<p>Today in school we were deciding on course schedules for junior year, and one of my friends who is aiming for Ivies/University of Chicago made up this schedule. Is it competitive for top schools?</p>
<p>Junior Year:
IB Physics
Regular English
Regents (Regular) US History
IB Math SL
IB Spanish
Science Research
Orchestra</p>
<p>Senior Year:
IB Biology
Regular English
Regular Government and Economics
AP Calculus
IB Spanish
Science Research
Orchestra</p>
<p>ECs:
All-County Orchestra
Immigrant/ESL Tutoring
Science Research Project</p>
<p>Always tested well (99%), 4.0 GPA currently</p>
<p>What about if she took IB English instead of Regular English? There is no Honors English.</p>
<p>Grades and SAT scores look excellent, but I’m concerned about the lack of Nobel Peace Prizes. What does your friend do with her time besides studying and goofing off?</p>
<p>I’m applying to the Ivies this year My brother is at Princeton right now. When he was in high school, he took the highest level classes available. He didn’t really like regular courses anyway. If she can, take as many AP/IB classes as possible. However, don’t overload. My friend takes EVERYTHING and she wants to kill herself on a daily basis. I think she needs more EC’s. Science Research is a big plus, though. I never took it because I hate science, but it’s a great opportunity and I kind of wish I’d done it. It looks like so much fun.</p>
<p>She needs to have lots of everything. See, she’ll be competing against thousands of children with amazing scores, activities, and grades in the most rigorous courses, who didn’t shirk from harder classes because it was too much of work. Yes, she’s a great applicant and has a fighting chance of getting in, but the less work she does now the harder it is for her to overcome the kids who took the full IB diploma while fighting street crime in Hell’s Kitchen and working alongside Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela to liberate dictatorships. She still might get in, but she shouldn’t only apply to those HYPSM schools because, well, most people don’t get into any of them because there are too many qualified applicants and not nearly enough seats.</p>
<p>What about University of Chicago? She’s a double legacy there, and it is pretty much her dream school. Of course, her backups are Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Brown, and Cornell. lol.</p>
<p>Well, even though she’s got double legacy at U of C, there’s still a chance she could get rejected. So she would then have to turn to the ivies. And to be in the ivies, she should be more “rounded”. Because right now she has some ec’s, but not a lot. also, it depends on SAT/ACT scores too. As for the course load, colleges like to see you take the hardest class the school offers. However, that doesn’t mean i’m saying take all hard classes. It’s possible to take all AP/IB, but at the risk of getting 0hrs of sleep.</p>
My brother is at Princeton right now. When he was in high school, he took the highest level classes available. He didn’t really like regular courses anyway. If she can, take as many AP/IB classes as possible. However, don’t overload. My friend takes EVERYTHING and she wants to kill herself on a daily basis. I think she needs more EC’s. Science Research is a big plus, though. I never took it because I hate science, but it’s a great opportunity and I kind of wish I’d done it. It looks like so much fun.</p>