I’m choosing classes at my school for junior year very soon, and am debating which courses to take. Here is my ideal schedule:
AP English Lang
APUSH
APES
AP Psychology OR Spanish 5-6
Math Analysis Honors (aka pre-calc honors)
Photography (must take this for my career prep graduation requirement)
I’m currently in Spanish 3-4 & debating if I should take AP Psych senior year & Span. 5-6 junior year, or vice versa.
I am not worried about forgetting Spanish with the year gap. My cousin is fluent & I practice with her constantly. I want to take AP Psych my junior year because I’m VERY interested in the subject, & want to take it earlier rather than later. I also want to take it to raise my GPA since it’s an AP, as senior year GPA isn’t what UC’s look heavily at, so taking AP Psych in 12th won’t benefit the GPA. I’m worried though that 4 APs & 1 Honors will be a VERY heavy workload my junior year. However, if Spanish 5-6 is more (or the same amount of) work as AP Psych, then it wouldn’t matter either way. So from experience – is Spanish 5-6 (3rd year level Spanish) more or less work than AP Psych, how much work goes into AP Psych on average, & is 4 APs & 1 Honors too many advanced courses to handle?
I apologize for this being in the college admissions category - I’m unsure how to edit that.
AP psychology is at most considered similar to a one semester or one quarter college course.
In general, it is better to keep up with the core subjects including foreign language, rather than displace them for electives. Remember also that UCs add up to 8 semesters of honors +1 points from your 10th-11th grade courses when calculating weighted-capped GPA that is the primary GPA used for UC frosh admission purposes. Since you already have that with your other AP courses, adding AP psychology would not add to the weighted-capped GPA, although it would add probably around 0.04 to your weighted-uncapped GPA that is also visible to UC admission readers.
If you take third year Spanish next year, you could take fourth year Spanish the following year.
I’m aware of the capped GPA UCs have, meaning the highest possible GPA is 4.5. But I was told by UCLA admissions officers that they do not cap the gpa there, & the highest is 5.0 because they’re a competitive school.
The answer to your question lies, in part, on what else is going on in your life, how many ECs you have, etc.
As to which has a heavier workload, that is very much an individual thing. If languages come easily to you, Spanish is probably less work than AP Psych, but that, of course, depends on the teachers and the curriculum they have set up at your school. If you take Spanish 5/6 now can you take AP Spanish later? That might be a consideration in making your choice.
In principal, 4 APs and an honors class is doable. That said, you should NOT be making decisions based on what might or might not help your GPA or look good for admissions.
Although I’m not bad at Spanish (able to maintain an A), it isn’t my strongest suit & therefore, I’m not very motivated in the class & find myself spending more time on it than I need to. I’d still be able to tale AP Spanish my senior year without taking 5-6 my junior year if I were to take 5-6 over the summer before starting senior year. I’m very interested in Psych, enough to consider possibly majoring in psychology in college. For that reason, I want to expose myself to the class my junior year, earlier rather than later - but since my junior year I’m taking more APs than my senior, I might not be spending as much time on the class in 11th grade as I’d like to be.
Looks like you have met your 3 year FL requirement for the UC’s so I would not worry about taking Spanish next year - pursue AP Psych if that is where your interests are as it will help you explore that major in advance of applying senior year. My only caution would be to make sure you have the 8 semester AP/Approved Honors bump as that is pretty much a must but don’t overdue it if any of the AP’s are GPA killers at your school. My daughter (also California) currently has a similar schedule - all A’s except for APES which has a tough teacher at her school. Good luck.
Note that colleges may have foreign language graduation requirements that are higher than their foreign language admission requirements. Completing a higher level of foreign language in high school may allow higher placement in college, and allow completing the graduation requirement in fewer courses in college.
APES is not the best science option for the really top schools. Will you have already taken Bio, Chem, and Physics?
@acdchai - Bio & Chem I have already taken. I have not yet taken physics - but would regular physics be more valuable than APES?
Is there an honors physics you can take? I would absolutely say that physics is more important to have on your transcript that APES.
@LoveTheBard - my school has AP Physics and regular Physics. I am good at math, but I strongly dislike it & do not plan to pursue a career in the sciences or maths. My school allows me to take AP Physics withOUT taking reg. Physics first, but there is an insane workload that goes along with AP and I know I cannot handle it - and I wouldn’t want to jump into the AP level of Physics without any prior experience. So it would either be APES or regular Physics - would the latter still be a smarter option in this case?
Take one junior year and the other senior year. Need to have physics, but you can take that as a senior. Typically it is done in reverse - physics as a junior (with other brutal junior year classes) and APES as a senior, but it really doesn’t matter. If you think you can get a better grade in APES then maybe that is a good reason to take it as a junior, since that grade counts and sometimes senior year grades don’t depending on the school (like UCs). Regular physics is ok, particularly if you are not going to be a STEM major but you really should take it. Bio-chem-physics is just typical these days.