwhelmed reading through the info on AP classes. Growing up in early 90s, you took your bio, chem, physics, and an AP science your senior year. But I hear and see at my local ps that kids take AP all throughout in various classes? I'm perplexed! But looking through this thread, the comments vary...some have taken the AP classes with no earlier intro class and others recommend against it. How many AP's are these kids expected to take to demonstrate rigor,etc. as homeschoolers (or just as teens)?

What are the student's goals and objectives?  Yours?  I think the answer to how many APs a student takes depends on the student, their strengths, their interests, and whether those match up with APs.

In terms of college admissions, it depends on the type of school being targeted.  I have 2 in college right now who didn't take APs or DE or take outside classes to demonstrate rigor.  THeir rigor was demonstrated through the coursework they completed at home.  But, they didn't apply to top competitive schools.  But, they did both earn scholarships, 1 was awarded the top competitive scholarship offered by her U. 

[fourisenough]

My oldest three girls all took/will have taken about 7 AP’s in high school total. They all took AP Bio as seniors after having taken a prior honors biology class. 

Some students take 10-12+ APs, but I would say that’s not at all typical.

[mjbucks1]

This really is student specific.  Our oldest is an easy-going, extremely bright kid.  He took high school bio in 7th grade and high school chem in 8th grade.  So he went on to take AP Chem in 9th, AP Physics (algebra based) in 10th, AP Physics E&M and Mechanics in 11th, and AP Bio in 12th.  This is not typical, but I wanted to keep him challenged.  He ended up taking 10 AP classes in high school.

Our middle dd is bright, but gets a little more stressed when it comes to school.  She took high school bio in 8th grade, chem in 9th grade, AP Chem in 10th grade, regular physics in 11th grade, and DE physics and bio in 12th grade.  She ended up having 6 AP classes total (with 2 of those being self-study) and 5 DE classes. 

In general, I think it is a very good idea to at least have a high school chem course before taking AP Chem, but I know there are some very bright kids who could just jump right into AP Chem.  

I would look at what interests your child has, and what his/her goals are.  You do not need a ton of DE credit/AP classes.  We had different reasons for doing AP/DE for each child.  For our oldest, I was simply running out of ways I felt that I could challenge him at home.  For our middle daughter, we worked on getting a lot of the core classes she would need in college out of way so that she could double major and get a teaching certificate (which is almost like a triple major at her school) and complete her degree in four years. 

I think it is really hard not to compare what you are doing with others, but one of the reasons we homeschool is to tailor our childrens' education to their individual needs.  Do what makes sense for your children 🙂  

[GoodGrief3]

One of my daughters took AP Bio without having taken a previous hs biology course. She did have physics and chemistry first though. 

[vonfirmath]

On 4/29/2020 at 1:27 AM, JadeOrchidSong said:

Title says it all. Thanks! 

Our HS allows AP Biology with prerequisite of a Chemistry or a Biology course.
So my son is taking Honors CHemistry next year and AP Biology in 10th. We will see how it goes.

Edited March 2, 2021 by vonfirmath

[vonfirmath]

11 hours ago, lvmom said:

This is the exact thread I was searching for...dd will be a 9th grader next year and we are in the planning stages. I am overwhelmed reading through the info on AP classes. Growing up in early 90s, you took your bio, chem, physics, and an AP science your senior year. But I hear and see at my local ps that kids take AP all throughout in various classes? I'm perplexed! But looking through this thread, the comments vary...some have taken the AP classes with no earlier intro class and others recommend against it. How many AP's are these kids expected to take to demonstrate rigor,etc. as homeschoolers (or just as teens)?

My son will be a 9th grader and I am seeing the same thing. If a AP course is available, there is no Honors non-AP Course available -- its assumed the child will take AP. We've got a preliminary plan written but I expect it will change as we see how my son handles the course load.

[8filltheheart]

Remember that you don't necessarily have to replicate a brick and mortar school in your homeschool.  I have found that my kids' transcripts have stood out bc they used homeschooling to their advantage.  (It also makes it easy to explain why they chose to homeschool vs attend school.)  Just bc your local school does a long list of APs to demonstrate rigor, your student can opt for an alternative path and still demonstrate rigor.

For example, my college sr didn't take AP English, but her English credits included courses like Russian literature and a Senior Capstone Thesis (she spent the yr reading and researching Shakespeare.)  She had  long list of languages, but not a single AP.  She graduated from high school fluent in French.   She had a French credit for French literature (she read Les Mis in French with a Francophone who was new to the US and missed her grandkids who were dd's age.)  She had a history credit for French history where she read a French history book in French, etc. (She was awarded this scholarship: https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/undergraduate_admissions/honors_and_scholars_programs/top_scholars/selection_process/index.php She is one of the 20 OOS McNair Scholars)

My college freshman is majoring in atmospheric science.  She had earth systems and meteorology as a high school science credit.  She also received a scholarship.  (in her case it is an automatic scholarship based on GPA and test scores.  They accepted my GPA from my homebrewed courses.)

You need to make sure that you check off the boxes for what admissions requires, but in most cases, you do not need to replicate your local ps.   There are schools where they like to post stats about how many APs and DE crs their acceptances have taken (GA Tech does this.)    So, you can take a couple of approaches.  You can match your student's profile to a university's mindset.  Or you can find a university that matches yours.  For some families it is the first.  For some it is the latter.  

 

[gstharr]

11 hours ago, fourisenough said:

My oldest three girls all took/will have taken about 7 AP’s in high school total. They all took AP Bio as seniors after having taken a prior honors biology class. 

Some students take 10-12+ APs, but I would say that’s not at all typical.

At the 10th grader's school, honors math/science and AP math/science are separate tracks.  Almost all on both  AP tracks, end up with 10-12 AP classes because of the six from math and science.  Honors track  end with AB in 12th,  AP math is BC.

[Clemsondana]

My 9th grader is almost through an AP chem text - kid should be at the 'Do the last few labs and start on practice tests' by the first week of April, having only had Life of Fred Chem in middle school.  But, this kid is advanced, used to studying advanced science independently and taking tests from Science Olympiad (they prep using college texts for some subjects), and only taking 1 AP.  They may do bio next year, mostly because that's the subject I teach so helping them will be easy.  

But...we've also decided that we're not interested in adjusting what we are planning to do to make lots of APs happen.  The AP science classes are at the level that the student would be working at anyway.  I'm not planning to contort their next science to fit APs - actually, they're likely to take the fun, discussion-based Bio 2 class that I teach at co-op with their friends.  As far as other APs, reading @8filltheheart's posts made me rethink this and convince my husband, who had been on the 'Wow - this kid can get 12 APs done!' bandwagon.  We will take AP exams if we can do them with minimum adjustment to what we had already planned to do (as with chem and bio) but we're not willing to make a class less interesting to take APs.  We could have prepped for AP government this year, but we enjoyed reading through the 'You Decide' Supreme Court decisions and MCT's 'Jefferson's Words'  and some other books that I chose, so we did that instead.  If kid decides to learn java, we may do the AP Computer Science test...or kid may take it DE, or kid may decide to do some more python on Coursera.  We'll make a plan once we know what kid wants to study, rather than choosing to learn java because it's on the test.  The only way that kids get large numbers of APs is to plan their schooling around the AP content.  Most kids take easier things in the lower grades (human geography seems common) and then do the science ones later.  I think a kid who is used to rigorous content wouldn't necessarily need to have taken an easier version already, but it really would be like showing up in a college class with little preparation in the subject - doable, but difficult.  

[teachermom2834]

No specific AP advice because we did not do them but as far as whether APs are needed or how many are needed- the answers are vastly different depending on what college plans are. I continue to hear of people extremely stressed about doing everything right to look good for colleges and the colleges they are applying to are not highly competitive colleges and all the stress is not necessary. 

I had a kid go to a tiny regional liberal arts college, a kid go to a huge out of state university, and another kid going to our state flagship. They did not have APs. They all got scholarships and honors program acceptances. My current senior is the only of the kids he knows that applied this year that got into the top honors program at the in state U. He has had no APs at all and he knows kids with APs and who won engineering scholarships who did not get into the top honors. So, lack of APs was not a problem for him.

Don't listen to me if your kids are trying to go to a school with a tiny acceptance rate. But most kids really do go to regular schools. Even super smart kids! So I'm not saying not to worry about APs, I'm just saying to make sure this is something you want to and need to worry about.

Another thing I think sometimes gets lost is that the kids with a ton of APs coming out of brick and mortar school- that's what they do at brick and mortar school. I don't know that a transcript of APs is going to knock anyone's socks off when every application looks that way.  In that case having something different than all APs probably piques more interest.

I have nothing against APs at all. Just make sure they are what you want and the right fit before you twist yourself up trying to fit that mold. It really is okay if you do something else. 

[Farrar]

Since the initial post was about the sciences, I'll just add that students usually do not take a general physics class before taking either of the physics AP's. They do usually take chem or bio first - but it depends. 

Seconding all these voices saying that homeschoolers simply don't have to take the AP route. But sometimes the best courses are AP. I mean if you want a really excellent high school English class and don't want to teach it yourself, Blue Tent's or some of the PAH instructors are excellent. It may be your best option. On the other hand, the race to get AP's... meh. Homeschoolers generally need something for validation, but that could be literally just really solid SAT/ACT scores coupled with home-based in depth and interesting coursework. Of course, it could also be a few or a lot of AP's or dual enrollment. But when you do that, you're going up against the kids who have a lot of AP's... and that may not be the students you want to be compared to.

[lvmom]

Wow! Thank you so much everyone! Such wonderful insight...I really do appreciate it.