The 10 hardest AP classes ranked by how many pass and fail

One of the more important choices an ambitious and hardworking high schooler will make is what AP classes to take. These courses, which generally provide advanced credit and help a student jumpstart their collegiate careers, are a great way to knock out some of the more general ed classes in college.

The word difficult can mean different things to different people. Some people enjoy a challenge, others are just naturally smart, and still more just may suffer in one particular subject, so they do terribly in math classes but excel in foreign languages or writing.

When thinking about an AP class load, it’s beneficial to think about what classes will be difficult for you, and judge that based on goals. If you want to be a doctor, well, you’re going to be taking some “hard” classes, and that’s that. If you’re looking to get an art history degree then things are going to be easier in comparison (these are facts sorry art history majors). The following list is not necessarily going to judge “difficulty,” but it will illustrate the pass rate of a certain AP class, and that can help a student determine how much work they might have to do.

This data comes from the organization that handles AP curriculums and exams – the College Board. This is the raw data of how many people actually passed the class, as well as class descriptions. A full list of AP classes is available here.

10. AP Latin – Pass Rate: 43.3%

This class focuses on two classic works in Latin literature: Vergil’s Aeneid and Caesar’s Gallic War. Students will translate the readings and study historical and educational themes through the lens of ancient literature.

9. AP Calculus AB – Pass Rate: 55.7%

This course is an introduction to college-level calculus. Students learn differential and integral calculus using real-world problems, and while that may sound intimidating you can get one of those graphing calculators and put Doom on it!

8. AP English Language – Pass Rate: 55.7%

This is a college-level composition course where students will be expected to write rhetorical arguments based on course texts and compose those arguments using the concepts of reasoning, style, and organization, with claims and evidence to back them up.

7. AP Chemistry – Pass Rate: 54%

This is an introductory college-level chemistry course. Expect to do lab investigations while utilizing concepts such as, energy, scale, proportion, and quantity; transformations; and structure and properties of substances.

6. AP Environmental Science – Pass Rate: 53.8%

In this course, students learn about the interconnectedness of the world around them through lab and field work using concepts involving the transfer of energy, interactions between the systems of the earth and the species in it, and environmental sustainability.

5. AP Human Geography – Pass Rate: 53.2%

This data-based course will require students to analyze human patterns including migration and spatial organization, as well as how humans have affected the environment around them and how societal changes affected patterned human behavior.

4. AP Economics: Macro – Pass Rate: 51.8%

Macroeconomics students study the economic system holistically and use principles and models to disseminate and predict economic situations with graphs and data. They’ll also explore macroeconomic models, markets, policies and economic benchmarks.

3. AP United States History – Pass Rate: 48.2%

AP History looks at the history of the United States from 1491 to now. Students will learn to craft arguments while exploring the cultures and structures of the country using concepts like migration, settlement, national identity, and politics. Less than half of students who take this course pass it.

2. AP Government & Politics United States – Pass Rate: 48.6%

The meat of this course is the analysis of the United States government and its politics through text sources like the constitution, and the study of representative democracy. Students will learn the machinations of the government and how policy influences law.

1. AP Physics 1 – Pass Rate: 43.3%

Out of every 100 people that take this class, about 60 will fail. Those are not great numbers, but physics is not for everybody. The class requires knowledge of numerous formulas, as well as working knowledge of calculus, algebra, and geometry. This one’s not for the faint of heart. Good luck out there.