AP Study Guide - How did students admitted to prestigious universities study for the AP?

Today, I will be posting about the Advanced Placement (AP) needed to achieve a competitive GPA. I will explain in detail how to prepare for the AP subjects and the AP exam that will be held in May of the following year.

I will share the know-how of how students who have chosen AP as a subject, maintained a good GPA, and received excellent scores in the AP exam were admitted to prestigious universities.

First of all, AP stands for Advanced Placement, a system that allows high school students to take college-level courses. It’s almost the same level as a college course, but in fact, it’s a bit easier than the first year of college.

Advantages of taking AP Higher score when converted to Weighted GPA. Save on college tuition by getting the credit you need to earn at the university in advance. Emphasize the academic excellence of the student. Due to the recent GPA Inflation phenomenon, the credibility of the GPA has not declined. As the SAT has also become optional, there are various students who submit scores and those who do not. Therefore, it would be good to remember the fact that the importance of AP, which can be objectively evaluated within the same standard, is increasing. A 4.0 full score Unweighted GPA can be received as a GPA above 4.0 when converted to a Weighted GPA with a weight on the AP subject. If you take AP and also score in that subject, the Unweighted GPA can go up to 4.5~4.7.

• AP Study Plan

Regarding the AP study plan, I will explain it divided into two cases. Most high schools do not offer AP to 10th-grade students, or it is common to only allow them to take one subject.

Case 1. 1 AP-If you plan to take 1 AP in the next grade Then I will talk about the first Case 1. 1 AP study plan. If you take the AP US History subject in 10th grade, our advice is this. Since AP is one subject, it’s okay to start studying AP after school starts. However, there is one thing to keep in mind. You must start practicing real problems in April of the following year. Many students study according to the school progress and just go to the May exam, but you should never do that. At least from April, you should practice solving real problems and then take the May exam.

Case 2. 2 or more APs - If you are going to take 2 or more APs in one grade Even if you only took one AP in 10th grade, you will take two or more APs in one grade in 11/12th grade. Many 11th/12th grade students take 4 APs in one grade. If you are going to take so many AP subjects, you need time to prepare before the semester starts. In the second case, I will tell you about the study plan of a student who applied for 4 APs such as AP Cal AB/BC, AP Physics, AP World History, AP Language. First of all, before the semester starts, during the summer vacation, it is recommended to study two subjects in advance! It is recommended to select one subject from STEM (AP Cal AB/BC) and one subject from NON-STEM (AP World History) for study. Even if you only have 2-3 weeks left before school starts due to a busy summer vacation schedule, you must study AP. Realistically, I would say that you should cover at least 50% per subject. The two AP subjects that you couldn’t start during the summer vacation can be studied together as soon as the semester starts.

Case 2-1 ) Taking 4 APs without Olympiad As mentioned above, if a student who is studying diligently and hard from the start of the semester does not prepare for the Olympiad while taking 4 AP subjects, of which 2 subjects covered about 50% in the summer, you should start the real problem in April as explained above. If you don’t have a plan to participate in the Olympiad competition, even if the school progress has not all gone out, start solving real problems for all AP subjects in April. Be careful! You should be careful about just trusting the school and following the school's progress! There are often cases where some schools do not plan for the exam and only cover about 85% to 90% in early April. If the school AP subject progress has not all gone out, study in advance yourself and start practicing solving real problems in early April!

Case 2-2 ) Taking 4 APs with Olympiad If a student is preparing for the Olympiad while taking 4 AP subjects, you should have the following study plan. Before school starts, cover 70% of the progress of two AP subjects during the summer vacation, not 50%, You should move with a plan to reach 100% of those two subjects in November or December. Most of them switch to Olympiad preparation in February or March, and after the Olympiad is over, they return to AP study.

At the end of the school year in May, there is an AP Test. The AP Test is divided into MCQ, which is objective, and FRQ, which is subjective. If you meet a good teacher at the high school you are attending, they will take out the progress in advance and practice the real problems carefully, but in fact, most teachers are not. Therefore, rather than just trusting the school's progress and the teacher, the student must carefully plan and prepare. I will tell you a useful tip that you can study alone.

FRQ Subjective It is a method of using the College board. Unfortunately, the College Board does not provide MCQ past questions, but it does provide FRQ past questions. Set the search term as AP subject name + Scoring Guideline and find the result! You can download the scoring guideline and answer from the College Board in file format. The image is blurry, but since the answer and scoring guidelines are provided like this, it is a good way to study in the right direction.

• MCQ Objective Market Textbook In the case of solving MCQ problems that the College Board does not provide, you have to find a problem book in the market and solve it. Unfortunately, the market textbook does not clearly state the submission intention of the College Board, which is in charge of the AP Test, but anyway, solving many problems is helpful, so it would be good to make good use of the market textbook problems.

• IPE You should be able to find information about the guidelines and scoring methods provided to teachers who teach AP at high schools through a search. Although it is not a recent AP question, you can get big information while looking at the overall trend. I recommend you study with IPE from around April after studying MCQ with a market textbook in advance.

To summarize the AP subject study plan, it is as follows.

• Before the semester starts, cover about 50% of half of the subjects you are taking and start the semester! • Start practicing real problems in April for the May AP Test! • Don’t just trust the school's progress, but cover 100% of the AP curriculum by yourself and start solving problems in April!

We hope you make good use of the AP study plan we have told you about and get good scores in GPA and AP Test.