I want to apply to Stanford/MIT/Ivy League schools, and next year as a senior I will have 2 open periods (because I’ll fulfill my required graduation credits with only 6 periods that year, over the usual 8 periods). How would a school like Stanford view this? Do they expect students to fill every period if possible, or would they not mind the fact that I didn’t fill all my potential periods? I fear it makes me look like bad by not pushing myself/ challenging myself as much as they’d like. So what, likely to reduce my chances of admission or nah?
Courses I’ll be taking senior year will be:
U.S. Government AP
Art History AP
German 2
AP Statistics
Calculus AP BC
Weight Training
(4th Year of English I will be taking online)
No science?
Yikes that was a big one to forget. 4th year of science will be AP Physics
I’m no expert but with an online class in addition to these classes, I would think it’s fine.
I will say though that unless you go to a small school with limited offerings, it’s surprising that there aren’t enough interesting classes if you are worried about it. My daughter isn’t really worried about selective colleges (so not choosing classes based on them) but there are more classes she would be interested in taking than she has the time to take at her high school.
There are plenty classes I would be interested in taking, but if I have the opportunity to not need to use up those class periods (without it affecting me negatively), I will GLADLY not take the extra classes.
Take a fun elective! Use HS to explore things. Photography? Cooking? etc.
The other kids applying to Stanford are not taking 2 study periods.
You might ask your counselor if your transcript will even show how many periods you have, as compared to just listing your courses. And if with this schedule he/she will be able to check the box on your school report that says you have taken the most rigorous level of courses offered.
I think you are probably fine, in that you have five core academic courses, a sixth academic course (AP Stats), an AP elective (AP Art History), and an elective elective (Weightlifting). If you didn’t cover all five academic areas, or had less than six academic classes, that could have been a problem, but you are.
The two issues I do see are that you are only taking German 2. I’d hope you have at least three years of a different language, too, as two years of foreign language total would be a negative. Also, taking fourth year English online seems odd, unless you’ve already exhausted all the in-class options they have.