Celts, strategically plan in 8th and 9th for 4 years of high school classes. Forecast your classes with intention.
As of September 2025, we have 11 AP classes available while you in high school, and 5 of those AP classes are also considered dual enrollment with Oregon colleges. Thus, for those 5 classes you do NOT need to take the AP test to receive college credit .
Currently, we have 15 Dual Credit classes available with Willamette Promise, OIT, and Chemeketa credit.
As with all things related to AP or DE, your mileage may vary when actually applying them to your college major, and every college/university has their own policy about accepting AP or DE classes.
Some schools will take your AP and DE classes and you can move through your major faster! But you have to be intentional about those classes at McNary. If this is your plan choose to:
Take College Writing or AP Language
Take psychology in high school, and then take AP Psych and sit for the exam to get credit for college level psychology.
Keep taking math classes, as high as you can go, whether AP Calc, College Algebra, or Intro to Stats
Take Public Speaking which is Comm 111 at the colleges.
Keep taking college level science with us to prepare for college, especially if you will be a STEM major in college.
Do not expect the Stanford's and Harvard's of the world to any AP or DE credit to your program. You need the classes to get into the school, but they likely want you to do their 4 year plan for all 4 years.
Do know that we do college level classes in 9 months. Colleges go through the SAME CONTENT in 12 weeks or 16 weeks. Use high school to prepare for the rigor of college!
You got this!
~ Mrs. Conolly
Should I Take AP Classes?
By Jonathan Harris, Adjunct Professor at University of Richmond, Parent, and Educator (September 2025)
I’m not going to wade into the swamp of “how many AP classes do I need to take to get into college X” except to say that a lot of kids would be much better off if their high school experience was based on what’s most appropriate for them and then found a school that matches that. There are, after all, about 2000 4-year colleges in the US and the average acceptance rate is over 70%.
But here’s some food for thought about AP classes. In the class of 2024, only 36% of students took at least one AP test and only 23% scored a 3 or higher on at least one AP test. Research shows the biggest bump in college GPA comes with taking one AP test and the researchers were unable to identify any additional benefit after 5 AP tests.
Edit: Adding some additional data about the distribution of total number of AP tests taken. Less than 2% of students who take AP tests take more than 10.
https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/advanced-placement-participation-and-performance-continues-increase
https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/Summary%20of%20Research%20on%20the%20Relationships%20Between%20Number%20of%20APs%20and%20Performance%20with%20College%20Outcomes.pdf
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/number-of-ap-exams-per-student-2024.pdf