<p>as a freshman & sophomore I took the most rigorous classes available at my school. However, during my sophomore year I went through some serious personal issues and so for my junior year the rigor of my courseload has been significantly watered down to: (i had no say in this, my parents & counselor refused to allow me to take more than 1 AP)</p>
<p>Precalculus (I dropped out of honors 2nd semester last year, & retaking it this year)
Anatomy/Physiology
German Honors
US History Honors
AP English
JV Cross Country, Varsity Swim second semester.
AP Music Theory (on my own, I study piano on the side so my teacher can help me, I haven't told my counselor yet because I doubt she would let me take it)</p>
<p>I might take APUSH and APES tests on my own too by selfstudying (do u think it would help?)</p>
<p>Its really stressing me out that I won't be able to get into a good college. I have lots of extracurriculars. but just looking at the lack of rigor in my schedule is just driving me crazy. I really want to go to NYU desperately. But would appreciate some realistic college suggestions. GPA unweighted 3.4 (hoping to get straight As this year so will rise). SAT score will be over 2000 for sure.</p>
<p>Colleges do care about the challenges to are willing to face in the class room. They will look at your transcript for the difficulty of your classes compared to what is offered at your school and your grades.</p>
<p>i tried, i tried so hard to convince them to let me take the hardest classes. They just wouldn’t let me. And that’s why I’m just so mad at myself.</p>
<p>Ok, first of all you will get into a good college.</p>
<p>If you’re predominantly taking honors and AP courses, you should be more than fine, with the possible exception of a handful of universities (say top 20 or so). Even at those schools, you may be fine. The idea that you need to take 5 AP classes to have a chance at those schools simply isn’t the case (at least for many of them). Yes you need a challenging schedule, but based on my limited experience (as a parent) the College Confidential definition of challenging does not match up with the practice of many universities.</p>
<p>If there is a specific school that you’re concerned about, visit the school. You can (anonymously) raise concerns about your schedule, or you can have a parent do this for you (everyone knows that us parents worry needlessly about everything). In most cases, you WILL get an honest answer.</p>
<p>In any event, you should work with your GC in putting together a list of schools that are matches for you – I’m sure it will include many good ones.</p>
<p>Your GC will be asked (on common app) to rate the difficulty of your schedule. There are 5 categories starting at “most demanding”. My guess is that your GC would check the next box which is “very demanding”. This designation of your course “rigor”, would only hurt you at colleges that you may not have a very good chance of getting in anyways (top 20 as previously mentioned) with your GPA & projected SAT scores. Try to now focus on the things you can control, your 11th & 12th grade grades & SAT scores.</p>