“What AP classes should I take this year? What AP tests?” I thought to myself. “What would maximize my course load and get me enough college credits but still be manageable? I want my weighted GPA up, but I do not want to risk bringing my unweighted GPA down.” This balance is the struggle that every Irvington student tries to achieve.

Should I take APUSH? History seems easy, after all, it’s just the same thing we have learnt since elementary school except over and over again with more detail! But I heard that everyone gets a 2! A 2 does NOT give any college credits. And do I really want to spend 8 hours a night doing notes? I really won’t have time for that with all my other classes. But, doesn’t it look bad to colleges if you don’t “challenge yourself” at all, let alone with an “easy” class like history? Okay, hopefully it goes well. Adam Norris from YouTube is here to help!

At least I don’t have to worry about APES for another couple months. Everyone knows that you can just study for that test in a day. But, I should at least go over what I need to know, just to be safe. Food webs? Check. Global warming? Check. Pollution? Check, check, and check! I love having at least one guaranteed 5.

Honestly, taking an AP science class shouldn’t be too bad. Irvington is KNOWN for having difficult science classes. That’s okay, because if all else fails, I can rely on the AP test to bring me up to an A. Whoever created the AP test rounding system for science is a genius!

If I take AP Bio, all I need to remember is that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. AP Chem is like dissolves like. AP Physics is force equals mass times acceleration. I’m set! That 5 will carry me and my GPA to Berkeley.

How do I kill two birds with one stone? An art credit AND an AP? AP Art History is the way to go! APAH should be easy, right? It’s just art… right? I mean memorizing 200+ terms for the AP test can’t be THAT hard……. right?

AP Calc is definitely going to be the hardest class in my schedule and the hardest one of my AP tests. The only thing I know how to do right now is how to use y = mx + b to calculate the slope of my grade decline. Worst case scenario, I’ll just have to spend all my lunches doing math contests for extra credit because they don’t offer an AP test rounding system for math. At least I can pull some college credit because I know that I can get a 5 on the BC test if I just get all the AB questions right. It’ll be a major flex when I cop that 5 on BC!

And how bad can AP Lang and AP Lit be? They’re both just SAT Reading on steroids… or at least that’s what I heard. Also, AP Gov is supposed to be the easy AP right? Until they changed it to be exactly like APUSH… but at least it’s only for a semester, then econ hits. Should I sign up for that too?

Okay, whatever, I’ll just do them all. Whatever the counselors let me sign up for actually. Just one last thing: better check the AP Calendar to make sure they’re all on different days so my last minute cram session is successful!

Oh, how I can’t wait to be an overachieving, Ivy-League bound student in May!