Did I make some bad decisions in my senior schedule?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am a high school senior heading into college next year.

Usually, I make my schedules be rigorous however this year I laid off a bit with it for two reasons.

  1. I need extra time to navigate college tours, essay scholarships, admissions essays etc etc etc
  2. I program apps and websites on the side as an independent study, I am hoping to make my application for internships at the likes of Microsoft look more appealing. This means a lot of hard work that takes time from my school life, but won’t necessarily show up on my schedule.
  3. Music, I am still pursuing my Cello and Piano rigorously taking about 2 hours of lessons each week. I am also doing a rather prestigious youth symphony. For some reason, a lot of good song ideas pop into my head a lot of times, and sometimes I get to compose them but I rarely have a chance to write them down. I am hoping to have more time to do that as well.

As a result, my transcript through junior year looks like this (This is probably TMI so you can skip it if you want):
Orchestra x4 (7th-10th {I did the high school orchestra in JR high})
Geometry x1 (8th)
Algebra2 x1 (9th)
Pre-cal x1 (10th)
AP Calc x1 (11th)
Gen Science x1 (9th)
Pre-AP Bio x1 (10th)
AP Bio x1 (11th)
Spanish 3 x1 (9th)
Spanish 4 x1 (11th)
Pre-AP english x2 (9th, 10th)
AP English x1 (11th)
Pre-Ap World x1 (9th)
AP USH x1 (10th)
AP World x1 (11th)
Game Design x1 (10th)
AP CS x1 (11th)
Digitools x0.5 (9th {really weird class})
Nutrition x0.5 (online)
Cycling x0.5 (online)

I got some b’s in Spanish 3, and a-'s in algebra two but otherwise so far everything is an A. (3.95 unweighted, 4.22-4.35 weighted)

This year I am looking at this schedule:
AP Calc BC
AP Statistics
AP Physics
AP Gov
Regular English
Pre-AP Chemistry

This schedule has been built so I have time to do the three things listed above, however, if it is going to hurt my chances of getting into a school or competitive admissions program then I do not want to do this.

For the record, I am looking at applying to the likes of Drexel, Digipen, U of Washington, Georgia Tech, Michigan Tech, Emory, UC San Diego. I will be trying to get into the computer science program at each school my freshmen year as I could not tolerate another year of waiting, however, some of these schools (like UW) only admit about 4% of incoming freshmen directly into computer science.

I have three main concerns with my schedule:

  1. Pre-AP Chemistry: It is a very hard course at my school because the teacher is not very good. It’s so bad that generally, they have lectures even during lunch times. As a result, I have gone the pre-ap route because my heart really is not in chemistry and that would give me some more time in my weekly schedule.
  2. Regular English: I really dislike reading, and especially the deep analysis of literature. When classes give me non-technical, or non-textbooks home to read it takes me forever. Again my heart really isn’t in it enough to warrant the time that it would take to do well in AP.
  3. I am worried that colleges might think I am “taking it easy” for my senior year since this is a less packed schedule then previous years. If this is a valid concern then I will bite the bullet and go for these classes as AP ones and drop some of my other studies.
  4. I have no computer science related class on my schedule. I am worried that computer science programs with really competitive admissions will think this shows a lack of passion and will, as a result, throw out my application before they can even read about all the independent studying and projects I have and will be doing.

Be brutally honest, how bad does this “downturn” look for scholarships and admissions.

2

bump

3

Your senior schedule seems good. I wouldn’t say it’s a downturn at all: AP calc BC? AP Physics? Those are some tough courses. that being said, just a little thing, I don’t know why you would look at Emory for comp Sci. It’s an amazing school but I haven’t heard anything good about their comp Sci program, mostly people dissapointed in it.

4

I would replace AP stats with either AP CS principles (or how CS is way more than programming) or AP CS programming.
Other than that, it’s an excellent schedule, absolutely 'most rigorous '.

What’s your budget?
What’s your EFC (= do you need need based aid or merit or both) ?
Most schools on your list will cost 50k+ per year and don’t offer financial aid to oos applicants, whereas as a freshman you can borrow 5.5k.

Have you run the NPC on all these universities and brought the results to your parents?

If you’re interested in Co-ops, Northeastern and U Cincinnati are better, and rit as good and less expensive than Drexel.
If your test scores are commensurate with your GPA and curriculum rigor, you should look into RPI, cal poly slo, Santa Clara - but their suitability would depend on your budget.
U Massachusetts Amherst and U Wisconsin are excellent for CS and not as selective as UWash. You could aim for Commonwealth honors at UMass.

5

Unfortunately the CS program at our school is quite dysfunctional. I have taken two classes with them. One of the calsses I finished the course wrork in October and then just did a bunch of research after. The other one I followed a long but had to do a lot of extra study.

That being said I am going to consider AP CS principles for an independent study, unfortunately my school does not yet offer it.

I am definitely in the Merit-based aid category, which is unfortunate as my parents dont plan to pour nearly as much into my education as what the FASFA thinks they should. However, I feel like I am going to be blind to price tags until I have things down to like 10 different schools. If I go into debt, my life will suck during college and for a few years afterwards but so be it.

And thank you for all of those suggestions! That is the kind of stuff I am looking for, will definitely be checking them out.

6

Well, you can borrow $5,500 as a freshman so unless your parents are willing to take on PLUS loans for you - which wouldn’t make sense if they do have the money and is a bad idea generally speaking - taking on a lot of debt isn’t happening.
What’s instate for you?
Outside of the universities where you’re instate, your entire list is not affordable.

7

Washington state.
The only program that has caught my eye so far is UW Seattle, still going to check out acouple others though.

8

UW CS is indeed super selective. Add wwu or wsu depending on what environment you prefer.

Your music could be an advantage where music is strongly considered - the best of these would be stOlaf. They meet need for almost all applicants, have merit scholarships for academics, as well as for music - but demonstrated interest is a key factor.

Michigan Tech and Michigan State (the latter in particular is like a second flagship) would likely have merit.
Georgia Tech has merit scholarships that are very very hard to get and often require research - deadlines Oct 15. After that no financial aid, no scholarships, so if you can’t meet that deadline cross it out.
U Cincinnati 's Co-op program is excellent, and you may qualify doe the xinxinatus scholarship (deadline Dec 1st).
Northeastern’s another one you should investigate.
Cross out UCSD.