My proposed schedule for my junior year is:
AP English Literature
AP Calc AB
AP Chem
AP Bio
AP US HIstory
(Honors) Physics
Spanish 4
Two semester electives
For some context, I am a sophomore enrolled in 3 AP classes right now, AP Psychology, AP European History, and AP Statistics, along with Pre-calc, honors English, chemistry, 3rd year Spanish, and two semester electives. I got all A’s last semester and am also involved in some extracurriculars, mainly speech and debate (which takes up about 3 hours a week and many weekends and I will not be doing it next year). I am not really struggling that much this year and have been thinking about this schedule for some time. The only aspect I would really consider changing would be the sciences, most likely just dropping physics or not (I am planning on taking AP Physics C Mechanics in senior year and don’t want to double up on science then). It should be noted that math and science are definitely my strong suits and subjects that I excel at and plan to pursue in the future (specifically chemistry). I am also planning on beginning some studying over the summer for the classes, either by going through the khan academy courses for a brief rundown of the information or buying a review book. With sufficient planning and time management, and considering my academic record, will I be fine for next year with these classes?
Without knowing anything about you, taking 3 sciences is likely a recipe for disaster. I almost never suggest taking AP Bio and AP Chem concurrently. In addition to the workload from being APs, they each have a ton of labs (and corresponding lab reports). Many schools double block these classes to fit in all the labs, so scheduling is often an issue. Move one to senior year.
Ugh. Why do you want to take all these? Step back, take a breath. What are you realistically trying to achieve here? You are more than the number of AP classes you take. Extracurriculars are important too. Outside interests help form the person you are and make your life worth living. My perspective is as a mom who just finished getting her second child into college.
I would drop AP Bio or AP Chem. Unless you’re a smart as Richard Feynman.
Your schedules look strange to me so far. If you have to take 2 sciences drop the one you didn’t take yet. If you took biology as a freshman then drop the AP bio. AP Stats could of been eliminated altogether or for an easy AP senior year and same with AP psychology. This would of made taking Calc 2 and AP physics bc that much easier.
Dropping debate /speech could work against you. Colleges like to see consistency in a few areas. Do you have anything your doing for 3-4 years?
So 3 sciences together… No… Honors physics is great to have before AP physics no question. But if you want to go into chemistry you might just eliminate that for AP chemistry. If going into engineering then I would take the AP physics.
As far as too many APs? No one knows you. But your teachers and counselors do. Ask them point-blank. My son had only 2 APs junior year due to how his schedule turned out and was freaking then took 6 APs mutivariant Calc and another class senior year and Aced it all. He thought APs were easier then his all honors classes… Go figure.
How is your schedule structured? I count eight classes, three of which should be lab courses which, at our school, would add six more classes a week. That’s 9.2 classes in an 8 period day.
Going from three of the less-rigorous AP courses to four of the most difficult is probably not a good idea, unless you’re feeling completely unchallenged this year and are looking for something much more difficult. But you and your teachers would be a better judge of this. My D has 4 of your 5 APs, plus language 4 and 2 dual enrollment college classes, but she had three AP and a DE as a Sophomore to calibrate her ability to tackle a challenging schedule.
I agree that taking three sciences make no sense. If you’re worried that doubling up a science with AP Physics C would be hard then run away from AP Chem and AP Bio together - they are each more challenging, IMO/E.
if you really want to do it, then you should do it.