The next level of math that my high school offers is AP Statistics. I'm a couple of years ahead in math, so there are literally no other classes available to me. I don't really care about taking the AP test, but my teacher said that colleges won't give me credit for the class if I don't.
I don't want to spend an extra hundred dollars on a test I don't care about, and I don't have time to study for yet another test. If I'm not going to get credit, should I just not take the class?
It depends what your options are if you don't take AP Statistics. Many colleges require students to take a certain amount of math and science classes in high school - usually at least 3 years of each, preferably 4. If you're applying to a school that has these requirements and/or recommendations, then it would be better to take AP Statistics (even if you're not going to take the test), just so that you have that year of taking a math class. You should also check with your school district to make sure you've met the minimum requirement for number of math classes you need to take to graduate high school.
On the other hand, if there are other high-level classes that you could take instead of AP Statistics that are more interesting to you (and none of the schools you're applying to require 4 years of math), then you're probably better off taking one of these other classes. Unless you're super interested in statistics (which it doesn't sound like you are), then taking AP Stats without the potential of getting college credit for it isn't worth the time you could be spending on some other class or activity.
I was in this dilemma myself when I was in high school, because I'd taken BC Calculus junior year and the only math class left to me was AP Statistics (which I wasn't really interested in taking). My guidance counselor was pressuring me to consider taking it anyway, so that I wouldn't be math-class-less my senior year...until she realized that it conflicted with my language class, which I wasn't going to give up after 5 years of study. We came to a happy compromise when I signed up for AP Macroeconomics to fill that empty "math" slot.
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