High School Classes to Take

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

Hello everyone, I’m going into my Sophomore year of high school this September, and my dream school is Stanford!
I feel like I am preparing myself fairly well - I’ve been teaching coding at my local elementary and middle schools, I’ve worked on projects with representatives from M.I.T., I’ve gotten straight A’s both semesters of my freshman year, I am on the Varsity Dance team, writing, etc. Although I know none of these activities guarantee me anything, the point is that I am working very hard to achieve my goal. At the moment, my biggest problem is knowing which courses to take. My freshman year I took:

Honors English
Geometry
Biology
Dance
AP Human Geography
French 3-4

Here are the classes I have planned for my next 3 years:
Sophomore: Honors English
Alg 2 Honors
Chemistry
AP Capstone/AP Seminar
AP World History
French 5-6

Junior: AP English
Math Analysis Honors
AP Biology (Or should i take honors physiology?)
AP Capstone yr 2/AP Research
APUSH
French 7-8

Senior: AP Eng Lit
AP Stats (or should I take AP Calc AB?)
AP Physics
Journalism
AP Gov’t
AP French

I have already taken Health and Art History over the summer
Current GPA (weighted): 4.18

So far, I am having the most trouble deciding whether or not to take Calculus- I am not the best at math, and although I have been able to get A’s, it’s just not my favorite subject. Some people say it is better to only take APs in subjects that interest you, some say take them all to show that you strive to learn. How essential is an AP Calc class, and what does it look like if I haven’t taken one. I am also not completely sure which science classes to take, because again, not my favorite subject. Last but not least, is Journalism a good elective for senior year? English and Writing are my strong suits, and I would like to major in Communications with a minor in Business.

please, if anyone has any suggestions at all about which classes I should take, I would greatly appreciate it.

2

It is excellent that you’ve outlined for yourself a solid progression of courses throughout your time at high school. It’s good to be prepared and to make sure you don’t miss the opportunities to take the most rigorous academic schedule available, so good job lining that up.

Since you are planning a more humanities based major, the AP calc may not necessarily seem mandatory to you, but the harsh reality is that if your school offers AP Calc, AB BC or both, you are expected to take it if you want to go to Stanford, Ivies, Duke, Vandy, Rice etc. Basically any “top 15” U. That’s sort of just an unwritten rule and though I’m sure it’s not an immediate rejection, it is something they notice for the worse. So consider that. I don’t agree with it at all, but in a sea of thousands of applicants with superlative academic credentials including AP Calc, it’s an uphill battle without it.

However, you haven’t even started sophomore year yet!! Slow down!! You need to live in the moment in high school - you’ve pursued some wonderful opportunities and I’m sure you will continue to do so. All you need to think about sophomore year is keeping those stellar grades, enjoying your classes as much as possible, engaging with your teachers, and forging a strong background of extracurriculars. When it’s junior year, you will need to do all the same things above, but throw in the test score game and focus on getting an ACT of 33-34+ or an SAT of 1500+ so that you check off that box, and then take a couple of SAT II’s (maybe Biology and USH in June given you’ll have just taken those AP tests and finished those courses. If those go well, great! If not, try Lit if you’re good at AP english multiple choice because if you are, that test is pretty doable). BUT, who knows? You’re so young that any such recommendations by me could be void before the class of 2024 applies. Maybe testing requirements will shift. Maybe Stanford will alter what it asks of applicants. You never know, so be adaptable. But my sense is that your course progression is strong and you stand an excellent chance of landing somewhere wonderful (save for the AP Calc dilemma. It’s more valuable to them than Stat, so either take calc AND stat or just calc so that you’re not a senior slacker). Oh, and I’d say AP Biology over honors physiology.

Once you get some other opinions on here when others post too, STAY OFF COLLEGE CONFIDENTIAL FOR A WHILE! Trust me. It’s not the place for a sophomore to be. Come back junior year if only to ask for specific school recommendations from CC Veterans or for advice from experienced members on this forum and others. No chance me threads, no results thread binging, nothing. Reaching out to current students is the best way to find out about schools anyway - why they chose a school and not another, how they feel in retrospect, what they feel is important etc. etc. You’ll be so much better off it’s not even funny, so PLEASE take this advice.

I wish you luck in your high school years remaining. And remember, you may forget all about Stanford by the time you get to application season and desire another school instead. This is not only a good thing, it’s a normal thing, so don’t wed yourself to Stanford, because I assure you, they haven’t wed themselves to you when the odds are far more likely that you’ll be rejected than accepted - that’s just the reality and the simple probability.

3

I’m going to piggyback off what @Senior2016M said. Elite colleges want to see calculus. Next, colleges will not penalize you if your school doesn’t offer a class. If a class is offered, the elite schools will expect you to have taken a rigorous schedule. So, if you had the opportunity to take a class as an Honors course, and you took the regular course then it would be noted. If the same class is offered as an AP class, and you took only an Honors level, it will be noted. If your school limits the number of APs you are allowed to take, again they will not penalize you, but the schools will compare you to your peers in your school. If most kids take 10 APs in the four years, and you only have taken 4 APs, they will see that your peers have challenged themselves more than you.

Every high school has a High School Profile that is sent to every college along with the transcripts so that the Admissions Officers can translate your transcript. The High School Profile for our high school is under the Guidance tab on the school website. Read your HS Profile. It will give you interesting info. It tells the colleges exactly what APs are offered at your school and how many kids are taking them. For instance, APUSH is one of the most popular APs in our school. More than 1/2 of each class takes it. So, if a student does not take APUSH, then it would tell the school that 1/2 of the class took this challenge while this student did not. The HS Profile also says what percent of the class has a certain gpa so that even if your high school does not rank, it would show 10% of the class has a gpa above 4.3 for instance. The Admission Officer can then read through the lines and figure out where a kid places.

I also agree with @Senior2016M, figure out what you really want to do. You may fall in love with some subject or EC that is not offered at Stanford. Participate in activities because you love them because you spend a lot of time doing them and it would suck to be stuck doing something for 4 years while also limiting the opportunity to find something you really love.

4

@Senior2016M Thanks so much for the advice, it was more helpful than I can express!! And haha, I get the whole “enjoy the hs experience” thing a lot, so I will definitely take your advice and try not to stress to much (and also to lay off the intense college confidential binging).

Thank you so much again!! :slight_smile:

5

@bwaygirl1 Thank you, that’s really helpful to know! Especially since I have heard that Stanford (+ other Ivies) would rather see a few B’s in rigorous courses as opposed to a straight A student playing it safe. And I will definitely take a look at my HS profile, thank you for the advice!! :))

6

Just thought I’d add this in reference to what you’ve just said above: yes, you should take Calc AB instead of AP Stat, hands down. May I ask why you’re taking 6 classes senior year and only 5 junior year? It would make sense to make junior year the most rigorous and then either knock it down one senior year or keep it the same to maintain rigor. If your school allows you, I would do AP stat junior year at the same time as “Math Analysis Honors” (whatever that is…is that pre calc? why no during course math sophomore year? Can you do MAH sophomore year instead to split it up one course per year? AP Calc AB as a junior perhaps?) That way you still get to do AP Stat which is a manageable but HUGELY useful AP to have in your arsenal, and a likely 4 or 5 on the AP exam for which you could potentially receive advanced standing credit wherever you do end up. But certainly don’t do stat at the expense of calculus. Both can be done simultaneously with ease - if you get calc, you’ll get stat.

I once saw a survey done of admissions officers at top 30 institutions asking them which AP courses they found the most valuable and looked for in applicants if possible. I believe it was the following, in order of importance:

  1. AP Calc AB | 2. AP Chem | 3. AP Calc BC | 4. AP English Language | 5. AP Biology.

It looks like you can cover four out of those 5 with your current schedule, which is really good news for you. Does your school not offer BC? If it does and you don’t take it, some other student in your class who takes that, gets an A, and applies with similar achievements and course rigor could very well get preference over you. Math performance is the single greatest predictor of success at college studies seem to show, given that it demonstrates both natural intelligence and superior work ethic, and the necessity of both.

MIT, for instance, sees the greatest correlation between ACT Math score and success at MIT in the required intro calculus, and therefore places the greatest weight on one’s performance in that metric when it comes to test scores. Stanford et al is much the same in many cases.

7

@Senior2016M Sorry about the confusion, the allignment in my original post got messed up, so it looks like im only taking 5 classes junior year! I am taking 6 classes all four years (technically 7, but I don’t think zero period dance would count, hehe). Math Analysis is PreCalc, so I’m not sure why they call it that. I wish my school would allow me to take it Sophomore year, but they require Algebra 2 first. However, I could try to self study Stats - a hard task, but it doesn’t hurt to try. As far as the 5 most important AP classes, thank you for that, it is extremely useful! Would you recommend that I take AP Chem over AP Physics?

8

Personally, I would say Chem over physics. (Usually it’s a double period, yes? So I know it’s more work, but it’s such a plus to go into college with a 5 on chem if you can manage). I mean if you want to be a humanities major, it’s neither here nor there, but should you suddenly decide to become pre-med at any point, bypassing gen chem wherever you go (which a 5 often allows) is a plus. But if you LIKE physics (which if you hate math or dislike it or whatever I can’t see why you’d prefer it to chem) then it’s not a big deal. I’d say that chem vs physics isn’t important.

Although, if you can show preparation in physics, chem AND bio, that’s best to have “the core” sciences covered. But I never took physics and I was admitted to top schools even though my high school offered two years of AP physics so go figure, it wasn’t important.

9

@Senior2016M Awesome, thank you for the advice! This has definitely helped me a ton!! :slight_smile:

10

senior what college did u go to and what was your gpa. [i just want to know what I am trying to aim for}. u dont have to tell me your college but i do want to know your gpa