My daughter is interested in applying to UCs and is currently selecting her Fall Senior Year courses. She’s had a pretty rigorous schedule so far and wants to make sure her course selection for her senior year looks rigorous enough. She hopes to gain acceptance to a UC as an undeclared major (no engineering or CS interest) so she can spend some time discovering her interest. Right now she loves math and art.
Here’s what she has planned for the year:
AP 2D Art and Design (fall/spring)
AP English Literature and Composition (fall/spring)
AP Math - picking between AP Calculus AB or AP Calculus BC (fall/spring)
AP Statistics (fall/spring)
Peace and Justice (fall)/Some additional elective (spring)
Economics (fall)/Govt (spring) - could be AP but I think too much!
Study Hall (fall/spring)
As far as rigor prior to this, she took 2 honors courses sophomore year (1 UC-qualified) and 1 AP and 2 honors courses junior year, so 8 extra points for the UC GPA. Note that her school limits the number of APs sophomore/junior years, so it’s considered competitive when compared to her school peers.
She has a lot of other courses she can choose from, but I think the above is enough, plus is based on her reviewing the course catalog and considering her interests. Plus, I don’t want her to overload herself. Any insight on whether or not she should make additions/changes based on an undeclared major objective? I don’t want to misguide whatever the reality is of the admissions selection process.
You are missing a foreign language and science. AP Physics would be a better choice than AP Stats and still relevant to an interest in math. Has she already done AP in a foreign language? If not then continuing with her language would be preferable to the elective.
Thanks! She will have completed 3 years of Spanish and also was considering AP Spanish but I wasn’t sure if necessary. She also was considering AP Physics or AP Chemistry but thinks if she takes one of those, she would need to drop down to a regular English course as the AP English Lit is very difficult as well. Thoughts on that?
Depends what level of UC you are looking at. If you are trying for UCB/UCLA or want a strong application to UCSD/UCSB/UCI then you’d be expected to do AP Lit, AP foreign language and an AP science if that’s typical of top students at your high school. AP Env Sci is an easier option than AP physics and chem. And I would stay with Calc AB if that’s the next sequence course.
I’d say UCB and UCLA are a stretch. She really loved UCSB, so we’ll want a strong application. We’ll take another pass and then check in with her school advisor to see how it compares to her peers to make sure we stay in sync. Thanks so much for all this info!
My older kids did APs in USH/Calc AB/Spanish Lang/Eng Lang junior year then Calc BC/Spanish Lit/Eng Lit/APES senior year. They were unusual in continuing to Spanish Lit as non-native speakers (but they were 2 of the 3 students in their class of 400 admitted to both UCB and UCLA), but others who got into one or the other for CS or Eng often did MVC or Physics C so had a stronger STEM courseload.
Most of the kids at our school who get into UCSB or UCSD will have APs in Eng Lit, Foreign Language, Math and Science senior year unless they get to AP Spanish Lang in junior year. My younger kid (albeit with quite a few Bs, unlike his siblings who had 4.0UW) feels UCSC is a significant reach with only APs in Calc AB/BC/Stats/Phys C and Latin.
I concur that a Science or Language class in place of the AP Stats would be more beneficial and not necessarily AP level. It will depend upon if she has already completed a Biology/Chemistry and Physics course?
Nothing wrong in only have 3 years of a FL and she could then take AP Econ/AP Govt to round out her Senior schedule. Since she is not targeting Engineering/CS, the AP Econ might be a good option since she likes Math. Going from 1 year long AP in Junior year to 4 year long AP’s Senior shows good rigor but in the end she should select classes that she will enjoy which would translate into doing well in the courses.
You don’t mention her GPA - that will be an important factor in her admissibility (along with all of the holistic criteria used to consider most UC applicants).
As for her schedule, Peace and Justice sounds great, but I’m not sure that would be seen by the UC’s as a rigorous class, or particularly relevant to her math/art interests. Even as an undeclared applicant, I think it’s important to show a kind of cohesive trajectory of interests.
Thanks! That is a school-required course. They have to take 4 years of religious studies. She’s been all As so far and just worried about the number of AP courses, but I’m learning it’s simply not possible with all the requirements together.
We decided on the following:
AP 2D Art and Design (fall/spring)
AP English Literature and Composition (fall/spring)
AP Calculus AB
AP Physics
Peace and Justice (fall)/Spiritual Ecology (spring)
Economics (fall)/Govt (spring)
Study Hall (fall/spring)
She’s going to meet with her counselor and discuss whether she should consider bumping up to AP for Govt/Econ or if this is on target vs her peer’s schedules.
I would just want to caution her that even if she is not targeting Engineering/CS as a possible major, there are several other majors that are impacted/capped/High Demand that would require a direct admit for the best possible chances to pursue that major.
Some examples of these competitive majors beyond Engineering and will vary from campus to campus:
Biological Sciences
Public Health
Economics
Data Science
Psychology
Statistics
Art Practice
It is much easier to switch out of one of these competitive majors vs. switching into, so something to consider when applying to the UC’s. Other than UCLA, the rest of the campuses allow you to select a 1st choice and alternate major however, there is no guarantee that the an alternate major will always be considered.
Best of luck and have her enjoy her Senior year of HS. There is a college for everyone, not just the UC’s.
Here’s what my D22 took her senior year (she is a freshman double majoring in History and English at UCLA):
AP Lit
AP Art History
AP Economics (a full year with micro/macro)
AP Calc AB
AP Chem
Advanced Journalism
She dropped French after 3 years—no AP French is offered at her school but she chose not to do Honors French 4.
Other APs:
AP Gov, AP European history, AP Lang, AP USH, AP Stats, AP Psych
She was admitted to UCLA, UCSB. Rejected at Berkeley. Didn’t apply to others. Her GPA was a 3.94 UW/4.38W
My take is that your D probably doesn’t need to take the foreign language if she’s focused on UCs. However, many private schools want to see 4 years. I think it may have hurt my daughter’s results at a few highly selective schools like Tufts and Middlebury. But she is happy at ucla and doesn’t regret dropping French.
But also note that colleges may have foreign language graduation requirements. Completing a higher level in high school may allow fulfilling them in fewer (or no) courses in college by starting at a more advanced level, if the student continues the same language.
Yup, my D is in French 3 at ucla right now. If she had taken one more year in high school, she probably would have tested out completely. She doesn’t mind. But others may feel otherwise.
Yes, doing AP foreign language was by far the biggest opportunity to waive courses at UCLA since you generally need to take a language for a whole year, whereas other APs just waive one course. Much more so than APs in English, Math, Science or Social Studies (for example a decent SAT score is just as good as AP Eng Lang in waiving Writing 1 at many public colleges, including UCs). If you want to graduate in less than four years then AP foreign language is a huge help.
The only reason S23 is doing AP Latin is that some colleges he is applying to (eg Arizona) do have a language requirement and even a 3 on the exam is good enough to waive it (at least for a science major).
At UCs, a high enough SAT score only gets out of the Entry Level Writing Requirement. To get out of any of the standard level frosh writing courses above the ELWR, an AP English score is needed.
I agree that both equate to passing ELWR, but here’s the UCSC course sequence. Without ELWR you do college 1, writing 1 and writing 2. With ELWR (from AP Lang 3+ or SAT writing >=680) you just do college 1 then writing 2.