How many non-science majors are likely to have taken AP Science courses? How many science and engineering majors are likely to have taken AP humanities courses? Sure, I suppose there are a few, but I think that people mostly take AP courses in their area of focus. I don't remember anybody, even the most gung-ho students, taking all of the available AP courses when I was in school -- and there weren't as many then as they offer today.
Well, when I was in high school most of the kids who were interested in science took all the AP classes (science and English/humanities) - I have always known my future was in science, but I was in honors classes all the way through school so I took the English etc AP classes and received college credit for them.
The opposite wasn't so much true at our high school - the kids who weren't interested in science, even though they were in honors courses, didn't tend to take the AP science/math courses and instead took electives in humanities. That was in a different time though (many many moons ago) and I don't know that what was needed for college applications then is relevant today - if you knew you wanted to major in a liberal arts field when I was in high school, you didn't need 4 years of math credits or much more than 2 years of science credit to get into a really good school.
Although my kids aren't in high school yet, the children of friends of mine who have been through high school in recent years and are in the AP track tend to take a mix of humanties/science classes, even though our school district allows kids to track into advanced science or advanced language arts without taking both advanced tracks.
polarbear
