How to Prepare for AP Classes Before They Start

The best preparation for an AP class starts with the course itself: read its recommended prerequisites on College Board's site, find out what your school requires to enroll, and use the months before the class to strengthen exactly those skills. If you searched for how to get Pre-AP, the short answer is that College Board's Pre-AP program runs through schools. A school adopts Pre-AP courses, and a student takes them by enrolling in one at a school that offers it.

What Pre-AP is, and how a student gets it

Pre-AP is a College Board program built to develop readiness for AP coursework. Its course frameworks are "back mapped" from AP expectations, so students start building AP skills before their first AP class. Its performance tasks are modeled on AP free-response questions, so students practice explaining their thinking in writing, the habit AP exams reward.

College Board's Pre-AP courses are:

• English: Pre-AP English 1 and Pre-AP English 2
• Math: Pre-AP Algebra 1, Pre-AP Geometry with Statistics and Pre-AP Algebra 2
• Science: Pre-AP Biology and Pre-AP Chemistry
• History and social studies: Pre-AP World History and Geography
• Arts: Pre-AP Dance, Pre-AP Music, Pre-AP Theatre and Pre-AP Visual Arts

College Board is just as clear about what Pre-AP is not:

• Not honors courses. Pre-AP courses work at grade level and, in College Board's words, meet students where they are.
• No final exam and no college credit. Pre-AP courses have no culminating assessment, and they don't earn college credit.
• Not a full curriculum. They give teachers a focused framework, model lessons, instructional support and classroom assessments, and teachers design their own instruction around it.

So the way to get Pre-AP is through your school, which orders the courses from College Board. Ask your counselor whether your school offers Pre-AP and which courses are open in your grade. You may also see schools use "pre-AP" as a label for their own advanced classes; if a course name doesn't match College Board's list above, ask the school what the class covers. If your school doesn't offer Pre-AP at all, the steps below still apply.

Which Pre-AP courses lead to which AP courses

College Board maps each Pre-AP course to the AP courses it prepares students for. The main connections:

Step 1: Find out what your school offers and requires

You sign up for AP courses through your school, not on College Board's website. Not every AP course is offered at every school, and schools set their own enrollment rules: some let any student who has taken the recommended courses enroll, while others add requirements, such as a placement test. College Board notes that many high schools begin course selection in the winter or spring for the following school year, so talk to a counselor or teacher early.

Step 2: Read the course's recommended prerequisites

Each course page on College Board's AP Courses and Exams list includes recommended prerequisites, and they vary widely. A few examples:

A course's recommended prerequisites make a ready-made summer study list, because they tell you what the course assumes on the first day.

Step 3: Use AP Potential if you have taken the PSAT or SAT

If you have taken the SAT, PSAT/NMSQT, PSAT 10 or PSAT 8/9, AP Potential in the SAT Suite Student Score Reports portal lists the AP Exams College Board thinks you are likely to do well on, shows which of those courses your school offers, and flags the ones that match a college major you have said you are interested in.

Step 4: Use the months before the class

• Close the gaps in the prerequisites. Before AP Precalculus or AP Calculus AB, that means fluent algebra and functions. Before AP Biology, review high school chemistry as well as biology, since College Board recommends both.
• Practice explaining, not just answering. AP free-response questions ask you to show your reasoning, which is why Pre-AP builds its performance tasks around them. Get used to writing out why an answer is right.
• Read more, and more closely. AP English and history courses ask you to read closely and analyze texts and sources. Regular reading of demanding texts, with notes on how the writer makes an argument, is good preparation.
• Look at the Course and Exam Description. College Board publishes one for each AP course: it is the core document that sets out the course content and describes the exam.
• Don't try to learn the whole course in advance. The aim is to arrive with the foundations secure, so the new material has something to build on.

Step 5: Join your class section once you enroll

Once you are enrolled at school, join your AP class section online in My AP. That gives you access to AP Classroom, where, depending on the course, you will find class assignments and assessments that help you get used to the Bluebook app before exam day.

Can any student take AP?

College Board's position is that any student who is academically ready for a challenge and willing to put in the work should be able to enroll in AP, and that you don't need to be at the top of your class. If the course you want isn't offered at your school, College Board suggests asking your counselor about an authorized online provider. You can also self-study for most AP Exams, although College Board recommends taking the course.

When extra help makes sense

Some students start an AP class knowing where their gap is, for example algebra before AP Precalculus. TestPrep USA's AP Precalculus tutoring follows the course units in live online one-to-one lessons, and the AP tutoring page covers the other AP subjects TestPrep USA teaches. For a full syllabus in a small class, the AP group course runs subject by subject through the school year, in classes of at most six students.

Frequently asked questions