Developing senior schedule: Early Dismissal? Does this look bad to colleges?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

So, our school’s already registering us for classes next year, in which I’ll be a senior. I have for the most part, all of my core classes down, but I am just debating on whether or not I should do early dismissal, which is offered by my school in which I would take the last block each day off, or to just do some fluffy electives. This is what my schedule looks like:

AP Lit
AP Calc BC
AP Macroeconomics
AP Physics C: Mechanics
AP Physics C: E & M
Spanish II

These are classes I know for sure I’m going to take, but they only make up the 6 blocks out of the 8 required by my school. My school runs on an A/B day schedule, with 4 blocks a day. To make up for those, I could either do some electives, in this case, I was thinking Engineering Applications and Debate, or I could just do early dismissal, in which I would probably just utilize to study per my AP workload. I would rather do the latter, as I feel the former would just be blow-off extra classes, but I don’t know whether colleges would look down upon this or not. I would already fit all the graduation requirements with individual core and overall credit requirements. I am planning on applying out of state, to colleges like the University of Washington, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis, and majoring in CS. Would these colleges care about my early dismissal? Or would they rather I take the extra classes?

Thanks!

2

I do not know how much of a help my comment will be, but I know one senior at my school does take an early semester. However, my high schools runs on an 8 period/day schedule, and she only started doing this second semester. She is definitely within the top 5% of her grade and has gotten accepted into some top tier schools already.

3

I honestly don’t think they’d care too much about your dismissals. You’re only taking two, and that’s honestly sorta typical in most high schools (you have to judge relative to your own). Your schedule looks pretty intense, so I honestly don’t think they’d think you’re taking an easy senior year.

You’ll be fine. You could take one more class if you actually want to, and I honestly would rather take a fun class I was actually interested in (like woodshop, yes, really).

4

Considering the universities you’re applying to and the rigor of your schedule, take early dismissal. It’s fine.