Yes that is correct that AP Calc BC is the only remaining math class at her school (and we felt after posting for advice last summer that taking only 3 isn’t the best plan). The BC teacher is good and the overlap with AB means she feels pretty good about taking it.
She is required to take one econ class for graduation - so either AP Micro/Macro, AP Macro, or just regular Economics. She heard that the AP teacher is great, but i am thinking that the double class is a very heavy load even with a good teacher. So maybe AP Macro instead there.
There is an Anatomy and Physiology class that she is interested in and couldn’t decide between that and APES. Maybe a good option to swap to that (although I think the bulk of the heavy load will come from AP Chem and AP Euro, but it might be enough to offset that load somewhat).
If she gets into Emory, they require students to take 2 years of a language and she would plan to take German there. Have not checked her other schools but i assume it will be similar. The 2 year gap might not be ideal! Her reluctance to take German in 11th or 12th really came from the teacher being just so poor (essentially there is no teaching happening, everyone has an A and no-one has to do more than watch/read german news and write a couple of sentences once a week).
At our kids’ school, Anatomy and Physiology is a time consuming class, but also a good one. Your school may be different but at our school they really do seem to cover it at a college level. My son was accidentally placed in it at the beginning of this year (by the school) and he said that literally everyone in the class (other than him) was planning to be a premed. Day one of the class, “Hi everyone! Let’s talk about what health career each of us is planning for our futures!” He thought it was an interesting class but eventually switched out of it into AP Latin (for that 4th year of language).
Yes exactly! This was our experience as well. There are also college visits and trying to decide which to attend.
I also think that the schedule looks like a very heavy load.
I have referred to AP European History as the most difficult A- that I ever witnessed in my life (eg possibly tougher than the A- I got in graduate school). My daughter said that premed organic chemistry in university was tougher, but that is faint praise regarding the ease of taking AP Euro in high school. Personally I would also have been afraid of AP Literature, but that might be more of a personal weakness. Between these two classes there is likely to be a huge amount of reading required.
I see your point, however I wouldn’t trade APES or AP chem for any other subject when she’s a stem major. if she wants to fit in german, IMO it shouldn’t be at the cost of her sciences
Level reached always matters. If a college says “N years”, they want to see level N, not N different level 1 courses.
Some colleges (e.g. California publics) leave it at that (and effectively say so on their web sites). But there may be some colleges that want to see some significant amount of foreign language study while in high school, although they may not give much or any specifics on this on their web sites. This can leave students who entered high school very advanced (by US high school standards) in a foreign language (e.g. due to K-8 language programs or by being a heritage speaker) guessing as to whether (for example) taking only the AP level in 9th grade is enough for any particular college.
Lots of colleges have foreign language graduation requirements, but they typically have placement procedures or testing for students to start in a level higher than the first semester course if they have previous knowledge of the language (e.g. high school courses but not necessarily to the AP level, heritage speaker knowledge).
D24 has been talking to kids taking these classes and, surprisingly to me, AP Euro is described as “fairly chill”. I feel like there is such a big difference in these classes depending on the teacher (eg my S22 took AP World at his HS and had a really tough grading teacher with a massive workload, while D24 took it at her HS and it was just an easy A and a lot of discussion). AP Lit is described as fairly heavy but the other option is Brit Lit which she isn’t as excited about.
Definitely agree on the college apps and essays and visits and decisions being a huge amount of time. She plans to apply to fewer colleges than our S22 did, but even so, it’s a lot! She has decided to drop the AP Macro/Micro double down to “only” AP Macro, so that is one less
Yes, this is where my thinking was coming from. Emory is looking like her top choice and their website doesn’t say more than they expect a “rigorous” course load in HS, with no specifics!