Help choosing my schedule for Senior Year

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I’m taking 2 APs this year - AP Bio and AP Lang. I plan to take many APs my senior year, but I’m worried about difficulty, workload, and college credit.

  1. MATH - AP Calculus AB or AP Calculus BC

• AB is what most students take

• BC is insanely hard at my school

• My Precalc Honors class has covered Limits and the past month and a half on Derivatives. Don’t know how much that would prepare me for AB/BC.

• My averages in Precalc H: 92 during Q1 and 95 during Q2.

  1. WORLD LANGUAGE - College Spanish

• We don’t offer AP Spanish so no help needed here.

3A. GOV. REQUIREMENT - AP US Government

• Definetely taking this. No question here.

3B. ECON - AP Macro or non-AP economics

• I’m interested in AP Macro

• However, the teacher has a reputation for not teaching and being a bad teacher in general, while giving insanely difficult exams.

• If I choose non-AP Economics there will be a drastic difference in homework

  1. OFF PERIOD OR AP HUMAN GEO

• Currently scheduled as a Lunch because I like having a period off every day

• However, I’m really interested in AP Human Geography and I’ve heard there isn’t a lot of workload

• If I do take Human Geo, I only have 1 period off every other day. No daily lunch.

  1. ENGLISH - AP English Lit or Non-AP English

• I’m currently in AP Lang right now. Average was 93 during Q1 and 88 during Q2.

• However, English is my weakest subject and I’m not very strong at analyzing literature for main Idea. My English SAT score was 690 which isn’t bad but my math was 790.

• English electives are super easy and very little work.

  1. APES

• Definetely taking this as well.

  1. APES / Off

• Regardless of taking AP Human Geo or not I will have one off (Lunch) period every other day.

  1. AP Stat

• I wanna take this because I feel it’s useful for college, was originally choosing between Human Geo and this and chose this because I wanted a lunch period. If I sacrifice my lunch period I can take both but I don’t have a period off every day.

  1. Health / Gym

• Have to take these.

I want a moderately difficult schedule that would award many college credits but have my life taken over with work.
I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out with this.

Thanks in advance for your help!

2

If precalculus already covered limits and derivatives, you have a head start in calculus. BC ordinarily covers material at college speed, while AB is slower.

AP HG is not considered hard. It also may not get credit in college. Take it out of interest if you want, not for the credit.

AP statistics may be useful for some social studies majors. But any science or engineering major that requires statistics will likely require calculus based statistics that AP statistics is not. Economics may also.

AP English may exempt you from required English composition courses at some colleges. However, some offer English composition courses writing about topics other than fictional literature, which may be more interesting to you than AP English literature.

3

I would only take a maximum of 2 out of AP lit, AP stats, and AP hug.

4

“What is better for students to take AP or DUAL enrollment? Leaning towards Dual Enr”

You are hijacking someone’s thread. It is better to start your own.

To answer your question, though, they both have positives and negatives. AP is generally better if you can take the class at your school. The AP curriculum is fairly standardized, and colleges are familiar with it. DE curricula can be different at each college, so there is no guarantee of actually getting college credit at your 4-year school. Also, the DE grade could follow you into your college GPA, which is problematic if you get a worse grade than you hoped. The DE transcript will go to any graduate, law or medical schools to which you apply as it is technically “undergraduate” work. If you do really poorly, in certain states you can find yourself ineligible for financial aid at state colleges, even before you graduate high school. DEs are excellent choices for classes in subjects not offered at your high school or because you have exhausted your high school options.

5

I’ve narrowed down my schedule to:

  1. AP Calculus AB
  2. College Spanish
  3. AP Gov / AP Macro
  4. Lunch
  5. English electives
  6. APES
  7. APES / Off
  8. AP Statistics
  9. Health / Gym

I am deciding between AP Macroeconomics and AP Human Geography.

AP Macro is very difficult at my school - the teacher isn’t a good teacher, lots of work, very difficult exams, and has a low passing rate. I find the class interesting but I’m not sure if it’s gonna be worth it due to the reasons I mentioned above. I can drop to non-AP Economics to significantly reduce my workload.

AP HuG is easier - the class is very interesting, good teacher, not too much work. The only dilemma is that I would have to sacrifice my lunch period every day in order to take it, and then I would only have one lunch period every other day.

AP Macro or AP HuG?

6

I’m assuming that APHG is a year-long course and both AP econ and non-AP econ are semester courses. I’m of the opinion that it is not worth sacrificing lunch for any reason. I’m always wary though of comments that the teacher can’t/doesn’t teach. Maybe it’s true, maybe not. What is the reputation of the teachers that teach non-AP econ?

Unless you have a burning desire to study human geography, I’d probably opt for regular econ and a fun semester length elective that does not force you to eliminate lunch. Nor do I see the need for you take a 5th AP simply because it’s an AP.

7

I agree with the above: regular econ + fun elective in the Spring :slight_smile:

8

Thanks for your input guys. Still thinking about it.