I’ve been worried recently because I feel like my college admissions might be affected by a lowered course rigor over my junior and senior year.
Junior year I took the following courses:
AP English Lang
AP Calculus BC
AP United States History
AP Biology
Physics Honors
French 3 Honors
Ethnic Studies
Senior year I am taking the following courses: (I tried to get two science classes, but my school sadly wouldn’t let me due to conflict)
AP English Lit
AP Statistics
AP Psychology
AP Chemistry
AP French Language
Environmental Justice
My concern is that I dropped from 7 to 6 courses and that will reflect poorly on me; will this affect my college admissions to a Top 20 school? (I got straight As my junior year).
You have English, foreign language, lab science, math and social studies. Your senior year schedule looks good to me. If you are really concerned, maybe add Multivariable or Linear Algebra through CC.
It’s fine. Adding a dual enrollment math class (linear algebra, discrete math…) May add some rigor if you don’t feel challenged but don’t do that for college adcoms.
The person to ask is your guidance counselor, not any one of us. Rigor is relative to what is offered in your HS.
The top tier colleges will want to see the guidance counselor check the box on the recommendation saying you have taken the most rigorous course-load available at your HS (which doesn’t mean taking every AP class – there is often some latitude in this). If the guidance counselor says that your prior and current HS schedules are sufficient to get that most rigorous box checked then you are fine.