<p>Hi,
I am looking for input about courses for my sons senior year of high school. Not sure if I am posting in the correct forum.
Some Background Info: My son plans to be a History major with the intention of going on to law school. Math and foreign language are not his strong subjects and he works very hard in these areas to get the grades he gets! He has always been a decent student (B+/A- type) but this year (junior year), he has really turned it on and is a straight A student. He took one AP class as a sophomore World History with a 4 on the AP exam and a 740 on the subject test. Junior year courses are:
US History (AP)
English III (Honors)
Anatomy & Physiology (Honors) this is his third lab science & it has been extremely rigorous
Psychology (Honors)
Spanish III (College Prep)
Algebra II (College Prep)</p>
<p>Colleges He would like to Consider: Holy Cross, Tulane, University of Pennsylvania (he is a legacy), University of Florida, Haverford, Lehigh, Northeastern, Elon, Rollins & Muhlenberg.</p>
<p>Possible Courses for Senior Year:
AP US Government & Politics
AP Economics
AP English
Ecology Honors OR AP Biology (He had a solid A in Honors Bio as a freshman but he is not wild about taking AP Bio. Ecology has a lab component so he will have had 4 lab sciences)
Probability & Statistics (May take Honors or may stick with College Prep.)
Spanish IV (College Prep)</p>
<p>Does this course load seem rigorous enough for applying to competitive schools? Would it be detrimental to take Ecology as his science class?
Thanks!</p>
<p>NuclearPenguin - Prob & Stat is a required class for entry into our state university system. In my MBA program I found Prob & Stat a very good class to have had in my background - it was a great help. It was hardly “a joke class for slackers”. Thank you for taking some of your precious time to share your opinion!</p>
<p>I think he will need to take statistics in college. I wonder if he will struggle if he doesn’t take precalculus in high school. He might want to self-study AP European History if his school doesn’t offer it. If he isn’t interested in sciences he probably doesn’t need to take AP biology. It involves a considerable amount of chemistry. My daughter has found it demanding. JMHO</p>
<p>Apollo6 - thank you for your helpful comment! AP Euro. History is not offered at my son’s school. The idea to self study is a good one. Are there online courses for this type of study?</p>
<p>sherpa – I don’t think any of us are in a position to judge whether or not ccmom’s S’s course selection is rigorous enough for Penn or not since we have no idea what courses his high school offers. I’ve known kids in this area who have been admitted to Penn with 2 APs (because that’s all their HS offered). Shocking, I realize.</p>
<p>BYU might offer a course but a good prep book or two might be better than a mediocre online course. My 2012 daughter took BYU’s human geography thinking it would prepare her for the AP Human Geography exam but it didn’t. She ended up with a 3. She then self-studied U.S. govt and art history just by using prep books and scored a 4 in each. See the self-studying AP thread on CC. European history is supposed to be easier than World but tougher than U.S. because it covers less information than world but more than U.S. Good Luck to your son!</p>
<p>At my son’s school there are 12 AP classes offered. Two are in languages that he does not take so he has 10 available AP classes. If he takes AP Bio he will have taken 6 of the possible AP classes. Sure it would be great if he could manage an AP math class but that is just not reasonable under the circumstances. He has a scheduled meeting with Penn admissions when he goes on their legacy tour and information session. Penn is known to be very generous with their legacy applicants so I am confident we will receive solid information in that meeting.</p>
<p>I sincerely appreciate the feedback I have received from this forum. It has been helpful!</p>