Hello, I’ve been thinking about my senior year schedule a lot recently; I’m not entirely sure what I want to take… so, I’d like your help!
This year, in my junior year, I’m currently taking 4 AP classes: APUSH, AP Lang, AP French, and AP Microeconomics. In my sophomore year, I took AP Human.
I’m planning on taking 6 AP Classes next year, but I’m not quite sure what to do. I’m pretty sure I’m taking AP Gov, AP Lit, AP Calc AB, AP Calc BC, and AP Environmental Science. I’m torn between AP Euro, AP Psych, AP Bio, or AP World History for my 6th class.
I’m mostly worried about my sciences. I hope to be competitive for all the top schools, and I haven’t yet taken an AP science. I’ve been in Honors Earth Science, Biology, and Chemistry, getting an A+ in all of them. My school offers all of the AP sciences, but the problem is that both AP Chem and AP Physics take up two class slots; I would have to cut something else if I wanted to take them. I also know that my senior year is going to be hard enough; I’m nervous that I might be overestimating how much I can actually handle. Will colleges be alarmed if the only AP science I took was AP Environmental? Should I just get rid of it? It seems pretty interesting.
I hope to go into Anthropology/ social sciences, so I think AP Euro, AP Psych, and AP World would all be super helpful and interesting. Are these classes worth taking? I would probably be taking them online.
Please help me! I want to maximize what I choose so that I have an interesting and satisfying senior year!
First of all, it depends on which colleges you are applying to. Second, any of the AP sciences can be a killer so you might get really nervous. Only take it if you can do well on the AP exam such that it can get rid of a science class you might have to take at a college if you are doing anthropology.
Are you on a block schedule?
6APs are too many - you won’t “signal” anything to colleges with that schedule, that you wouldn’t signal with 4.
With 4 APs, you show you can do the work. At that point, they’ll look at other things - your essays, your ECs.
The law of diminishing returns applies after 8 APs … and you already have 5. 4 more should be plenty.
Remember that senior year, writing all these applications will be like having an extra class and you don’t want to cut into sleep.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. Yes, I am on a block schedule–6 APs certainly is a lot, I know, but it’s just that my school is SUPER competitive (with everyone taking 4+ APs per year). I feel like colleges may take that into account when looking at how many I’m taking/ how much I’m being challenged in comparison to my peers, especially when thinking about the top schools at which I’ve been looking.
Colleges won’t take that into account. If you have 4, 5, or 6 APs it’ll be the same for them - indication you can thrive in advanced classes.
So, choose wisely and in function of your interests rather than based on what you think will matter to colleges.
If you’re sure about 6 APs, based on your stated interests, I’d take:
Semester 1: AP Calc AB, AP Gov, APES, Honors Foreign Language
Semester2: AP Euro, AP Bio, AP Psych, Honors English
(Your 2nd semester senior year, you won’t have all the applications to write, which will lead to your having the equivalent of an extra class that’s writing-intensive).
If you can cut down a bit, cut APES and AP Psych and replace those with fun electives you want to take.