Jazzy is a former AP Art student and is now attending college this fall. I kindly asked her if I could write a story about her experience of getting a 5 and how she did it. Jazzy is awesome and agreed to it, so here we go. First off, she had no extracurriculars, so more time to balance art and her normal classes, plus (bonus) she had Human Geography. Overall, she had a 4.0 but had a habit of putting off her work until the last second because, like the majority of us students, she procrastinates. She doesn’t recommend that, but somehow it worked for her. Although Jazzy worked on whatever was due first so she had her priorities straight, what worked for her clearly paid off.
Transitioning to her experience with AP Art, she took the class with some of her friends and, like some, she got distracted from time to time, so as a result, she’d have to work on her art at home. Jazzy worked on her art for around 3–4 hours at home every time she got home from school and finished her other school work, though her art creativity came pretty easy for her since she genuinely enjoyed it. The key, according to her, is “knowing what to start with and making some sketches to have an outline.” Because of Ms. Ruff’s organization with her AP class and her calendars detailing deadlines for different art pieces, Jazzy was able to keep up with her work to meet each deadline. She comments, “I couldn’t have gotten a five without her.” Jazzy’s advice to current AP students is to keep within your original concept because the scorers are looking for consistency, to follow a theme.” She adds on saying, “You always have a reason why something is in your piece. If you understand your piece, you understand your final portfolio.” Jazzy finishes with “I feel like for an AP portfolio, you don’t want to give yourself unnecessary anxiety; it isn’t worth it nor produce good results; as long as you learn to treat yourself well throughout this process, you will succeed.”
