<p>Okay so here's the deal. I am a top notch student at my high school, which, by the way, is very small. My class probably has about 125 students and right now I am ranked at #8 which is considered very good. So I need some help making up my senior schedule. I already put it in to our Guidance Office, but we are advised to use the summer to finalize our decisions, and if we change our minds we just have to email them. So anyway here is the schedule I signed up for:</p>
<p>1) AP Government
2) MVCC Economics (Half-year course)
3) MVCC French 5
4) AP Lit
5) Lunch
6) MVCC Calculus
7) Physics
8) Physics Lab/Gym
9) MVCC Psychology (Half year)/MVCC Sociology (Half year)</p>
<p>The "MVCC" labeled classes means they get you college credit from the local community college. At my schools, there are regular classes, MVCC classes, and then AP classes, so they are still considered challenging as they are a college class taught in high school.</p>
<p>So my requirements for this year are the following: 1 Government Class, 1 Economics Class, 1 English Class, and Gym. The rest I am taking because I try to take as many core classes as I can.</p>
<p>But here is my dilemma: I don't know if I can handle taking AP Lit! On top of the stress involved in applying to college and standardized testing, I am in a fall varsity sport which many of you know if quite time consuming. I understand that in AP Lit you read a multitude of books and frankly I don't enjoy reading. I took AP Lang and Comp this year and I didn't even read hardly any of our required books. If I don't take AP Lit, I would take MVCC English, which is a step down from AP Comp, but is still considered better than regular English.
(In addition, I don't have to take French 5, but doesn't that look good to colleges?)
Another issue I'm having is whether to take college Psychology and Sociology. If I had it my way, I would rather take Computer Graphics or Computer Apps during that time slot. However, I am concerned how colleges will look at my schedule. I want it to be rigorous but not too challenging that I can't enjoy my senior and have a good GPA, which is very important to me. Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>What type of school are you trying to get into?</p>
<p>I would take AP Lit and not worry about French 5 if you are concerned about the workload. Is their AP Physics that you could take instead of regular Physics? </p>
<p>What other APs are available to you? What schools are you looking at? Test scores? GPA?</p>
<p>Avoiding AP Lit in exchange for another English class might be a good idea as it’s a known time-eater and if you don’t like reading, a likely grade-killer as well. But that would drop you to 1 AP and I’m not sure how colleges will view that, even wit the MVCC courses. </p>
<p>Computer Graphics or Apps for the Psychology/Sociology pair would likely be an even trade, depending on what your intended major is.</p>
<p>French 5 is a nice course to have, might get you out of a foreign language requirement at college, or let you take fewer classes. It’s not necessary to go that far, but if you enjoy it and can fit it in, do so.</p>
<p>You don’t need to take AP Lit, if you don’t like reading it’ll be a long slog and no college will be impressed by a C in that (which will happen if you don’t read and analyze the many books). I second MrMom above in advising the MVCC English class instead.
Can you take AP French instead of French 5? Or ask the French 5 teacher to have it on your schedule as AP French, taking French 5 with added preparation? You’re right that an AP Language is “core” and it may get your out of your college language requirement!
If AP Econ is available instead of MVCC Economics, you may want to to take it in order to have one more AP class (it depends what type of college you’re aiming for - I’m thinking Top 50 University or LAC.)
There’d be no difference as far as colleges go, whether you take Computer Graphics/Apps or Psych&Soc, so if you’ll enjoy CS classes more, take them. :)</p>
<p>MrMom62: AP Lit and AP Government are the only AP classes available my senior year. I go to a real small rural high school that only has a total of 6 AP classes. Right now, I want to go to more competitive schools, but I do not know yet whether that will be directly after high school or after a couple years at community college as I am unsure of my intended major. Also, French 5 will be a very small class with few students taking it, and I would like to take advantage of having a smaller class.</p>
<p>MYOS1634: French 5 is only offered as an MVCC course. As I mentioned above, my school is quite limited in the number of AP courses. French 5 will count as community college credit automatically as I am bound to get a good grade in it, but that is the highest it can count for. Also there is only regular Economics and MVCC Economics. How that works is that with the regular classes, Econ and Gov are supposed to fit as half year classes opposite each other. The MVCC Econ is still half year, but AP Gov is a full year as it takes an AP exam. If I could take AP Econ, I would.</p>
<p>UCBerkeleyColin: It concerns me as far as how rigorous my schedule would look, but Physics is only available as a regular high school level course. It would be the only regular level class I would be taking, which does disappoint me. But it is what it is haha.</p>
<p>For all of you: My current GPA as of the end of my junior year, this past year, was a 95. I took some pretty tough classes is year. Also I took the SAT in March and scored a 580 in Reading, a 640 in Writing, and a 660 in Math for a total of 1880. I will be taking the SAT again in October. Thank you all for your advice!</p>
<p>When you go to college, you usually take 5-6 classes. You are taking 6 college level classes plus Physics plus your sport. That seems like a bit much to me.</p>