Are these courses good enough?

Applying to College
1

I’m currently a sophomore in HS. I want to go to HYPS and the like, and not sure if the courses I’ve taken so far will impress. All have good grades…

Freshman Year:
Honors Biology
Honors Literature
Honors Algebra
AP World History
PE/health
Intro to Drafting
Intro to Engineering
AP Human Geography
Geometry (online)

Sophomore:
AP Chemistry
Honors Chemistry 2
AP Government/Politics
Honors Literature
Honors Algebra 2
Honors Spanish 1
Honors Spanish 2
Human Anatomy and Physiology

What improvements should I make? Junior year, I’ll be taking all academic honors/AP classes (including Spanish) because of having no room on my schedule for other things. I know colleges like well-rounded students but also ones that challenge themselves. However, I have no room on my schedule for other classes.

2

There’s no check off list for “good enough” Top schools want creative and hungry thinkers – not people who are looking over their shoulders wondering “is this good enough”. Within the contexts of what you have available, are you sating your intellectual curiosity and drive?

If you can say yes to that, then that’s enough. As to wondering if ANY list of classes is enough – whatever you can imagine – there will be many kids who ace that list and get rejected. Applying to schools with tiny admit rates is so much more than a single class choice or two.

3

Don’t take classes to “impress” colleges - they won’t be. Take the most challenging courses, in a wide range of subjects, that you can and still perform well in. Good luck.

4

Your school provides a profile to colleges that tells them things such as how many AP/Honors classes are offered (if any), how many people take those classes, what the schools requirements are, etc. Many schools have limited offerings, or require their students to take specific classes, etc.

Your GC will have to tick a box that says whether the course load you took was not rigorous / average /very /most rigorous. That tick box will be as far as the AdComms go in most cases. The Harvard AdComm will read some 35 THOUSAND applications, and I can promise you that they do NOT pore over every class that every applicant took over four years!