Last Updated on September 30, 2026
Quick answer: How many AP classes should I take? There is no magic number. Colleges evaluate whether you took the most rigorous courses available at your school that you can succeed in, especially in core subjects and your intended field. Taking every AP at the expense of your grades, sleep, or depth in activities is rarely the best strategy.
AP: Advanced Placement or “as Possible”?
We frequently get asked by our students and/or their parents: How many AP classes should I take to be competitive for US colleges?
The question betrays a misunderstanding of what US colleges are looking for. Only when you have a deeper appreciation for how schools actually look at applicants’ transcripts and test scores can you begin to understand the answer to “how many AP classes should I take?”
How Colleges Review Applications
The best US schools get many thousands of applications for their first-year class from all over the world. The admissions office wants to select the best students from among these applicants.
Presumably, a key measure for determining who these “best” students are is how well they performed academically in high school. As a result, all US colleges ask students to submit their transcripts, GPAs and any academic honors they received in high school (like valedictorian). [1]
The Problem With Comparing High Schools
Each high school is different. This is true of every US high school, where the curriculum is not standardized across the nation.
It is even more true for the large body of international applicants from all over the world.
Each school offers different courses, has a different student body, and has different teachers.
If each high school is different, how are admissions officers supposed to differentiate between two top students from two different high schools? Are they equally qualified? Is one more qualified than the other?
To be clear, it is not just a question of “smarter”. The top student at a very fancy school might be seen as a less attractive student than a top student from a school with far fewer resources, even if the first student took many AP classes and the latter student didn’t.
Why Standardized Tests Matter
While colleges could choose to simply rely on relationships with particular high schools, as they once did for schools like Andover and Exeter, this is in fact no longer the case.
Instead, college admissions offices have come up with a complicated, time consuming, and ultimately subjective process by which they seek to do their best to determine how students from one school compare to students from other schools, seeking to account for discrepancies between schools in terms of their size, resources and curricula. Part of this process involves asking the high schools themselves to prepare profiles explaining their curriculum, philosophy and extracurriculars.
One part of this subjective but integral analysis is how students perform on standardized tests. Standardized tests are so important precisely because they are standardized, and thus allow for easy comparison.
Now:
Take 2 students from 2 schools – Ace and Bo. Ace got an A in his advanced math class, Bo got a B. However, Ace earned a 3 on the AP Calculus BC exam, while Bo earned a 5.
So, who knows math better?
Given the wide discrepancies between curricula, it would be very easy to explain away Bo’s B grade as a the result of a bad teacher, a harder class or numerous other reasons. You couldn’t really explain away his 5, however.
So, How Many AP Classes Should I Take?
1. What is available.
Colleges look to see if you took a very rigorous curriculum relative to what is available at your high school. If your high school only offers one AP class, then it is fine to just take one. If your high school offers 10, it won’t look particularly good if you only took one, as there will probably be many students who take all or most of the ones offered. [2]
2. Curriculum trumps GPA.
Taking a less rigorous curriculum to keep your GPA up will usually backfire. You don’t have to take every advanced class, but you have to take what would be considered one of the most demanding course loads your high school offers if you want to be competitive for top US schools. While having a high GPA is undoubtedly important, your performing well on the parallel standardized test can help compensate for imperfections in your GPA.
3. IB is great.
If you have the option of taking IB courses, those are great! Even though the IB is not as popular in the US as APs, all colleges are familiar with it and it is considered very rigorous. One advantage IB students have: You can only take IB exams if you take IB courses. But you can take AP exams even if you did not take an AP course. Taking extra exams on top of a full IB program rarely adds much, though. Our comparison of IB vs AP explains how colleges view each.
4. Take the exams for the APs you are enrolled in.
Sit for the AP exam in each AP course you take, and prepare for it seriously. Piling on exams you have not studied for is not worth it, and self-studying extra APs is rarely the best use of your time. Solid scores in the courses you took, however, confirm the rigor on your transcript.
5. AP classes cannot replace interest.
APs are a great way to demonstrate academic talent, if those are the best options available to you. However, they are pretty useless when it comes to demonstrating leadership, interest, initiative, personality – all the other things outside of academics which are so important to the admissions offices. But other learning opportunities can demonstrate those traits, such as:
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- Publishing a paper on an academic subject in a peer-reviewed journal
- Taking a college-level course in a subject for which there is no AP (like, for example, Yiddish)
- Performing research or fieldwork for a professor
- Taking a summer class at a US university
If any of these align with your application persona, or the central theme of your application, they show not only that you can excel in a subject, but that you are enthusiastic about the subject and willing to find ways to excel at it beyond the bounds of your high school’s curricular offerings.
For the admissions offices, at least, that is the highest form of advanced placement.
What Selective Colleges Expect From Your Course Load
Selective colleges put rigor at the center of their academic review. Yale calls your high school transcript the single most important document in your application and looks for students who have consistently taken a broad range of challenging courses and done well in them. [2] Stanford states that its primary criterion for admission is academic excellence, which it describes as flawless or nearly flawless grades in rigorous courses. [3] Notice that both statements pair rigor with performance. A heavy AP load with slipping grades does not meet either standard.
A Sample Way to Plan Your APs
Every school is different, but many students at schools with a full AP catalog follow a pattern like this:
- 9th grade: Build a solid foundation in honors or advanced courses, where available, and explore your interests.
- 10th grade: Try one or two APs in subjects you know you enjoy, if your school allows it.
- 11th grade: Take on your most demanding year, with APs in core subjects and your intended field.
- 12th grade: Keep the rigor up. Colleges see your senior schedule, and a lighter load can raise questions.
Ask your counselor what the most demanding schedule at your school looks like, then build toward something close to it in the subjects that matter most to you. For subject-by-subject advice, see our guide to choosing your AP courses, and for what happens after the exams, read Do AP Test Scores Matter?
When Fewer APs Is the Smarter Choice
Sometimes the right answer is to take one fewer AP. If a serious long-term commitment already fills your afternoons, adding another AP may cost you more than it gains. The same is true if an AP in a subject far from your interests would crowd out an elective that connects directly to your intended major. Admissions officers read your transcript alongside your activities and essays, so they can see when a lighter schedule in one area made room for real depth in another. The key is to make that tradeoff on purpose and be ready to explain it, not to drift into an easier schedule.
Plan the Right Course Load for College Success
Figuring out how many AP classes to take can feel overwhelming, but you don’t have to guess. Our admissions experts will help you balance rigor with strategy, show you how APs fit into your overall application, and work with you to build the profile top colleges want to see.
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