High School Course Planning?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

Hi, I’m a freshman in high school. I go to a fairly large high school, so many courses are offered, and so are many clubs. We are currently on a block schedule. However, I want to plan for my future courses around the math and sciences, to go into the medical field. My parents are kind, but they don’t know just how important it is for me to be ready, so I’m taking scheduling into my own hands. I want your guys recommendations of my schedule, as this community has proven time and time again just how vigorous a year can be. I also want to know any recommendations about my ECs.
Freshman:
Classes
Principles of Biomedical Science
Intro to Engineering
English I Honors
U.S. History Honors
Physics First Honors
Choir I (ughhhhhh fine art)
Biology Honors
Geometry Honors
Freshman P.E. (Summer)
Health (Summer)
Digital Communications (Online)

My ECs
Science Olympiad
Health Occupational Student Association (HOSA)
Technology Student Association
Key Club
Academic Team
Piano Lessons
(possibly Violin lessons)
Elections for student council are tomorrow, I won’t find out if I made it until tomorrow.

Sophomores (Current Plan)
French I
English II Honors
General Chemistry
World History Honors
Algebra II Honors
Trigonometry
Human Body Systems
Medical Interventions
Driver’s Ed (Summer)
Digital Applications (Summer)
Physical Fitness (Online)

Possible Ecs
Science Olympiad
HOSA
French Club
Key Club
Academic Team
Piano Lessons
(still possible Violen lessons)

Junior (current plan)
English III Honors
AP Government (counts as Lib and Law at my school)
Calculus AB
AP Chemistry
French II
Biomedical Innovations
AP Physics I
AP Biology
Team Sports (summer)
Personal Finance (summer)
Possible ECs
Piano Lessons
Science Olympiad
HOSA
Key Club
Academic Team
French Club
Writing Lab
NHS
Mu Alpha Theta (An advanced Math Team)

Senior (current plan)
Grammar and Comp 1 and 2
College Statistics
AP Phycology
College Computer Applications
French III
Tutoring (for scholarship)
Anatomy and Phis
AP Physics II
Tutoring (summer)

Possible EC’s Same as Junior Year

If you guys have any advice, please let me have feedback. This is completely open to change. I just want to be prepared.

2

Don’t look so far ahead :stuck_out_tongue: Once you get to 11th grade English Honors, decide if typing it on here is as easy as taking the hellish course (at least at my school it’s HE11). I would take as many advanced math and science classes, and some advanced English. I plan to do computer science though, so look up courses required for the major. You’ll ying specifics most of the time.

3

At our school, sociology, Earth science, and astronomy are known for killing GPAs

4

I think you still have a while to decide what is right for junior and senior year but AP Calc, Bio, Physics, and Chem is a lot for one year!!! At least at my school, those are probably the 4 hardest APs. If possible I would fit one of those in senior year.

5

What colleges are you aiming for?
For premed, the ideal college is one where you’re among the top 25% applicants and that leaves as little debt as possible. That would often be your state flagship’s honors college or a LAC where premed isn’t cut-throat.
Med schools don’t care where you went to college as long as it’s reasonably rigorous and accredited. What they want is a high GPA and a high MCAT score. THat’s the first cut and it’s brutal.Then for the interview part, they look at what you did: did you volunteer, shadow, get an internship, do research…?
2/3rd premeds never make it to the “applying” part, and among those, only 50% get even one offer to one med school.

Keep in mind, if you’re aiming for a top 25 university/LAC, that they expect 4 years each of English, Math, Science, Social Science, and Foreign Language (for foreign language, that means “level”, so if you take a summer language course and skip one year, it still counts as 4 years if you reached Level 4 in 3 years). You will be expected to have at least 7 classes per year, with 5 either Honors or AP.

Since you’re interested in STEM, take as much math as possible, preferably Calculus BC (and if you can go further than that, Calc II and III at your local college, or multivariable/linear algebra etc. - ie., one or two post-AP classes).

As a future stem major, AP stats is a class you can take concurrently with calculus, but not as a replacement for an advanced math class; you may want to keep it for 2nd semester senior year, when you want an “easy” class.

Keep in mind that premed includes 2 semesters each of English, Calculus, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Orgo + 1 semester each of Psychology, Sociology, Biochemistry, a diversity-focused class. It can be good to speak a language spoken by the immigrant community (can be Spanish, but also Urdu, Chinese, Creole…) Some colleges add “Medical humanities” to this. You can then add ANY major to this core - could be Music if you’re interested in Music, as long as you can be at the top of every class cited above.
In addition, many high school students think they want to be doctors, but most don’t stick with it. There are many more professions. Start exploring various professions as well as the medical field. :slight_smile:

6

I don’t really care about getting into a prestigious university. Trust me, I have looked into the medical field. I DON"T want to do be a medical doctor. I prefer scientific researching. Plus, it’s not like I have to decide next month, or even next year. I still have a lot of time to decide what I want to do.

7

OK, so you’ll be wanting a MD/PHD or a school that produces a lot of PHDs and/or emphasizes undergraduate research. Wooster is highly ranked for that, but you may want to look into Hendrix, too. If you’re interested in strong science offerings with an opportunity to do summer research at the Mayo Clinic, check out St Olaf College.

Junior Year has too many APs - I don’t think your GC would even approve that. Switch out AP Bio and AP Physics. Take AP Chem and AP Psych junior year. Take AP Bio and AP Physics 1 senior year (or AP Physics 2 - taking both is not expected at all - they’re just two parts of the Physics curriculum, focusing on different notions.)

8

Oh trust me, I decided not to take physics. After some friends of mine took the course, they said it was brutal with the teacher. Only like 2 people made it out with A’s.

9

After seeing my friends go through that, I DO NOT want to be put into that course. I was thinking about replacing both physics classes with cabinet (an advanced student council class). That way, I could show balance in my classes, and not absolutely hate my life throughout my junior and senior year. As I plan on not doing the engineering program at my school anymore, and physics isn’t going to be in schedule, I have the option to take that class.

10

With the current state or arena scheduling, I am taking sophmore year:
Human Body Systems
French 1
French 2
Algebra 2 Honors
Trig
English 2 Honors
World History Honors
Chemistry
Drivers Ed (summer)
PE (summer)

11

That works. :slight_smile: