Austin Scholar #128: How apps are better for AP prep than a classroom
& what I’ve been up to…
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
How apps are better for AP prep than a classroom
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been up to…
This last Monday was my dad’s birthday, so I just wanted to take this space to express how truly grateful I am for him and everything he’s done for me. My dad is the most inspiring person I know and his commitment to transforming education to help millions of kids makes me want to work harder on my newsletter every day. His hugs are so warm and watching him banter with my sister never fails to bring a smile to my face. And watching some baseball games with him this last week was incredible – I learned about investing, pitching strategies, and history throughout our conversations during the game. I love you, dad, and hope you had the best birthday ever!!
How apps are better for AP prep than a classroom
I can’t claim to be a total expert in AP exams (that honor goes to my best friend who took, like, 10 AP courses and got all 5s), but I did alright. I took seven AP exams and got four 5s and three 4s. (And it’s not just the two of us getting high scores – 95% of Alpha students got 4s and 5s on their APs last year, which is pretty cool.)
As you know if you've been around for a while, I haven't had a teacher since the fourth grade. I didn't study for my AP exams in a formal classroom – everything I needed to ace my tests came from the online apps I used to study.
I cared a lot about my APs because I knew I wanted to get into a good college, so I spent a ton of time strategizing about which tests to take and how to prepare for them.
So if your kid is getting ready to start high school or wants to be better prepared for their AP exams this year, here are my recommendations on what AP exams to take and how to study for them:
Freshman year:
AP Human Geography
This is honestly my number one recommendation for students to take their freshman year. The exam itself isn’t that challenging and is a great introduction to writing free response questions. For this course, I would recommend checking out the Mr. Sinn YouTube channel and Ultimate Review Packet, along with TeachTap. Additionally, making sure you know the task verbs for the FRQs is crucial. For FRQ practice, I would recommend using past exams FRQ questions and asking ChatGPT to grade your responses.
Sophomore – Senior year:
Everyone’s interests and skill sets are different, so there’s no “one clear path” that will work for everyone, but if your kid is aiming for a top 20 college, along with a 1500+ SAT score, they should have three 5s on hard AP exams. There’s no set list, but here are some of the widely-accepted “hard APs”:
AP World History
AP US History
AP Language and Composition
AP Literature and Composition
AP Biology
AP Chemistry
AP Physics 1 & 2
AP Physics C
AP Calculus BC
Depending on your kid’s interest, they can mix-and-match at least three of the above courses to get their academic resumé up to par.
To study for these exams, I would recommend using the following: