Advice for Senior Year Schedule

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I'm signing up for my senior year courses next week, so I just wanted to get an outside opinion from the interwebs.</p>

<p>I'm looking at a schedule with:
AP Statistics
AP Calc B/C
Spanish 3
AP English Lit
AP Gov/AP Econ</p>

<p>My school offers a 6 period day, so I technically still have one spot open. (2 if I want to take a zero period course.)</p>

<p>So I guess my questions are:
Would it greatly impact me if I only choose to take 5 classes next year, as opposed to 6 (think top 20 schools)?
Does NOT taking a science hurt me greatly? I'm not that great in science, but if it would help me, I wouldn't mind taking a science.
I'm interested in doing newspaper, but that's a zero period course. I've done zero period for the past year, and I hate waking up at 6am. However, newspaper sounds interesting. From a college adcom's standpoint, would only taking newspaper for my senior year look good or bad? I know they like to see a commitment and one year is not exactly a commitment.</p>

<p>Thanks guys!</p>

2

<p>You should definitely take a science class during your senior year, even if you don’t like it/not necessarily good it at. Top 20 colleges recommend taking a core class (English, Social Studies, Science, and Math) every year. You should replace AP Stats with an AP science class that would look more impressive (AP Stats is easy as I hear) like AP chem or AP Bio. By doing so, you’ll have a spot for newspaper as a 6th period. Don’t take two math classes a year if you have no science class planned.</p>