By Katelynn Luu, Arielle Nguyen, Hannah Park, and Kevin Sears
What is Baron Banner’s AP Course Guide?
Advanced Placement (AP) classes are, for many, an integral part of the high school experience. Yet many students enroll in these challenging, college-level courses without knowing what to expect. Other than a GPA boost, and the college credit offered for taking an AP exam, how much do students know about their upcoming schedules?
Some subjects offer informational sessions and presentations, and students can refer to the official Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) Course Guide. Even so, all of these resources are created by teachers. They’re a valuable resource, but their experience of the courses they teach can differ from a student’s. After all, being on the giving and receiving end of homework assignments can feel very different!
Many students, then, turn to their older siblings or upperclassmen for advice on workload, test difficulty, and particular assignments in their AP classes. But not all of us have access to these resources. Sometimes, students do better than their peers just because they’ve heard about Tom Richey’s YouTube channel (which is great for AP European History and AP United States History, by the way) or a helpful “survival tip.”
In order to mitigate these two issues — the dearth of student perspectives in official resources, as well as the disadvantage some students have when they don’t know upperclassmen — we’ve created Baron Banner’s AP Course Guide.
Centered specifically around AP classes, we combine teacher quotes, student opinions, difficulty ratings, helpful resources, AP exam descriptions and more, to help students make informed decisions for the next school year. We also have the latest news on brand-new courses and course changes, such as the implementation of Dual Enrollment in some AP English classes.
What’s more, we also included things to look forward to (check out our “Roses, Buds, and Thorns” section)! We’re going to give you the insider scoop on skills you can apply to your daily life, fun activities and interesting concepts that are covered in these courses.
We hope that you find this guide informative — and entertaining! Our student reporters have worked for months to collect interviews and high-quality resources to give you the best experience possible. And, above all, we want to encourage students to enroll in AP courses and to get excited about learning again.
If you’re interested in checking out our guide, follow this link to obtain an online version. Share it with a friend if you found it helpful — or send us an email if you find any issues. Until next time!
– The Team
