I am currently a 9th grader and I’m starting to plan out the rest of my high school career. Is my course selection to rigorous?
To put the rigorousness in perspective, my lowest overall grade so far in 9th grade has been a 98%, and we’re over halfway through the year.
9th Grade
*Honors English 9
*Honors Spanish III
*Honors Biology
*Honors Chemistry
*9th Grade Healthful Living <— This is, unfortunately, a mandatory class
*Honors World History
*Honors Math 2
10th Grade Honors English 10
*Math 3/PC block
*AP Chem block (AP Chem + Honors Chem Lab)
*Civics Spanish 4 I’m also considering testing out of Math 3 over the ninth - tenth grade summer. If I do, then I could also take Honors Global Issues, which I really want to take. as it’s a very fun (if very difficult) class
11th Grade AP English Lang
*AP Calc BC
*AP Physics Block (AP Phys + Honors Phys Lab)
*AP US History AP Spanish Lang
Probably a study hall, AP Psych, AP world, or AP comparative government
12th Grade AP English Lit
*Multivariable Calc at the local college
*AP Environmental Science
*AP World OR AP Comparative Gov
*AP Spanish Lit (my school sometimes offers this, sometimes not, if not that year I’ll take Spanish @ the local college)
*AP Bio block (AP Bio + Honors Bio Lab)
Any suggestions on whether I should take AP comp gov or AP world senior year?
Suggestions for the psych/world/comp gov/study hall choice junior year?
Should I test out of math 3 or no freshman-sophomore summer?
Also, for extracurriculars, I’m on two dance teams and I run summer/fall cross country and do winter/spring track.
Lastly, do you think this is a good schedule for an ivy league hopeful?
It will probably be very hard for you to balance two dance teams, plus two sports, PLUS five or six AP or dual enrollment classes your junior and senior years, which are already stressful thanks to standardized tests and college applications. If you have your sights set on the Ivy Leagues, know that you will have to make almost all As throughout your high school career with very strong course rigor. From my own experience, Honors classes aren’t much more challenging than standard classes, but AP and Dual Enrollment classes are both extremely challenging by comparison, so you can reasonably expect a drop in grades when greatly increasing the strength of your schedule, such as going from 1 AP and rest Honors to 5 APs between sophomore and junior year.
As for your junior year, none of the 3 APs you mentioned taking instead of a free period are very demanding (at least usually), but there are diminishing returns almost anywhere after taking eight APs throughout all four years of high school, so I’m sure you’d be fine in having a study hall. For senior year, your schedule is very rigorous already, so if you really want to add another AP, I would recommend taking whichever one of AP World or AP Comparative Gov you find more interesting. For what it’s worth, I’m sure colleges are expecting you to have at least some knowledge of international history.
Also, I think it’s a very bad idea to go into AP Calculus BC after not having ANY math sophomore year (if you test out of Math 3 or Pre-Calculus). If you must, I suggest copious use of Khan Academy or Art of Problem Solving to make sure your math skills don’t get rusty. However, you seem accelerated enough, so testing out of Math 3 seems superfluous.