Next year, I’ll be a senior and I’ll be taking some challenging courses. If I want to increase my chances of acceptance for college, should I take courses that are based around my interest or just in general a lot of APs? My school offers plenty of APs, I just haven’t really taken advantage of it. My GPA is a 2.99 and my ACT score is a 20. My goal is to take hard classes to boost my GPA up and show colleges I’m challenging myself.
Right now my current schedule for next year is:
- Precalc honors & calc accel
- AP Gov (semester)
EngineeringFoundations(semester)
- Journalism
- World lit Honors
- Advanced topics in Compsci
- AP compsci
- Marketing 2
Some APs I have in mind:
-AP Bio
-AP 3D Art Studio
-AP Enviromental
-AP Stats
Sidenote: the only classes I’m able to drop are:
- Adv. Topics in Compsci
- AP CompSci
- Marketing 2
- Journalism
I’m interested in majoring in Computer Science or Business in College. So what do you think: Interests or more APs?
Other APs I have taken: Art History & Psychology.
Thanks!!
Why is your GPA 2.99? Are you not studying? Are you studying but not doing well?
I would think your best bet is to take Honors courses and get your GPA up…I think you may have issues if you try to take AP Bio. The top kids in the grade will be taking that, and if you haven’t done that well in school until now then I cannot see that as a path to success.
@bopper I didn’t try freshman and sophomore year…my gpa as a junior is a 3.9
Are you taking Precalc and Calculus the same year, or precalc over the summer and calc during the year? They have to be taken in sequence.
You should drop Marketing and take a foreign language, since you don’t already have it at AP Level.
How are “Advanced Topics in Comp Sci” and “Ap CS” different at your school? Wouldn’t one be similar to the other?
@MYOS1634 Precalc and calc are each a semester class. I’ll be taking those math courses during the school year. I already have my foreign language credits (only need 3 credits…I did it in 7th to 9th grade). Advanced Topics CS and AP CS are completely different. AP CS is a course that covers just the basic AP outline and Java language, while Adv. Topics CS covers like further in depth of AP CS, with languages like Python C++, SQL, etc. and you craft robotics, make software for companies and the school. Its a cool class. Both are a yearlong class. AP CS is weighted 1.0 and Adv. Topics CS is 0.5 weighted.
Okay, thanks for the answer.
What college s are you aiming for?
Selective colleges like to see four years of each core class, so getting to level 3in 9th grade and stopping would not look good. (For math and foreign languages, level reached is used as a substitute for number for 4 years in the subject. If you’re advanced enough that you reach level 4 in 10th grade, you’re expected to take an ap class - in most cases.)
Obviously if you’re aiming for a non top50university/lac, I think you’d be fine).