How hard should I try?

I have just started an exciting brand new school year, it’s the most refreshing thing to be back at my home away from home.
But along with this start, comes a large load of challenges, this year, I am taking multiple AP courses as well as multiple post-AP courses, I know I can do well on all of them, but I seriously need to consider how I spend my time. First of all I am extremely passionate about my math class and it’s potential applications, that being said, it is the capstone course that my high school offers and I am a bit behind on the curriculum, (alright, maybe more than a bit) but I am studying a lot in my free time. Anyways, there are two other courses that are going to take up a lot of time, but these courses are not related to my potential major, Physics or Computer Science. Chemistry is one and World History is the other. So my question is, how hard do I need to work in these courses (what would my grades/AP scores) to potentially get into a top engineering school? I know that I could do as well as I want to, but I don’t want to stress myself out way too much for no reason.

I would say try as hard as you can, but do not border to the point of doing to much that it causes you too much stress. It will be different for many, but I would not recommend overloading yourself with work.

Don’t work yourself to the point where the stress makes you uncomfortable. Some stress is fine (I like being challenged and stressed to some extent), but don’t get to the point where it’s making you uncomfortable or anxious.

Top engineering schools want to see good grades across the board in all classes, but STEM classes especially. Do the best you can. That’s all anyone can do.