I’ll be starting my senior year on Monday morning to this is a tad overdue but college confidential never sleeps so here goes:
I took AP Econ and AP Gov this summer (A’s in both) and my course load for the following year is AP Physics, AP Lit, AP Calc AB, and AP Computer Science. Throughout the year I’ll be busy with 2 sports (water polo and swimming), working, and being the officer of a few clubs (VP Pre Med, President Young Women In STEM, Council member for Students Against Gun Violence). My GPA is 3.6 unw (low because of internal illness during froshsoph, was in the hospital all of second semester of 9th grade and some of sophmore year). My weighted is 4.6. Should I add another AP because 4 might not be enough (Ap psych)? I plan on applying to Barnard College ED and shooting for higher ranking schools with an intended major in Polisci or Bio to give you some background.
TL;DR- is 4 ap classes too weak a courseload for senior year even if I’ve already taken Ap gov and ap econ and will be doing sports + work + club officer duties (Aiming for barnard college)
IMO any question regarding strength of HS schedule the best person to ask is your guidance counselor, not any one of us. Rigor is relative to what is offered in your HS. The top tier colleges will want to see the guidance counselor check the box on the recommendation saying you have taken the most rigorous course-load available at your HS (which doesn’t mean taking every AP class – there is often some latitude in this). If the guidance counselor says that your prior and current HS schedules are sufficient to get that most rigorous box checked then you are fine. As an aside, it is up to you if you want your guidance counselor to note your health issues in the report.
Are you only taking 4 classes senior year? Unless your health issues are ongoing that is a light course-load. If you only have 4 scheduled classes I’d suggest you continue with foreign language which you said you were lacking in another post. And FWIW AP Psych is widely regarded as one of the easy APs so taking that class in unlikely to impress admissions officers – it is fine to take AP Psych if you are interested but I would not take it at the expense of getting in your third year of foreign language .
If Barnard is your top college I suggest you google the common data set for the school and look at section C to see their recommended HS coursework.
This is Direct from the Barnard website , we have observed that our most competitive applicants have taken four years of each of the five core subject areas: English, math, science, foreign language, and social science, during their high school years.”
You can read the the entire blurb on the website. I agree with @happy1 that your GC makes the call on how rigorous your course load is.
In general, it’s quite simple. Take one of those core subjects each year, giving you 5 courses each year, culminating in the AP version senior year, with the exception of the social studies which in most schools, offered as APs each year or for 3 years. Want to add s course in the summer, fine. But it’s snbadd on, not instead. Yes, you can substitute a bit, deviate a bit, but the more you go away from this model, the more of a risk you take that an Adcom. takes issue with it. If a school doesn’t offer the AP, it will be noted and the student not penalized.