<p>Hi, I am a sophomore and hope to attend a school in the UC system, preferably LA, Berkeley, or Santa Barbara, or some equivalent school preferably in California. </p>
<p>Freshman year my school did not offer AP courses to 9th graders and only a small number made it into Honors, so I took:</p>
<p>-English
-World Cultures/Intro to Theater (does not count for UC credit, but my school forces freshmen into taking it instead of a real history course).
-French 1
-P.E.
-Chemistry
-Algebra 2</p>
<p>I received straight A's in 9th grade.</p>
<p>This year, as a sophomore, I am taking:</p>
<p>-AP European History
-Honors English
-Honors Biology
-French 2 (Honors French 2 is not offered at my school).
-Journalism
-Graphic Arts/Design
-Precalculus (taken online over summer and received an A). </p>
<p>For extracurriculars, I am a competitive equestrian and am part of the staff of my school's newspaper. I am seeking advice on the numbers of AP courses to take in the future and if I have a chance to get into the aforementioned schools as of my track right now. Also, is Physics strictly necessary?</p>
<p>Generally as a rule of thumb, take as many AP classes that you can, but enough that you don’t overwhelm yourself. I would suggest that you take the highest level classes that you can. You should probably take at least one year long course in the basic sciences, biology, chemistry, and physics. The preferable option would be AP in each, or honors, and to take AP classes in whatever classes are most similar to your possible major(s).</p>
<p>Considering that you don’t have any SAT scores and are going to be a sophomore, it is very hard to say what your chances are for any of the schools.</p>
<p>You may want to check out the Claremont Consortium of Colleges.</p>
<p>I live in California…sorry I forgot to mention! </p>
<p>Thank you for your advice, I was wondering mainly about the “magic number” for AP courses throughout high school. There are people who take perhaps 5-7, and then those who take over 10. Is it better to achieve A’s in fewer AP’s or take the maximum offered and risk getting a C or worse? </p>
<p>Thanks again, I will look into the Claremont Consortium of Colleges.</p>
<p>Since you live in California, the admissions is actually going to be a little harder for you, I’m assuming that you are white by the way. In my opinion, it is better to take 3 or 4 AP’s and then some honors each year (if possible) and get A’s if possible, but others may argue that you didn’t “challenge” yourself. Best case try to pick out how many you think that you can handle, and tailor them to your major. For example, if you are looking at a math or science major, take AP Calc BC and AP Physics if you can, or if you are looking at a english, polysci, or something like that, take AP English, AP Gov etc.</p>
<p>There certainly are other people who would say differently on that though.</p>
<p>Going back to the UC’s, if you are a minority (excluding asians) that really helps with admissions. It is a lot more competitive for in-state admission than it is for out of state due to the UC Budget issue. One of the reasons why I am looking out of state (I’m a senior in HS outside SF.)</p>
<p>If you have any other questions, feel free to send me a PM. Hope it helped.</p>
<p>Yes, I am white, which does seem to be a bit of a setback in the eyes of some colleges. I am currently considering a couple different options in terms of majors, including psychobiology. Typically, I prefer english and history to math and science, although I find that I am really interested in biology.</p>