When colleges look at the courses I’ve taken in high school, will they care if I didn’t take any electives during junior year? The reason being is because I have a lot of on my plate both in and out of school, and not taking the elective will give me an additional, greatly needed, study hall. By doing that, I will only have 5 classes out of the 7 periods. The elective isn’t even what I plan to major in the future, if that helps. Thanks.
I don’t think so! Elective is a very broad term so I’m not sure what that means at your school, but at my school electives are classes like yearbook, chorus, art, etc. so if you are not interested in any of the electives offered at your school and instead choose to focus on what you have a passion for (e.g. extra science, math, or foreign language classes) then you should be fine! You should be taking challenging classes across the board, but it’s okay to be more interested in one area of studies than others
But is it fine to not take an elective and then to not replace it with something else? My school is very outdated when it comes to technology, so I would most likely not be able to take an elective for CS this late, as that is what I’m interested in.
I can’t tell you for sure, but if you just leave a free study period in your schedule when you could have taken a challenging course, admissions officers could be a little concerned. I think that in general, if your counselor can vouch that you have taken the most rigorous courses offered at your school and you’re not just slacking off, you’ll be fine! If you added a study hall because of a lot of ECs and a lot of time-consuming classes that if fine. The only red flag would be if you took really easy classes and took a period free for study hall, but since you said the study hall was “greatly needed,” I’m guessing you weren’t slacking off. You should be fine! Good luck!