Excellent questions, @AppleNotFar ! I am looking forward to the answers as carpoolingkid would like to drop foreign language for more STEM asap!
@GoatMama @MA2012 “physics is a good foundation - there is lots one can do.” Exactly. My fellow physics major friends went on to earn graduate degrees and became professors in physics, astronomy, math, law, medicine, economics, computer science, materials science, environmental engineering, and electrical engineering. Others became lawyers, pharmacists, medical doctors, stock traders, journalists, business owners, actors, and teachers.
So here is my two cents worth. If your kid gets to the 4th level of a language, more is optional. Especially if said kid has other things that excite him/her. Like STEM. For many kids, this can free up a block of time as early as junior year. If your kid isn’t a STEM kid and wants to stop language, consider taking the subject test at the end of the last year not for college admissions but for placement if he/she ends up at a college with a language requirement.
If your kid took chemistry freshman year, there is a lot to be gained from continuing straight to AP chem sophomore year. First, the rest of the course load will be lighter that year and second, the basic material is still fresh. If your kid wants to double up on sciences in that year or later, it’s easier if one is a first year class rather than 2 AP classes. And at many schools, a higher level of math is needed for physics, so it’s a natural one to push off. (Although many BS kids are far enough along in math that it’s not necessary to wait.)
Again, without knowing the kid, I would think that 3 good APS to do sophomore year (using the rationale above) would be Chem, US History, and English language. The latter can be done with basic sophomore BS English, and the other 2 will be challenging but in different ways. The first 2 will require choosing a class that assumes they’ll take the test. Note that both those 2 would allow them to knock off the subject tests in those at year end. And yes, plan on June tests unless your school year and AP exams are over by the May date. Of course, if your kid is ready for an AP calculus exam sophomore year, that’d be easy to add, but most aren’t there before junior year.
I don’t think there’s an ideal number of AP exams, and at many prep schools, more interesting and rigorous classes will not follow the AP curriculum. Colleges know this. AP exams are useful in college applications when the scores are good (particularly when the course grade was not). And they are useful for college students who use them to get out of core requirements outside their major. (It seems that many kids will take Chem 101 if they are pre med even if they got a 5 on the exam, but such a kid might be happy to use a hIstory or econ AP to skip social science requirements. ) With that said, many schools don’t have required classes.
As for staring at the course catalog, your kid will probably do this exercise with his/her advisor, who knows your kid and the general difficulty of the classes at your school better than you ever will. (Okay, @AppleNotFar , I can probably still recite the prerequisites for most of the classes at DS school. I had it committed to memory!) The best thing you can do is ask about balance, gaps between a first and second year course, etc. YMMV of course.
The main thing is to have these conversations with your kid and his/her advisor and current teachers, but not to pick for them. You want to help them make the best decisions, not make them for them.
One other thing to keep in mind - these suggestions apply to most, but not all applicants. Many BS’s on a trimester system allow a student to take 5 classes per term. So if the school also has, as mine did, a music, art, PE, religion requirement, it is impossible to do 4 years of English, math, natural science, social science and language without requesting a course overload. Colleges understand that.
S2 will likely take 4 years of English, math, science, and social studies. His boarding school requires only 2 years of language. I’m working hard to get him to do 3rd year of language, but we will see. He is thinking of Engineering so I don’t think 3rd year of language is required. He might skip it junior year and take the language in senior year.
I was glad to discover that he has been talking with his friends, uppers, and his advisor about course plans since Fall of freshman year. I never had to bring it up. Whenever he talks about courses, either I approve or give gentle no - No, I don’t think you should skip US History. It doesn’t satisfy “rigorous curriculum.”
Students in his school do double up in math and science, meaning take two math or science classes in a year. Some take summer classes to accelerate. This needs to be well coordinated with school ahead.
S2 is doubling up in science this sophomore year. His school has a block system, so he has taken Honors Chemistry in Fall and will take AP Chem in Spring. He postponed sophomore religion (required) to next year to do that. He will take his first AP exam in May.
He wants to take AP Physics C in junior year but it doesn’t align well with his math sequence as he is still in PreCalculus. He plans to request to take Calculus BC and Physics C concurrently in junior year and take Biology (required) in senior year. If that doesn’t work out, he will take Biology junior year and Physics C senior year. Either seems fine to me. He says he should have doubled up in math this year and keeps asking me if he should double up in math further. I keep saying no. I’m not convinced of his math maturity. I would rather have him slow down for mastery than rush through it. (We are pretty mathy family and S2 is the least mathy.)
At local public schools, doubling up and GPA/rank boost game has become insane. Kids have no time for lunch as they take 7-8 periods of classes in a day to double up. Kids take PE, health, etc in summer paying $$ to avoid getting GPA hit by those unweighted classes. They only take Honors or AP/IB classes during school year. No art no music unless Honors are offered. S1 at local public school did not play that game but did double up in science junior year. He still ended up taking 9 AP classes. That is $900+ in AP exam fees to CollegeBoard. :-&
I’m glad to avoid all that frenzy with S2. He will take 3-4 APs total.
@gardenstategal I had to look up YMMV, I’m so not with it! @payn4ward I never realized what was up with the green emoticon–that one could be very useful, love it.
Now that I have satisfied the initial itch by creating that preliminary college list, my enthusiasm for the effort has waned. A couple of nights ago we went out to dinner with my FIL who posed the question to DC: “So, what are you looking for in colleges?” Awkward silence ensued. I mentioned something about some of the larger LACs looking like good fits and DC gave me the “huh?” look. Then to make a bad turn in the conversation worse, my FIL asked what I had been looking for in a college. And before I could answer he says “to get married, right?” Oy! The man is 90 and generally lovely so I bit my tongue. Later DH did confirm with our kids that mom was NOT looking to get married out of college. Thanks honey. (My main objective had been to be in as little debt possible coming out of undergrad knowing that I would probably need a lot in loans for grad school which ended up being the case.)
Yesterday we had a talk with the kid about goal setting in the near- and mid-terms, with course planning a big part of the discussion. Kid reported that conversations around the topic have been had with the advisor and teammates, so that was encouraging. But we also set the expectation that kid would develop a draft plan with the help of the advisor by the end of the school year with answers to questions like which sequence of science made the most sense, whether language was recommended after the AP course, and if not, would computer science courses be a possibility. We also decided that kid would wait until the beginning of 10th grade to talk with someone in college counseling about the best approach for engaging with college coaches. But we do plan to make an informal tour of campuses on our way home from school in June. Just maybe not any LACs… 
@AppleNotFar , love that description of a conversation! You should have told him that the requirement for the husband was that he have a charming FIL who was a great conversationalist!
I think you left it just where it should be! To the extent that you’re thinking about the future, make it the NEAR future. I admit, I’m very opinionated on this, but I think that the BEST thing YOU can do for kid at this point is NOT focus on the future so much, but to help him make sense of the present. When you’re together, ask your kid how he’s feeling about each of his classes. Which ones is he liking and why? (And REALLY, why!!! Was it because they come easily, are interesting in some way, is it the quality of discourse in the class, because he’s doing particularly well?) Which ones less so and again why? How’s he feeling about his sport – the training, the intensity of play, his teammates, his coach? Listen hard, and help him work out what’s resonating with him without giving advice. Patterns will emerge. You’ll really be giving him an incredible life skill – being in touch with himself – and you’ll be setting him up to make good decisions for himself.
I’m guessing that he’ll have a good roadmap for the next 3 years with the help of his advisor. (My son’s school made these available through the parent portal at some point after the middle of freshman year, and they remained there, updated annually, until the start of senior year. It was helpful, for sure. And at least in DS’ case, there were some significant changes along the way. But what it DID do was ensure that at every point, he was going to have the prerequisites for his current plan and meet all requirements for graduation.)
At this point, it’s really not fair to your kid – who this time last year was wondering where he’d be in school THIS year – to be asked to project himself into a college environment. It’s sort of like moving into a new house you saved for for years and looked for for a small eternity, and as soon as the boxes are unpacked – but before you’ve even painted and decorated and lived there – someone asks what your next house is going to be. What? I don’t get to just enjoy this one for a while? It sounds like you’re comfortable postponing the conversation, and to the extent you can, you can help my not letting it take over yet. (FIL may have forgotten how young he still is.) It’s so tough because as a parent, your job really does involve looking ahead and making sure that your kid is going to be prepared for what life is going to throw at them. In terms of college planning, you have grabbed the brass ring already by having your kid at a top BS. Many of the parents here on CC who are so obsessed do NOT have that resource.
And FWIW, I would not look at colleges on the way home unless you just need some way to break up the trip. For a kid who’s in the youngest of 5 years at his current school to be looking at schools where there are kids who are another 4 years older – that requires imagining yourself four years from now! And boy, do kids change! Everything from academic interests to preferred social environment. (I recall a friend who took her son when he was younger to visit schools – as part of a vacation – and he ended up choosing his favorite because it had a Pokémon club.) I know that for my son, even when it was time to look in spring of junior year, he had a hard time really engaging with the process. He was finally an upperclassman with all those privileges, a starter in his sport, and had a strong friend group and great social life. He didn’t WANT to leave BS yet – he was super happy there --and thinking about leaving was more than a little depressing and anxiety-producing.
On the sport, you are right to find out what needs to be done sophomore year. His coach may be a great resource (because he also knows the programs where he’d be a good fit) and whoever in the college counseling office works with athletes should also be contacted. (Usually, there are people who specialize in this as this.) You do want to be sure, if it’s a sport where they’re looking at kids at summer camps and elite tournaments, that you get on the radar at the right ones at the right time and that you know the rest of the timeframe. It varies by sport, and it’s easy to get caught unaware. It could be a good idea to set up an account at one of the recruiting websites and make sure that he’s getting video highlights, etc. but someone will be able to give him good guidance on that.
So now, on that road trip…
Great perspectives and advice @gardenstategal ! And I sure wish I was quick-witted enough to have come up with that response to my FIL 
It’s been little over 4 months since I was relieved from homeschooling my daughter as she started bs last Fall, and all the college / curriculum planning is rapidly ceasing to occupy my mind.
Dear Child (19) is taking two APs in sophomore year. One in Science and one in History. Not sure what is SAT II subject test. DC wants to take two SAT II subject tests. What is the difference between AP and SAT II?
AP courses are the equivalent to 1st year college courses, so the exams are tantamount to college exams. Subject Tests test HS material.
In history, very few schools require a student to take USH before APUSH or WH before APWH, so the AP versions of those classes **may/b be aligned with the Subject Tests as well as the AP test. But that’s really a question for the teacher, who may or may not teach to the test.
In science, the major AP courses (Bio/Chem/Physics C) usually require an intro course. In most cases, the intro course is better aligned to the Subject Test, as the AP courses cover less breadth and more depth. There is some debate among students as to whether one should take the Subject Test after AP. I did not; I took chem and physics after the corresponding intro classes, and I was happy with the results. Other kids might have a different experience.
Thanks for clarifying it. No intro courses, school allowed that DC qualified for AP classes in science and history. She will be taking AP MATH next year. So does she has to take SAT II in math also. What is PSAT?
What happens if you like both humanities and STEM, and do well in school.
Thank you, @GoatMama for starting this thread. Here’s how we are progressing with College prep plans with DC1:
(Class of 2019)
Me: Did you want to apply for Iowa Writer’s Camp? I think you may have a good chance of getting in!
DC1: No. Why would I want to write over the Summer?
Me: Your college office is inviting parents of sophmores to attend the College Weekend in February. Should I plan on attending?
DC1: Why? I’m only a sophomore!
Me: Have you given any thought as to where you might want to go to college?
DC1: No. Well, yes. … No Red States. And not in the desert. (!)
Me: Shall we look at Cappex to develop a list of colleges?
DC1: Sure, you can if you want to.
Suffice it to say, I am not attending the College Weekend.
I think most applicants who submit a Subject Test will submit a math as one of them. Since your kid will be taking AP math (I assume you mean calc and not stats), she should take the level 2 math tests.
At this point few colleges require/request Subject Tests, and the ones that do are generally the tippy top. Unless she’s applying for an engineering program (which will almost always require Math and either chem or physics), most of the other colleges leave it up to the applicant. You can confirm with the school. In almost all cases, if the colleges requires/requests 2, they will look at the 2 best scores, so if she wants to take 3 and submit the best 2, that’s fine.
Then she should expect to spend some time studying on her own to fill in the gaps.
Too time-consuming to answer. Read through the below and ask any points that are not clear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSAT/NMSQT
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/psat-nmsqt-psat-10
http://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=398
@AppleNotFar – I just looked up YMMV. You are not alone in squaretown.
I can’t remember who posted that their DC’s school had a two year language requirement. DC1 would give his right arm to be done with Latin after this year! :((
urbandictionary.com is your friend. 
Three posts in a row with a glass of red wine. I will stop after this one. Home alone.
Is anyone else’s BS slowly eliminating AP curriculum? This seems to be a trend both in some BS as well as a few highly competitive day schools. Hoping that the depth and breadth of their curriculum will suffice to pass the AP tests without the canned AP curriculum. At this point, we have NO AP English or World History. There may be
more. . . . Where’s @mexusa when I need clarity? ^:)^
@itcannotbetrue, no AP classes at SPS. But you probably know that.
Many (most?) top NYC day schools have dropped AP classes - they’re considered a little old-fashioned ;-). The explanation that I was given is that they don’t want to be constrained by a set curriculum. Also, they’re less important for college admissions - more for college placement and credits (in some cases). Even if a class isn’t labeled AP, you could still sit for the test and use your score for those purposes.
This has been a trend at boarding schools for several years. Many schools don’t want to feel constrained by the AP syllabus. Having said that, most schools offer courses in each subject that is at AP level or beyond. In some cases, a student can take the AP with minimal outside prep, except review (there is not much one can do to make calculus unique, for example). In other cases, serious prep work is required. This depends upon the subject and/or the school.