hello! i’m a rising sophomore taking ap physics 1, ap literature and composition, ap european history, ap psychology, and ap us history (along with honors precalculus and french 3) next year. i’m self studying ap european history, and taking summer school for regular physics (its a prereq at my school) as i took ap world history freshman year and thought the subject was fun; i got a 96% in the class but the class average was a 83% so i think i’m pretty good at the subject, making ap euro bearable. also, i got a 4.2 gpa freshman year, so i’m capable of getting decent grades. should i drop one of my ap classes or is it doable to get straight As and 5s?
i forgot to add that i’ll be taking sat subject tests sophomore year as well for world history, us history, and english lit. i’m also starting a deca team at my school and i’m secretary of our school’s forensics/debate team as well as secretary for the model un team. so would i have time for this much schoolwork, or . . . ?
Your schedule would be more akin to that of a junior in our high school. You seem to have all five cores, but I am not sure it is necessary to take three social sciences classes. Personally I would postpone one of those until a later year in order to achieve balance with your extra curriculars. With colleges, it is not “who has the most APs gets in”. Grades and course rigor are a baseline which get you to the next round, then it is all about the other aspects of your application. So your schedule is fine, as long as you keep that balance in mind.
Really depends. At some schools it’s nearly impossible to take a large number of APs due to the difficulty of the classes. At some schools, you could take all APs and still be bored. You have to take the best baseline for you.
i’m hoping to go into law, so i’m trying to take a ton of social science classes and related ECs to look more relevant to college admissions officers (i’m hoping to major in political science at georgetown). would it be better to spread out my social ap classes, or would it look good to colleges if i managed to survive all of them in just my sophomore year?
is taking 8 ap classes in a year too much?
@Yami417 It will be really tough. I would say yes, it is too much.
Are you taking AP Euro or self studying it? Either way you shouldn’t do it. BTW, a Georgetown AO once told me that one of the worst “Why G’Town” essays that they read was talking about G’Town Law.
I would not. You’re gonna take all these SS AP’s all together, then what about the next two years? Space it out a bit more. Focus that extra time from cutting back on the classes to do actually interesting things for your college app. Mock trial? Model UN? Ethics Bowl? All are a so much better use of time then studying for an AP. Especially on college apps. You don’t want to come off like a robot taking 10 million classes to college admins.
our school doesn’t have an ethics bowl club and our mock trial advisor’s on probation so the club was suspended, so i’m trying to make up for the lack of social science clubs with ss ap classes.
You need to space them out so you have one each year.
AP euro OR APUSH sophomore year, the other junior year, and both micro/macro econ AND us+comp gov senior year would be ideal.
Keep AP lit for senior year. Take honors English sophomore year and AP English language junior year.
Taking 8 classes including 5 APs sophomore year is called hubris and is NOT look kindly upon by adcoms.
I just finished up my sophomore year. I took a course load similar to yours: AP Physics 1 (self study Phys C Mech test), AP Spanish Language, AP CSP (no CSA at our school), and then Calculus 3, Differential Eqns and Stats at a community college and 6 other classes (honors where available) at my high school, and I was able to maintain a very strong GPA (fingers crossed about AP scores coming out in 2 weeks ?).
That being said, my motivation came from the fact that I absolutely loved the classes I was taking (I am a STEM-oriented student). Despite this, I found it VERY challenging to keep up with my ECs (international synthetic biology competition, Math club, Varsity tennis), and often regretted taking so many classes.
Personally, I would drop one of the social studies AP classes unless you are VERY passionate about it (I know you mentioned going in to law, but you can still take these courses in other years in HS). I thought self-studying AP Physics C Mech was a very fun and rewarding experience, but I’ve heard that self-studied APs aren’t as impressive as the ones you take in school (they also won’t boost your weighted GPA).
Overall, it’s doable, but it will require effort. I would also recommend (as other CC’ers who are likely more experienced than me have mentioned) that you join some more social studies/debate ECs, like JSA, Model UN, etc. It’s great that you are starting your own, but make sure not to sacrifice these for more APs.
Don’t self studying courses. There is no such thing as an AP race. I’m assuming you are planning on going into humanities in college? If you are to take many APs, it is better to have a more diverse selection rather than multiple social studies courses.