APs for a STEM student: Any advice?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

So my school usually only lets students take 2 APs in their junior and senior years, but I’ve already exhausted all their advanced STEM classes in school and through summer programs (there were only two: AP Biology and AP Calc AB).
I’ll still be in AP Calc AB this year, but I’ll be in the back studying BC and hopefully going on to multivariate. My issue is that I was offered the chance to take 3 AP classes and one college class this year, but, aside from Calculus, they would be very HASS oriented. Here’s my potential schedule:

AP Calculus AB
AP European History
AP Literature
College English
Physics
Economics (1 semester)
Government (1 semester)

I’m not very interested in AP Literature, but I’d like to take a hard high school course load to prepare for the hardest college courseloads. So the question boils down to this: Should I take 3 Super HASS courses just for the rigor, or should I take what I’m interested in and use the extra time to teach myself more STEM, without it on my record? What are your opinions?

2

For the college admissions process, colleges are interested in you taking the hardest courseload possible within the curriculum offered by your school. So if the choice is taking a class vs. self studying something, in most cases, IMO, taking the class is better.

Most top colleges ask their applicants for a well-balanced college prep schedule. Most do not expect, and some don’t want, a student to be a specialist in HS. So taking AP HASS classes is fine, although I am not sure of the need to take both AP Literature and College English.

3

So would it be reasonable to drop AP Literature altogether and stick to AP EH, College English, and AP Calculus? By the way, I’m applying to MiT and a few other top tier schools, which is why I was very seriously considering just taking the hardest classes offered to me, which in this case included AP Lit and College English together.

4

That’s a question for your GC. If only taking one is the difference between him/her checking “most rigorous” vs. “very rigorous” then I would take both. If not, you can still take both if you want, or you can swap one out for something else.