I’m a high school junior planning my senior year schedule. The classes I have selected are AP Biology (took AP Chem), AP Literature, AP Statistics (already took calc), AP US history, Spanish, and PE (required for all years in my state). I have one more period available, and I’m interested in the AP Seminar class. However I’m aware that this is part of the 2 year AP Capstone program. Would it be beneficial for me to just take AP Seminar my senior year without taking the second year of AP Research? Or would another class be of more value to me and aid me in my applications? The most selective schools I will be applying to are WashU and Northwestern. If anyone has insight on these courses please let me know. Thank you!
Have you taken physics and level 4+ of a foreign language?
Next year will be my 4th year of Spanish. I have not taken physics yet, but I contacted admissions reps at both schools and they said that physics is recommended for science/engineering/pre-med majors. I’m not pursuing any of these majors, but do you think physics would be a better option? @ucbalumnus
At my school you can’t even take Seminar senior year. It’s either seminar junior year and research senior or none at all. AP Capstone is a 2 year course…are you sure you can do this? I’m currently in Research.
@sumuzu
It was given as an option for seniors at my school, however I don’t know if it will be worthwhile without the second year. I have heard that the skills learned in Seminar as helpful though.
Having all three of biology, chemistry, and physics may look better than missing one to an admissions reader. Otherwise, high school physics may be expected knowledge if you take physics in college. Even if not required for your college major, some knowledge of physics at the high school level may be useful as general education knowledge.
Since AP seminar is new, do not really know enough about it to comment.
If you really want AP seminar, another possibility is to take physics instead of AP biology.