I’m a rising freshman and I’ve been working on picking my classes. I think I’ve got something that is pretty strong, but I need advice for anything I can do better.
AP English Language and Composition (I’m the only freshman to ever take this class, I’ve had solid 100s around the board and my standardized testing places me here)
AP United States History (This one was recommended to me by the APUSH teacher)
Spanish 2
H Algebra 2
Theater Arts 1/Health Education
H Biology 1
Introduction to Engineering Design PLTW
I’m not sure if my schedule is too much or too little.
You’re coming from middle school so the workload may surprise you in the beginning. It is definitely not too little. It surprises me a school would let a freshman take APUSH and AP English, classes meant for juniors.
It surprised me, as well! I hope it won’t be too overwhelming. If I find it to be too much, I can drop it and take the normal World History and Honors English 9.
What standardized testing placed you in AP Lang and APUSH? What classes have you taken in middle school? Are you in a Gifted program (or were you identified as gifted)?
I’ve taken the basic Honors classes in middle school. I’m in the gifted program. We take numerous standardized tests and I’m assuming that they used my grades and tests combined along with what teachers have said to place me in these classes.
If you’re taking AP English and APUSH as a freshman, then what history and English courses will you take in the coming years? I suppose there’s AP Lit for English for your sophomore year, but if your school requires four years of English like most do, what will you take after that? A course at a community college, regular English, or some sort of English-related elective such as journalism? And what about history? Will you backtrack and take world history or AP World as a sophomore and then Econ or civics as a junior? To me, starting out with APUSH seems a bit pointless if you’re going to have to take a certain amount of history courses anyways. You don’t want to end up having to go back and take a course filled with/meant for younger students.
Depends on the end game goal, your competition, etc
If you want to be valedictorian, test up a level of Spanish to reach the AP Spanishes faster, scrap the non-honors, non-graduation requirement classes with ones that don’t affect your GPA (biggest loophole in the system which makes me despise it) or if they are graduation related electives, find the AP version such as studio art or art history. Or loophole community college courses in so you get excused time from taking the high school courses that GPA hurt and you may even get a GPA bonus from the CC.
Also add some extracurriculars that complement your academics and maybe a sport because perhaps freshman year is your easiest.
Some have gone the above and beyond this path and have been very successful going on to get their Ph.Ds at top colleges. I look up to them. This might not be that bad of a approach of shotgunning your options pretty well if you don’t in general know what you want to do and are capable.
But! Maybe you are good at say math and science or have had good extracurricular experience in anatomy (for the bio path) from middle school. ***Take engineering courses + engineering extracurriculars even though it hurts your GPA. Scrap any hopes of being valedictorian at a competitive school. The best colleges are all still open to you as well as the AP/CC courses to get a jump on graduation if you want to play that game.
If you focus on your future college major throughout HS you can have the experience to get some internships as a college freshman. Serious. Some people don’t land an internship in their entire college experience. Also throughout HS learn how to interview and how to network early so you don’t get held up at these stages later. You may have all the qualifications but if you can’t answer the behavioral question on say failure you lose the job.
Taking AP Lang and apush is okay if you’re very gifted - have you taken the sat, tested for Duke TIP?
Do you feel insufficiently challenged currently?
Have you taken community college classes for fun?
Also, do you have an idea of your 4-year plan?