Conflicted about picking schedules

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I’m a current Freshmen.

List of classes I’m enrolled in and grades:

AP Bio (A)
Chinese 4 Honors (A)
AP Microeconomics (only first semester) (B)
Art (only second semester)
English 1 Honors (A+)
AP World History (A)
Geometry Honors (A)
Gym (A+)

I’ve been doing completely remote school for over a year now, and am more than slightly burnt out. My grades at the moment are not good.
My English teacher (who adored me) retired at the end of first semester and we just got a new one who recently graduated college. The new teacher seems okay so far, but assigns a tremendous amount of work (multiple hours a night), and on top of my lack of motivation and difficult other classes it’s hard to keep up.

I’m generally a good student, but my decent 1st semester grades can be slightly credited to all of my teachers really liking me, much more lenient late work and testing policies due to remote classes, and being very good at talking my way out of things.
At the moment, I am really trying to stay on top of things, but feel like I’m drowning.

Tentative 10th grade classes:
AP Chem
AP Chinese
English 2 Honors
Precalculus Honors
AP Euro
Gym
I then have 2 time slots left, I am considering AP Seminar, APUSH, or Enviro Honors, or possibly a study hall or art class.

The thing is, I know a lot of people who took way easier classes than me and have an equal/better GPA. I wasn’t completely naive when picking 9th grade classes, and knew that was a likely possibility, but it is still somewhat annoying.

My school weighs AP and honors classes the same, so I could take a ‘difficult’ schedule on paper, get a higher GPA, but be in much easier classes. I genuinely like school and pushing myself, but I could easily use my two electives for less challenging classes and still have one of the most difficult sophomore schedules at my school.

There are a lot of projects and things I want to do outside of school (as well as sports and ECs I’m currently involved in), and it would be a lot easier to focus on those if I wasn’t always playing ‘catch up’ with schoolwork.

Should I take easier (but still hard) classes and get a better GPA, or take harder classes which will probably prepare me better for college and life?

Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks for reading.

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Also, I’m not just trying to pick classes that look good on paper. My math, Chinese and science classes were done by placement. I love humanities and want the opportunity of taking as many history/social science classes as I can. If I could I would gladly switch my AP science class for another history class, but that’s not an option. While using my two electives for easier classes may provide an all-around benefit, it would also mean compromising on taking the classes that most interest me. Unfortunately the classes that most interest me take a considerable amount of time and workload.

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After 3 kids in the same good public high school, I think I have finally got the system figured out.

As you yourself realize, a lot of your experience is based upon how good a teacher you have. So register for all classes, fill up all 8 or however many periods your schools has, with no lunch. Then drop the ones where the teacher is bad. That way, if you get a bad teacher for a class you can take later on, you drop it, and try again next year. So register for everything, and then drop a class or two so that you have a free period and a lunch. Of course, you have to take 4 yrs of English, and a requisite number of years of certain other subjects, but you still have some flexibility for the subjects that don’t require 4 years.

My kid always registered for 8, rarely dropped one so that he had a lunch. Virtually always took the highest level class offered. Whenever he took a regular class, he got an A plus and said it was shockingly easy (and that he didn’t like being in the classrooms with kids who were disruptive). Honors/AP? He worked hard, got between a B and an A, usually an A minus. He wound up with about a 3.6 UW (if I’m calculating it right - school doesn’t calculate it UW) and a 4.18W out of a possible 4.4. If he had taken only regular classes, he would have probably wound up with the same GPA weighted, but would have had a 4.0 UW.

This probably would have made a difference in application to our competitive flagship state U. About ten years ago, a young man who had been class president ALL FOUR YEARS and had an I guess low 3’s GPA UW, but always highest rigor classes, and decent SAT, got wait listed (and eventually admitted). He and his family were rightly furious. If he had taken all regular classes, he would have had a 4.0 UW and been admitted, probably been offered honors or money.

But for private schools? Highly competitive private colleges would have seen through this. They would have questioned the lack of rigor in a 4.0 in mostly regular classes, when honors and AP were available.

So it depends upon where you want to go. More importantly, it depends upon what you want to learn NOW, and who you want your peers to be, as you return to classrooms. My advice is to take as many honors/AP classes as you can, so that you learn more, and have as your peers the brightest, highest achieving students in the school. This will still probably lead to the best academic record that you can present, once it’s time to apply to colleges, unless you are only applying to public schools that you know only consider UW GPA, and ignore rigor. If you find that an honors/AP class is giving you particular difficulty, you can always drop down to regular level during the semester, if need be.

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Thank you so much for the reply! You’re completely right about the difference a good/bad teacher can make. I really like your advice about filling all 8 periods, and reevaluating before the drop date. I think I am going to pick the classes that most interest me, and worry about the difficulty level/college admissions implications later. My only worry is that currently, when I turn assignments in and have time to study for tests I do very well. The only time my grades suffer is when I have too much work to conceivably finish on time. I don’t want to sacrifice on difficult classes that I enjoy, but I also don’t want to sacrifice on having time to participate in extracurriculars. I need to get better at time management, so hopefully that will make a difference.

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Were you placed in AP Chem? Because this is a 2nd level class that typically requires Chemistry Honors as a prereq and is one of the hardest AP science classes there is. It’s typically taken by very strong seniors. If you can switch it and take AP Physics 1 (which is a level 1 AP class without a pre-req), you should try that – unless your school has some sort of Chem Honors+AP Chem class rolled into one.
Colleges only expect you to take 6 classes (gym doesn’t count), so you can register for two more electives and drop the one with the worst teacher.
Note that colleges don’t expect more than 6-8 AP’s, TOTAL, for all of high school, and as Stanford puts it “it’s not a game of who has the most AP’s wins”.
My advice:
English 2 Honors
Precalculus Honors
AP Euro
AP Physics 1
AP Chinese
Elective (regular or honors)
Elective (regular or honors)

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Thanks for your reply!
I’m not sure why but my school honors track has all the sophomores in honors math eligible for AP Chem. The prerequisite is either honors 8th grade science (which was basically an entry level chem class), or AP bio with a 3-week summer chem class. I took the 8th grade one, and am doing the summer one for review.
I didn’t know that physics 1 was easier, so if that’s the case my school does it very strange. In my school you’re only allowed to take physics jr or sr year.
Colleges may only expect 6-8 AP classes, but I think AOs also know how many your school offers. My school offers a lot, so I think it’s expected that we take advantage of that. This of course doesn’t mean taking 6 APs a year, but I expect I’ll graduate having taken 12-14, and if not then some community college duel enrollments.
Your advice on colleges only expecting 6 core classes is good to know.
I think I will enroll for all the electives I can then drop the ones with bad teachers/that I don’t like.

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Yes, they know how many there are, but they still expect 6-8 total. After that, their relative value to indicate ability to do the work and make the first cut is low (law of diminishing returns). If you take more than 6-8 total, don’t expect it’ll help distinguish you or “impress” adcoms.
DO ask your GC if the “most rigorous” designation on the recommendation form supposes a minimum number of APs and if so what that number is (6? 8? 10?)
You DO need to have a coherent progression, meaning something that makes sense for each of the 5 core courses (English, Math, Social Science, Science, Foreign Language).
If AP Chem is designed with the Middle School class as a pre-req and/or the Intensive Summer class as a pre-req, then it’s good. Prepare for something HARD though.
AP Physics includes 4 courses: 1 and 2, which are algebra-based, very similar to Honors Physics (but more in depth) and match the Physics college class a premed would take. C: EM and C: M are calculus based, as incredibly hard as AP Chem in terms of “hardest APs”, and match the Physics classes an Engineering or Physics major would take.
Physics 1 is often taken junior year but that’s assuming Honors Chem is taken sophomore year. Then, senior year, you can take AP Chem or AP Physics C or AP Bio (if planning to major in STEM) or APES (if planning to major in Humanities, Business, Social Science) or Anatomy&Physiology (if planning to major in Nursing, Kinesiology, Exercise Science…)

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Do not take AP Euro and AP USH concurrently. Both involve a lot of reading and writing and will likely have exams or research papers due at the same time. Push USH to junior year.

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