The AP Life

We didn't choose the AP life; the AP life chose us.

[theaplyfe]

Haiiii! So I'm a huge science nerd and there's a large probability that I may have a career involving science. I have to make a decision of doing IB or AP however, I'm not sure which one I want to do. Which one do you recommend me to do? Thank you for reading this long question 😂😂😊😊😊

I’m actually not that familiar with the IB program, but my understanding is that for IB, you will have to take multiple subjects at once, whereas AP it’s just one at a time (you can pick and choose what you wanna take). I could be completely off the mark here, of course. 

But as an AP-oriented blog, the instinct is for me to say AP. ;)

-Cindy

[studywithmariana]

Debunking the Triangle Myth

It’s very hard to find ways to keep up with all your college work and still keep a balanced life. Many people say that when you get into college, you need to choose from two vertices of the first triangle while sacrificing the third one. Well, I need to tell you that that’s completely not true!

If you plan and organize your life, you will be able to manage your sleep schedule, your studying sessions and your night-outs without sacrificing one of them.

The first thing you need to do is being realistic. Instead of sleeping 9 hours a day, perhaps you will need to cut back to seven hours a day, which will probably provide enough energy throughout the day without letting your feel the burnout. On the other hand, you need to ration the time you spend with your friends and family. The best way to do so is scheduling a fixed schedule to be with them and dedicate yourself 100% during that time. It’s not how much time you have available that matters. What matters is what you do with the time you have available. Cutting back on fundamental aspects of your life will really hurt your grades – and if it doesn’t hurt your grades right away, it will hurt your body and state of mind sooner than you think. Sleepless nights have a mark on your body. On the other hand, depriving yourself of time spent with your loved ones can hurt and destroy relationships and in the end of the day, you’ll find out that those grades aren’t as worth as much as that.

Another thing I recommend is finding some sort of physical activity that helps you manage energy levels. Even running 10 minutes a day will do wonders for your physical and mental health, letting you cope with high stress levels and the feeling of burnout. Try to unplug from your college activities, listen to some music and concentrate on your body rather than on your brain.

You also need to prioritize. Choosing tons of classes just to feel productive is a waste of time. Having a heavily crowded schedule just for the sake of it will result in lower grades and a lower ability to focus on those classes. Pick classes that you think you can personally enjoy but can also help you on your chosen career path. Try to keep both of those aspects in mind when you’re picking subjects for the next semester, or else risking signing up for classes that are just filling you with stress and won’t even matter when you get your diploma.

Find a way to get help. You are not alone in this path and many of your classmates are probably feeling the same way. Try to get together and find a way to share some tasks or somehow trade notes and materials to help each other. If you can attend a lecture for any reason, don’t hesitate to ask for the class notes and assignments. If one of your classmates skips a lecture because they are sick, don’t hold back and hand them those notes. Finding a reading group is great to divide huge books into manageable chunks and distribute them between the members, so you have less reading to do and are able to summarize your part in a better way and then share your summary with your colleagues.

Schedule some “me-time”. Don’t look at your personal space as a failure towards your productivity goals. Try to incorporate at least half-an-hour with yourself in your busy schedule, and stick to it religiously. I always read a novel from 10 p.m to 10.30. Even if I reach that hour without finishing all the tasks for college that I had set out for myself to accomplish, I will just close my laptop, put away my notes and I will just allow myself to be relaxed for that half an hour.

[studysarah-blog]

study playlists

hi guys!! as the school year’s beginning for many of us, i thought it’d be nice to put together a masterlist of study playlists, ranging from more upbeat songs to purely classical music!! bolded links are my personal favs!! enjoy :-)

chill

one // studykatie

two // yagirlmacy on 8tracks

three // alienvxbes on 8tracks

four // letsdancetojoydivision on 8tracks

five // syd the kid on 8tracks

instrumental

one // itrekstars on 8tracks

two // stars_before_nightfall on 8tracks

three (disney!!) // christabelleclaudine on 8tracks

four // coronaaustralis on 8tracks

five // gaby901 on 8tracks

jazz

one // hecticpages

two // bao hung.v on 8tracks

three // spoonhead on 8tracks

four // pdmaier on 8tracks

five // stinkeyjean on 8tracks

classical

one // adventuresatuni

two // thefebpersonalities on 8tracks

three // mairedumonde on 8tracks

four // mcarter.luc on 8tracks

five // martthasmith on 8tracks

(p.s. i’ll be adding more to this as i go, so keep an eye out!!)

[theaplyfe]

When are you announcing who can contribute to the blog? Also did you end up sending out that mass email because I never received one

gahh no I’m sorry :( 

I got to Cornell last week (??? whatever week the 21st was. that’s like 2 weeks ago I think) and once class started it was just hella crazy. I checked Tumblr a few times but for some reason it didn’t show me a notification that I had messages so I THOUGHT I HAD NONE SO I JUST DIDN’T LOG ON omg now I have so many messages. 

*ahem* I’m going to try to get this email thing done soon.

... cause yeah I need some help ._.

<3

[theaplyfe]

I just realized Cornell requires 3 years of a foreign language and requests a letter explaining any deficiencies in meeting their requirements be sent in with the application. I only took 2 years. I attempted to take a 3rd year online, but due to my course schedule and family medical issues I was unable to complete the course. Do you think this would make it pretty much impossible to be admitted? Cornell is my dream school, and I'm really bummed that I missed out on this requirement. :/

Hmm! I would contact the admissions office to find out!

OK so I read this again--

I think if you have any valid reasons (family medical issues definitely sounds like a valid reason!!) and can put that in a letter, then that will not work heavily against you :) But again--calling admissions office might be your best bet!

[theaplyfe]

On one of your posts about ap books reviews you said "rule of thumb". I wanted to point out to you that in the future you might want to use a different phrase because the origin of rule of thumb traces back to what was legal in terms of men beating their wives. A man could legally beat his wife with a stick as big as his thumb and be covered by the law, hence "rule of thumb". Just thought I'd let you know for the future.

That’s... random lol!

[theaplyfe]

Hey, sorry, my phone spazzrd and accidently sent the message. Yes, I got a 1. Since I was 7, my only dream in life was to go to Oxford, and I'm not worried about that because of my score. My parents are actively discouraging me attending Oxford and would rather have me go to Stanford or UC Berkley or UCLA or U of A. Problem is, I don't have a strong desire to go to any of those types of schools in the US. Oxford measures a student's potential to do better at their passion (part 2)

hey Anon! I didn’t get part one ._.

(maybe your phone is not so spazzy after all?)

[theaplyfe]

Are delayed scores common? My English Lit score still isn't showing up and I'm worried because the exam lady at my school messed some stuff up on the day of exams and it didn't have my AP number on it :c my second test did tho so she said it should be fine and I guess it isn't??

you’re definitely not the only one!!

just wait a bit longer; I’m sure it’ll show up soon. If it doesn’t by the end of this month (or maybe 2 weeks from now, even), I’d call collegeboard and ask them whats up. :)

[appsademia]

Okay, let’s clear some stuff up:

AP scores do not factor into college admissions.

You are not required to submit AP scores in your college apps.

If you do choose to submit AP scores as supplemental material, they are self-reported, meaning you can choose to submit only your best scores.

AP scores have ONE main purpose: to get you college credit. College credit won’t be calculated until after you’ve already been admitted and made your final decision, which leads us back to…

AP scores do not factor into college admissions.

[theaplyfe]

Anne is SPOT ON with this. Thank you, appsademia ! AP Scores are self reported. They do not factor into college admissions. You are not required to submit them. READ NUMBER FIVE AGAIN. 

Hope this calms some of you lovelies down <3

[appblrgirl]

AP Book Reviews

AP English Language Barron’s: (6/10) So this book starts off by asking you to annotate the passages. I’m going to be real with you…you aren’t going to have time to make meticulous annotations. None of the tests were particularly helpful, but the notes are somewhat useful if you aren’t a frequent writer/reader. Before taking the test, I memorized about 40 “hot terms” like synecdoche and apostrophe to use in my analysis essay, and got a 5. I wouldn’t say English is one of those tests you can’t study for, but it really is 50% natural writing skill and 50% practice. The best practice is to just check out old prompts from the collegeboard website. I would not recommend buying this book if you are on a budget!

AP U.S. History Barron’s: (7/10) If you are using this book while you are learning the material during class, it could be helpful because you are reading a condensed version. On the other hand, if you buy this book a week before the AP test, it’s not helpful because there is way too much reading to do. The practice tests do not capture the essence of the real test unfortunately. I would recommend buying this book at the beginning of the year.

AP Biology Barron’s: (8/10) I think I quickly skimmed this book front to back and got a 5. However, it was really Bozeman videos that helped me get through so, I would recommend buying this book at the beginning of the year, otherwise not worth it because of the online material. 

AP Statistics Barron’s: (10/10) This book is a must! The questions are a little harder than the actual exam so it really prepares you and it explains the actual reason behind the statistics instead of just telling you to plug and chug. I would recommend this book!

AP Chemistry Barron’s: (8/10) The book goes too in depth with some topics which are not major concepts that will be tested, I don’t think it is worth buying unless you are bad at chemistry (like I was). The practice problems are decent, and it’s actually kind of a fun read, but not the type of book I would be looking for the week before the AP test (Princeton Review is better for that).

AP Calculus Barron’s (7/10): Practice problems are much, much harder than the actual exam, which is good for practice but bad because it kills your self-esteem. The explanations in the chapters aren’t very helpful, so I would buy this book if you’re already pretty good at calc and are just looking for some practice problems.

AP Calculus Princeton R: (9/10) Would recommend buying at the beginning of the year, because it explains in very good details how to do everything. I did find some BC concepts missing from the chapters though. Overall, a good book that would guarantee at least a 4 on the test. The practice problems tend to be the same level as the actual exam.

AP Physics C Princeton R: (10/10) Pretty hefty book and a difficult subject to understand but if you get through the whole book with perfect understanding, there is no reason why you shouldn’t get a 5. Practice problems are very good, as are the explanations. 

Rule of thumb: Get Princeton for hard sciences where practice is key, get Barrons for humanity classes and where memorization is key.

[theaplyfe]

On a scale of 1-you're sweating the small stuff to 10-you'll never get far in life, how bad is a 3 on the AP World History exam? First time in AP as a sophomore? :(

this is a terrible scale aaaaaaa

Well, it sounds like you’re a high achieving student, so I don’t want to give it a 1. To put it in perspective for you, a 3 is:

- passing. you are deemed competent by the college board, whatever that means.- this year, 31% of student got 3s on the AP World History Exam. A 3 still places you in the top 50%. - depending on where you plan on going to college/where you go, colleges may or may not take the 3 for credit. It just depends. - Admission wise, it does not make you look super bad. It doesn’t make you look super good, either, but it doesn’t make you look bad. And you can choose not to self report it, I believe, on common app. (someone please correct me on this if I’m wrong)- for you personally, you’ve taken the course... and what you learned, you keep forever :) So if that means, in the future, if you take another World History course, you have a leg up! You may also have better writing skills! (for example) 

There is space to improve (there always is!! with any score!), of course, but a 3 is NOT as bad as what everyone thinks haha. :) Pat yourself on the back, you survived it!! but also think about what you can improve next AP season. Did you do less practice tests than necessary? Is it the writing that you need to work on? Reflect! 

[theaplyfe]

I got a 4 on my AP World History exam but my friend got a 5. I'm thinking of doing a pre-med program or majoring in biology. Should I send this score to my college (I'm a sophomore rn)? Thank you :) And ugh I feel so sad rn cuz of that dumb score >.<

4 is not a bad score at all. I got plenty of fours haha :) 

You don’t need to send scores to colleges; typically AP is a self-report thing on the Common App, *unless* the college specifically requests it for admission. Otherwise, as long as you send the score to the college that you attend sometime before you graduate (if you plan on claiming the credit), you’re golden.

How is 4 going to impact admissions to a program in undergrad premed or biology? Probably not that much, considering it’s APWH (history, not sciences) AND it’s not a bad score. :) 

Now, if you’re planning on applying to med school with that as a humanities credit (because some medical schools can take AP credits lol), I’d probably decide against that and just take another humanities class in college to fulfill that requirement (if there is such a requirement for that particular med school) instead. 

[democraticsenator]

It’s Ya Girl’s College Scholarship Masterpost

Hello internet civilians! As some of you may or may not know, my name is Dana and I am a high school senior that is ALWAYS on the prowl for trying to get to college for as cheap as possible. I’ve come across 1000′s of scholarships that I simply don’t qualify for, so I thought “hey, why not share these with random people on the internet that don’t know where to start?” You asked the question and only answers you shall receive.

Please remember to credit me for this masterpost because I spent a lot of time and energy on it :)

PLEASE ALSO REMEMBER THAT A SCHOLARSHIP IS WORTHLESS IF YOU DO NOT APPLY FOR IT. 

SO DO NOT JUST SAVE THIS POST IN YOUR DRAFTS AND NEVER USE IT. ACTUALLY WRITE AN ESSAY OR FOUR

Scholarship Databases:

fastweb.com

cappex.com

http://www.uncf.org/

http://schoolsoup.com/

http://www.tuitionfundingsources.com/

http://hsf.net

https://www.collegeboard.org/

http://apiasf.org/

http://hispanicfund.org

www.maldef.org

www.supercollege.com

www.finaid.org

www.collegeispossible.org

www.mach25.com

http://chegg.com

www.HBCUmentor.org

“Big” Scholarships That Cover: Tuition, Room Board, Books, or Full Scholarships

Gates Millenium

Posse Foundation

Coca-Cola Scholarship

AXA Scholarship

Dell Scholars Application

Ron Brown Scholarship Program

Burger King Scholars 

Horatio Alger Scholarship

Questbridge

Voice of Democracy Scholarship

Chick Evans Caddie Scholarship

Hertz Foundation Graduate Scholarship

+ 111 Full Tuition Scholarships to Universities!

Scholarships

(**Some May “Prefer” Minorities, But That Does Not Mean You Should Still Not Try For It**)

http://blackstudents.blacknews.com/

May/June 2015 Scholarships

http://www.fastweb.com/college-scholarships/articles/the-2015-scholarships

http://blackstudents.blacknews.com/opportunities/

Scholarships for Minorities: White House Edition

LGBT Scholarships

Buick Achievers Scholarships

Cultural Diversity Scholarships

50 LGBT Scholarships - 1 Application

50 Top Scholarships for 2014/2015

National Association of Black Journalists

7 Prestigious Undergrad Scholarships

The Jackie Robinson Foundation

500+ Scholarship List

Masterlist of College Minority Scholarships

4 Scholarships That Are Easy To Apply For

Do Something Campaigns

Need help on Scholarship Motivation?

HOW TO WIN A SCHOLARSHIP: FROM A GIRL WHO’S APPLIED FOR 300+ AWARDS

12 Tips on Winning Scholarships

Skip these 6 Scholarship Errors

Students with Average Grades Can Win Scholarships!

4 Ways To Make Your Scholarship Essay Stand Out

Get Rid of Student Loans!

How I Got Rid of 60k Student Loans in 3 years By Living in a Hotel

10 Steps To Minimize Loans

Minimize Student Loans

Know How Much Student Loans To Take 

Paying For College

Miscellaneous Articles That Are Good Reads

Out-of-State Colleges That Offer In-State Tuition

5 Myths About Financial Aid

How To Negotiate A Better Financial Aid Package

How To Read A Financial Aid Letter

How To Deal With A Low SAT Score

Great Schools That Accept Low SAT Scores

How To Demonstrate Interest in a College

I Told Harvard I Was An Undocumented Immigrant. They Gave Me A Full Scholarship.

Credit: @jesussbabymomma

[sociopathick]

NOBODY SKIP THIS REBLOG AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE IT MAY NOT HELP YOU BUT IT CERTAINLY HELPED ME I ALMOST SKIPPED OUT ON COLLEGE ENTIRELY !!

PLEASE REBLOG REBLOG REBLOG!!!!

[delphicoracle]

5 things to do at the end of a semester

Reorganize your desk and your computer

Whether you’re out of school for 3 months or just a couple of days, cleaning out your desk is the first thing you should do. Put the textbooks away and rearrange everything : you won’t think about school as much and it’ll most likely be relaxing. And don’t forget about your computer ! Delete the unnecessary documents and reorganize your files.

Store your notes and your exams

Buy a big binder or a folder and put all of your revision guides/flashcards/notes/etc in it. I don’t recommend ever getting rid of your old notes because you never know if you’ll need them later down the line. Also, if you have some of your exams, put them in there. They might come in handy someday !

Think about what you did

Think about your semester : what you did right and what you did wrong. Could you have studied more ? Should you have started your essay earlier ? Did you like your classes ? Your schedule ? Ask yourself some questions and use the answer to prep for next semester.

Start prepping

Make lists (things you’ll need to buy, things you want to work on), research planners and printables, buy some school supplies, try out some study schedules and new techniques (mind maps, apps, cornell notes). It’s never too early to start preparing for your next semester !

Treat yourself

Give yourself a break. Watch some netflix, eat some cookies, sleep in, stop drinking coffee for a few days, go buy yourself a new dress, do whatever makes you feel better !

[theaplyfe]

I don’t want to get people excited or anything. but...

I graduated from high school (yay!) so next year I will not be taking AP classes (obvs). The goal is to keep this blog going, and with AP Curriculum constantly changing, I know that I would not be very helpful 2-3 years down the line. So, I’m looking for some people~~ and I have a project in mind that involves this blog and something else. 

If you are interested in working with me, this blog, or just like helping high school students in general, I’d love to hear from you! I don’t have a minimum GPA in mind or even a min AP score or whatever, just that you need to have some interest in helping people with high-school related stuff, whether it be AP, SAT, ACT, IB, and/or the college application process.

I do prefer that if you apply, you are a rising sophomore (completed Freshmen year) and have taken at least 1 AP class in the past. Again, that is a preference and I’m sure there will be exceptions… it just depends! :) 

So this involves this blog and a project that I have going on, and you will definitely know more once you submit the form. You are NOT tied to the project/this blog once you apply, and it may be as well as a “hey I’m interested” type of thing. It can take 1 min to fill out, or you can go all out and be detailed and tell us all about you and it’ll maybe take longer. 

I look forward to hearing from you guys!

You can access the form HERE 

[theaplyfe]

reblogging again. :) Thanks for those who have already responded!! and regarding a question someone asked earlier, I’ll continue checking the responses to this form for a while, probably until the next school year starts. there’s really no set “deadline” right now. 

[theaplyfe]

happy with the responses so far :) I’m about to send out a mass (kinda general, tbh) email to everyone who’s submitted something. eep!

[theaplyfe]

hi! im planning on starting a studyblr soon, do you have any tips?

I’ve never considered this blog a studyblr omg. I’m so honored that you’re asking for tips!

Be honest, be humble, and post pretty pictures of you and your studying lol. I follow a ton of studyblrs and they always have these gorgeous pictures of notes and stuff *so jelly~*. Tagging those pictures (if you plan on posting studying pictures) will probably gain you a lot of followers (I’d imagine, anyways) XD. It’s not absolutely necessary though. I think if you’re helpful, and if you’re genuine, then people will go read your blog. :)

[theaplyfe]

I didn't mean to sound salty,it's just that the geniuses Like urself go there. I too am Asian, but pretty average at best, definitely not as learned as you are. Lol I wish I could come off anon but I don't want ppl from my school to find me :p

haha no it’s fine. I’m not a genius though. :) 

I typically reply to off-anon messages privately haha; unless it is a general piece of info people should know!

I don’t have that many real life friends on Tumblr anyways! (1 or 2, max!)