Many top college’s CDS will state that they recommend 4 units each of English, Math, Science, Language, and Social Studies for admission.
If a science-focused student were to not take a 4th year of social studies to enable his schedule to accommodate a 5th unit of an AP lab science, do you believe that would hurt admissions chances? (3 years of SS including 2 years of APUSH completed). This would be "explained in the Secondary School Report evaluation or by the applicant in the “Additional Information” section of the Common Application. "
My current belief is that it would not, but of course we seek the advice of the experienced, informed, and opinionated forum!
(and yes we know that no one can say with 100% certainty, and it may be different at different schools, and that squeezing it all in would be best, just not sure if that is possible or smart).
There is no knowing how a given admission officer at a given school will react, but in general I think one would be safer to take all of the recommended courses required by a selective college. There will be tons of well qualified applicants who have met all of the recommendations that you would be competing against for a spot. The students I know who have doubled up on a subject (ex. taken two APs in one subject) have still fulfilled the recommended classes and took the second class in a subject as an elective.
^^^ I appreciate that @happy1 , thanks. Unfortunately doubling up is not an option as the sciences classes are both lab. If what you post is true, then AP Physics 2 will have to go. Summer course an option I guess but there is a chem research internship to work around there… sigh… this is all so hard.
As I said, I’m giving you my educated guess…I cannot tell you how any one admission officer would react. You should discuss with your guidance counselor as well. (At our HS some students can double up on science even with labs, but of course that is a function of how the HS schedule gets worked out)