<p>So on the College Board website, schools will recommend things like 4 years of a foreign language or 3 years of history, etc. How critical is it to actually finish these requirements? Is it worth replacing an AP class with a "normal" class just to fulfill those "recommendations"?</p>
<p>Can you give an example? (Like, which AP class would be replaced with which regular class?)</p>
<p>Like, 4th year Spanish (non ap) instead of like organic chemistry dual enrolled</p>
<p>I always guessed that there was a bit more flexibility with foreign language requirements. My son was accepted to several schools that “required” four years of a language and he stopped at year 3…for the exact reason you mentioned…he thought it would be alot more useful to double up on Science in Senior year as a hopeful Bio major than sit thru another year of a language that he’d grown weary of years before just to show that he’s seen things through to the bitter end.</p>
<p>Yeah, take organic chemistry.</p>
<p>What about other requirements like 3 years of history? After APUSH and the normal world history, it looks like I’ll have to do AP World, something I have no stomach for. Not just foreign languages but also the history and english requirements…how important are they?</p>
<p>Like AP Enviro instead of AP Lit or AP World</p>
<p>I would wait to take organic chem at the college you are enrolling in. There is no reason you need that now. </p>
<p>Taking the minimum will not make you competitive at selective colleges. For most colleges you will be fine, though. Take AP enviro as an elective if it interests you. Don’t take it instead of advanced core classes.</p>
<p>For the most part, whatever a college lists as "recommended " or “optional” really means “required” if you want to be one of the strongest applicants.</p>
<p>If you are missing --one-- recommended course, because you took a challenging course in an area of greater interest to you, it probably won’t hurt your application. However, if you short your application on all recommended humanities/social science classes, your application will be negatively impacted. If you avoid all the heavy writing/reading/critical thinking courses it will indeed be noticed, and give the colleges the impression that you might not be able to handle those skills at the college level.</p>