I am currently a sophomore in highschool. I am filling out my schedule for next year and I have been picking AP for every available class. I am planning on taking AP English, AP Calculus, AP Chemistry, AP US Government, Accelerated Spanish 5, AP Computer Science, and also working on the school newspaper. I also do sports all year. I am hoping to go to an elite college so I can go to law school and make my way into politics. I will not have room for a study hall, and I am wondering if this will be too much work for me to do in the limited time I have outside of school.
You will definitely get wildly different answers on this. At the end of the day it comes down to knowing yourself. I will say your schedule is pretty common at my kids HS (except most do AP World Jr. year and AP Gov senior year). All my kids and most of their friends took the same number of AP and accel courses you are listing their junior year and did fine, and also had many EC activities. It was a lot of work and generally Junior year is know as the hardest year (throw in standardized tests and prep for most too, etc.) but they all did fine and didn’t regret it. That said, while colleges definitely look at rigor, they generally don’t focus on comparing if one kid takes a couple less AP’s than another. Grades matter and if you think you will struggle with this load or dread the thought of it, don’t do it. Drop down to an easier level for 1 or 2 and focus on performing well in it and you’ll be fine either way.
That said, one other factor to think about is the teachers. At my kids HS, most of the best teachers are in the AP’s. In some cases that makes the AP’s no harder because while the rigor of the material is greater a good, engaging teacher can make that better than a bad teacher in a non-Accel/AP.
Good luck.
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It is hard to know the answer to this question without knowing you a lot better. However, it also sounds as if this probably will be too many AP classes, and you may be taking AP classes for the wrong reason.
First of all, you do not need to attend Harvard or Stanford or any similarly highly ranked university in order to get into a top ranked law school. You do not need to attend Harvard or Stanford in order to go into politics.
Also, you should not be trying to plan high school based on your perception (or my perception) of what a top ranked university wants in an applicant. You should be doing what is right for you. You should only be taking AP classes in subjects that you are good at, and that you want to spend a lot of time studying. You should understand that AP classes are significantly more difficult than regular classes. You should only take AP classes if you are already well prepared to take them.
You should google “applying sideways, MIT” and read the blog on the MIT admissions web site that this takes you to. The point is that you should be doing what is right for you, and not what you think might be right for applying to any particular university.
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Are you doing all these classes in the hopes of getting into a tippy top college? Hopefully you are aware that students who get into tippy tops don’t necessarily do every single AP class available. The most selective colleges aren’t looking for "academic drones. " The students at the top colleges will have not only excellent academics, but also excellent teacher recs, excellent EC’s, and excellent essays.
Do as many classes as you can comfortably do without stressing yourself out so much that everything else suffers. You want to have a life too. The fact that you are here asking about this makes me think that you have concerns. Drop one of the AP’s for something a little less taxing. 6 advanced classes plus a chem lab is plenty for anyone. Your schedule is not going to look weak if you swap, for example, AP US gov for something easier.
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My experience has me agreeing with Citivas…this may be the right or wrong schedule for you (I can’t say), but it’s a frequent one at kid’s high school, for upperclassmen and even some underclassmen, and does not lead to dropping grades for most of those kids. In other words, up to 6-7 APs is not necessarily a problem.
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Hate to repeat what is already said, but, it depends on your school. If this is typical for high achieving kids in your school and approved by your GC then it should be OK. At my kids’ school it would be considered an extreme schedule and not approved except for a very exceptional student who had no outside interests.
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Like many people have said only you know you, so try to think about how you would manage this next year. Would you be able to manage time for school and sports? Would you feel like you have enough time for yourself? Personally, I mixed up my rigor. If I wasn’t super sure about one class, I took regular. Super confident and maybe looking for a bit more, honors. I found that a good mix of regular/chill classes as well as rigorous classes made high school rlly enjoyable for me. Also i try to incorporate one fun class like art or drama. It really lightened things up for me especially in busy moments.
Just to reiterate Dad’s point: for law school, you do not have to attend a prestigious undergrad. All it takes for Harvard law is great grades & LSAT scores (with recs, of course). A directional state college will do.
Can you manage this schedule, both time-wise and in terms of good grades?
Do you like these classes?
Which of these classes is your relaxing class? Something you enjoy, do very well at, and find easy.
What is your sophomore schedule and how overwhelmed / comfortable are you with it? Grades? Have you taken any AP classes to know what to expect in terms of the workload bump?
If your school is like many in my area, I suspect you might already have honors English, honors pre-Calc, honors/AP science, honors/AP history, and honors Spanish 4 along with sports and ECs this year. Next year’s schedule then wouldn’t look all that different: more work and less free time but it’s probably manageable for you (provided you’re doing well now).
If you scroll down a bit on the article to the graphic you can see the survey results for the workload and difficulty of each of your APs. Chem is notoriously hard and time-consuming but the remainder are average to below average in terms of work, especially if by AP English you mean AP Lang, not AP Lit or Research.
Either way, take the classes because they interest you not because of a goal 7 years down the road. So much can happen between now and then and there are plenty of ways to end up at a good law school.
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You should discuss with your teachers, counselor, and parents, as well as self-assessing how you will do, based on the past. No one here knows you well enough to provide meaningful insight.
Fwiw, my D17 had 3 APs as a Junior and dropped one down to honors after 3 weeks due to the workload. I suspected it would a tough workload for her, we discussed before she decided to give it a try, and stepping back was the right thing to do.
D22 had 4 last year (4 that you listed), plus 1.5 dual enrollment courses (including a college programming course instead of CSA) and the top Honors French class (No AP) , and a 98 was her lowest year-end average among them. I was confident she would be fine.
So it widely varies by student.
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My DD took the same schedule as a junior except for instead of Spanish, she took AP Seminar. Also a three sport athlete plus travel soccer and a few clubs. I think the most important thing for her to be successful with this schedule was the good group of friends she had with the same classes. There were about 30 kids with the same classes and a good number of them worked together nightly to get through it. Having a collaborative and supportive friend group really helped. The teachers in these courses were also waaaaay better than if she would have taken the courses a level down. It is definitely school dependent.