Would the following classes be too rigorous as a high school junior? I will also be a officer in 3 (maybe 4) clubs next year, and would have to stay after school until ~5 PM 3 or 4 times per week. Since I am on my school Robotics team, I would also have to stay after school until 7 or 8 for 2-3 days during the winter and spring.
AP Chemistry
AP English I (Lang & Comp)
AP US History
AP Calc BC
AP Spanish (heritage speaker)
Physics Honors
Is this too rigorous? Should I drop a class? I’ve heard that Lang, Chem and APUSH are super hard at my school (most ppl get Bs). Since I plan to go into STEM, I am considering dropping either AP Lang or APUSH.
@smhmyhead
This is truly a question of your own abilities. How skilled are you in time management? Do you quickly grasp content or do you need to spend lots of time reviewing to understand? Depending on your school, the workload may vary. Ask former students how much work is assigned for your classes.
After answering these questions, try to build a sample schedule for next year, complete with your required EC activities and the time you’ll need for these classes, along with at least 8 hours of sleep. If you cannot fit all of your work and activities into this schedule, something will need to be dropped.
I think it may be doable since you are a Spanish speaker. However, can you move Physics to senior year and take a “fun/easy” elective in its place? Chemistry and APUSH are sure to be time consuming, and you say that Lang is difficult at your school. So I would save Physics for senior year, and take Honors or AP Physics at that time.
I had a similar schedule (four APs, officer of four clubs, varsity lacrosse, some other stuff…) and I was able to do it and get all As.
I took Physics, Calc, Chem, and Lang.
It’s only a matter of your time management skills. It’s definitely not impossible (or even that difficult) to do, but you’ll have to be organized.
Three of the courses (AP English, AP calculus BC, and AP Spanish) are presumed next levels from previous honors courses, so should not be greatly more difficult than the previous level honors courses (but will have more advanced material). As a strong student in math (two grade levels ahead) and heritage speaker of Spanish, would these be your two easiest subjects?
One (AP US history) should be presumed to be harder than the regular version.
One (physics) is a typical science.
One (AP chemistry) is considered a hard course, but probably not unreasonably hard if you had chemistry before.
If you do want to reduce your workload, shifting US history down to regular or substituting some other academic course for AP chemistry (and perhaps moving that to next year) may be the most obvious choices.
I would push APUSH down: AP Language is a much better class to help with general writing and analytical skills for a STEM major than APUSH is. (I also hate US History passionately, but whatever)
Also, consider an elective? I know Psychology/AP Psychology or an engineering elective or something would be fun. People underestimate the value of mental health junior year, and taking fun classes with friends is vastly underappreciated, imo.
See if you can take US History Honors because this looks really hard.
If AP Chem is very hard, why not push AP Physics to senior year?
Have you taken Chemistry Honors?
Or are you planning to take AP Physics C senior year and want AP Chem out of the way?
It is definitely doable, but you most likely won’t have any free time. I have taken almost all of these classes and had significant amounts of homework in each of these. If you are willing to sacrifice, go for it.
A balanced schedule + leadership/EC’s+ time for friends + sleep matters more than “sacrificing” all of it for just one more class that’ll make very little difference either in preparation or in admissions.
Yup, I plan to take AP Physics C senior year. The prereq. is Honors Physics, which is why I want to double up science. Currently, I am also taking Honors Chem, although I really don’t know how well I am retaining the information (I’ve mostly been spending the past few two weeks studying for my other APs lol)
Another option I’ve been considering is dropping AP Spanish for an elective, and self studying for the AP test. Would this be a good idea? I’m currently taking Spanish 4 Honors, and think I can probally get a 4 or 5 next year
Since you’re in Spanish 4, it’s a possibility indeed (remember that you need to register early though).
AP English, AP Calc, AP Chem, Physics Honors, an elective, and US History Honors would be a very rigorous junior year schedule that’d still leave you time to devote to EC’s, friends, and sleep.
If you are a heritage speaker, Spanish is probably a less difficult class than others (since you already are good at speaking and listening and only have to work at the reading and writing), so dropping it may not reduce the workload as much as it would for a non-heritage-speaker.
“most rigorous” doesn’t mean you must take all APs! It means balancing your schedule so that you have 4 years of English (typically including AP Lang), 4 years of history/social science, Foreign language through level 4 or AP, biology/chem/physics+1 more class preferably AP, and math through precalculus or calculus (honors or AP). You should have 6-8 AP’s TOTAL over 4 years of high school, as well as relevant electives (that show your intellectual curiosity and/or your personal interests). Taking an art class is often useful as it’s required by some state universities.
My D20, also a STEM kid, took AP English Lang, AP Environmental Science, AP Calculus BC, AP US History and AP Chinese and 2 PLTW classes (biomedical science, and human body systems). I was a very heavy schedule as she was a competitive gymnast and trained all year for 22 hours a week, coached special olympics, and was in 4 clubs. I have already told my younger child that she will not have the same schedule as it was too hard. D20 is fantastic at time management but during the second semester there were weeks where she got 8 hours of sleep over 5 days due to the amount of work. I would recommend dropping down to Honors for US history and keeping AP Lang. As a STEM kid, you should be fine with AP Calc BC and AP Chem. Keep the AP Spanish if it is easy for you.