*My school has a 6 credit per year policy. The maximum you can take is 8 (no study hall).
*The graduation policy is approximately 25 credits.
*I will have 3 credits from middle school, 8 from freshman year, 7.5 sophomore, and 7.5 junior (26), not including senior year.
I am taking an Arabic course over the summer this year to try to get back at the language since my school dropped it. I can choose to take it on a college campus during the 2016-17 year or wait until 2017-18, my sophomore year. I would take it through senior year. My guidance counselor told me they will allow me to take the course, but they don’t know if I am permitted to get high school credit for it.
If I take the course now and continue advancing until senior year, it would have an impact on my senior schedule. The Advanced Arabic course is during the day (rather than at night) like the others, so I would have to take 2 extra study halls in addition to my AP Physics lab. This would equal only 5.5 credits, and I fear colleges will see that I have barely any credits and think that I slacked off senior year.
My guidance counselor proposed schedule for senior year (I would take out AP Spanish and AP European History to do it). Classes may change over the years, though.
AP Statistics or Linear Algebra (1)
AP Psychology (1)
AP European History (1) – I would take this out
AP Spanish (1) – I would take this out
AP Physics (1)
AP English (1)
Lab for AP Physics (.5) – extra period
Orchestra (1)
Even if I took out AP Spanish and AP European History, my schedule senior year would be highly rigorous. Though, it would only equal 5.5 credits. (I could take out AP Physics and replace it with Physics Honors and then take an extra class to get the six, but I’ll figure that out later).
So, if my school permits me to only have me carry 5.5 credits, would the colleges I am interested in (UPenn, Tulane, Washington University, UConn) think I slacked off and use it against me? I’m worried that if I took the course they might not realize it was during the school day. I understand classes are just a portion of the application process, but I am worried that minute things like this may end up as a deciding factor. Do you think 5.5 credits in senior year would be worth it if I took 4 years of Arabic and did well? Should I just wait a year to start the class (only 3 years of it) so that I get 7.5 credits as a senior?