My reach colleges include Princeton and Harvard, so I’m trying to map out my junior and senior history classes (I’m a sophomore who is taking normal world history). I know that taking ap history can be a good way to look well-rounded, but I’m concerned that the work load will be too much, since I already have 3 AP classes each year. My question is, how important would AP Us History and AP Gov be compared to their normal counterparts in my current situation? Could they be the deciding factor in my future application?
The person to ask is your guidance counselor, not any one of us. Rigor is relative to what is offered in your HS.
The top tier colleges will want to see the guidance counselor check the box on the recommendation saying you have taken the most rigorous course-load available at your HS (which doesn’t mean taking every AP class – there is often some latitude in this). If the guidance counselor says that your prior and current HS schedules are sufficient to get that most rigorous box checked then you are fine.
Realistically, if aiming for Harvard and Princeton, you should be able to handle 4 AP classes - or 3, including APUSH and AP Lang junior year (+ AP physics1?) AP gov isn’t a core class so it’d depend on what else you’d take. But what matters to determine rigor isn’t the number of APs, rather it’s whether you took challenging courses in core classes junior year and whether your senior year classes five an idea of your academic interests and strengths.
In our high school all the kids aiming for Harvard, Princeton type schools take APUSH even if they are STEM kids. Similarly nearly all the non-STEM kids who were aiming high took AP Bio. Many seniors take a combo course that covers the NYS government and economics requirement, but otherwise is either AP Econ (just macro) or AP Gov. My younger son didn’t take either of those courses, he just tested out of the NYS requirement and took AP Euro as a senior. Otherwise kids took APs in their area of interest for the most part. Three to four as juniors and seniors was typical. Many took one as a sophomore.
I do a agree, that rigor is generally looked at in the context of your school.
APUSH tends to be one of the more permissive classes in terms of dropping down a level, if necessary and if your school allows it. So you could try it and see how it goes if you want - or, as other posters suggested, just make your decision based on what the guidance department tells you is a rigorous course load for your particular school.