Advanced Placement

AP Courses That Go Together

Like peanut butter and jelly, these AP® courses are valuable alone but even better when paired together. Taking AP courses gives you the opportunity to not only earn credit, advanced placement, or both but also to build the skills you need to be successful in high school, college, and beyond. An ideal way to hone these skills is to expand your learning by taking AP courses that complement each other.

Courses in the first list below are companion pairings that have cross-curricular benefits. The skills and content you’ll learn in one course are relevant to and will benefit you in the other course. Courses in the second list below offer a more focused course sequence within a single subject area. The content and skills taught within each course build on each other across the two-course pairing.

If they’re available in your school, consider taking these connected AP courses.

 

Cross-Curricular Companion Courses


Focused Sequences of Courses

* Please note that colleges typically will only grant credit for one of the two AP English courses.

** AP Research is the only course the AP Program requires students to take in a sequence, after AP Seminar.

 

“AP helped shape my career path so I’m having a really fulfilling college experience. The AP courses I've taken, like AP Calculus AB and AP Physics 1, helped me learn about the field and decide if the concepts I learned were important to me. Exploring those courses helped me not only build skills but also confirm what I wanted to do in the future."

Patrick, AP Alum Majoring in Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science

 

Pre-AP Connections to AP Courses

Some schools offer Pre-AP® courses, which help you develop the skills needed for future success in AP. The courses in the chart below are directly mapped to specific AP courses and often include strong connections to more than one course. Discover which AP courses may be a natural next step for you, and schedule time with your school counselor to find out which ones are available to take next.

 Pre-AP Course

AP Course

Pre-AP English 1 and 2

AP English Language and Composition
AP English Literature and Composition
AP Seminar

Pre-AP World History and Geography

AP European History
AP Human Geography
AP United States History
AP World History: Modern

AP Art History

Pre-AP Biology

AP Biology
AP Environmental Science

Pre-AP Chemistry

AP Chemistry
AP Environmental Science

Pre-AP Algebra 1

AP Computer Science Principles
AP Computer Science A

AP Precalculus
AP Calculus AB
AP Statistics

 

Pre-AP Geometry with Statistics

AP Precalculus
AP Calculus AB
AP Statistics

Pre-AP Algebra 2 

AP Precalculus
AP Calculus AB
AP Statistics
AP Physics 1
AP Physics 2

Pre-AP Visual and Performing Arts

AP 2-D Art and Design
AP 3-D Art and Design
AP Drawing