<p>I go to a dual enrollment program so i take a whole lot of classes a year. By the end of this year (senior) i will have taken 41 classes.
-3 regular
-13 Honors
-9 AP
-16 college</p>
<p>My unweighted GPA is only a 3.71 though, so im wondering what effect my course load may have to aid me in the admissions process.</p>
<p>For more info, here's my full schedule:</p>
<p>Classes taken before HS (but still count for HS credits)
-Honors (H) Algebra 1 - B
(H) Earth/space science - A
Regular French 1 - B</p>
<p>-9th grade
(H) English 1 - A
(H) Geometry - B
(H) Biology 1 - B
(AP) World History - B
Regular French 2 - A
(H) Constitutional Law - A</p>
<p>-10th Grade
(H) English 2 - A
(H) Algebra 2 - A
(H) Chemistry - A
(H) Constitutional Law 2 - A
(AP) Art History - A
(AP) European History -A</p>
<p>-11th Grade
Regular Personal Fitness - A
(H) Executive Internship 1 - A
(H) Pre-Calculus - A
(AP) English Composition - A
(AP) American History - B
College (C) Algebra - A
(C) Chemistry - A
(C) Chemistry Lab - B
(C) Fundamentals of Speech - A
(C) History of Jazz - A
(C) Fitness and Wellness - A
(C) Psychology of Personal Effectiveness - A</p>
<p>-12th Grade
(H) Executive Internship 2 - A
(AP) English Literature - A
(AP) Calculus AB - B
(AP) American Government - B
(AP) Macroeconomics - In Progress (IP)
(C) Statistics - B
(C) Biology and the Environment - A
(C) Microcomputers - A
(C) Intro to Logic - A
(C) Political Philosophy - A
(C) Intro to Sociology - A
(C) Human Sexuality - IP
(C) English Composition 2 - IP
(C) Criminal Justice - IP</p>
<p>Colleges will see you’ve taken a rigorous schedule. How much that affects your application will vary among schools. Look at the Common Data Set, section C7, for schools in which you are interested.</p>
<p>Are you looking to get into highly selective colleges (HYP, et al)?</p>
<p>From what I have been told by admissions directors at places like Princeton, they are looking at how well you do in the classes they are requiring, and if you have taken the most rigorous offerings in these areas (i.e. APUSH, AP English Language, AP Bio, AP Physics, AP Calculus) that your high school offers. If your school does not offer APs or a particular AP, they say this will not be held against you.</p>
<p>I am skeptical that taking additional classes, even rigorous ones, that are not required by the colleges and doing well will compensate for a less than strong showing in core classes. Some colleges will recalculate your GPA by only including core academic classes and exclude the rest. This has the potential to be detrimental.</p>
<p>In general, you will primarily be measured against your competition initially based upon performance on similar classes. The only time I can see this changing is if you took a more rigorous college-level class that MIGHT compensate for a lower grade in high school (e.g. you get a B in AP Calculus BC, where your competitor gets and A. However, you get an A+ in Multivariate Calculus at a respected, accredited college while in still in high school), but even this is not assured.</p>
<p>What sort of jumps out is that you are an ambitious, hardworking student with intellectual capacity. However, because your grades vary, there is some suggestion that you are oversubscribed and therefore have slipped slightly on some of your core APs. </p>
<p>Also, these college courses seem somewhat split between a psychology/sociology track and a science/IT bent. Was this your intent? What are you interested in majoring in? </p>
<p>@Jvarin Well i am planning to major in political science and hoping to specialize in political theory (something i think i made evident in my apps). Some of the science and math classes i took (college algebra, calculus, statistics, biology, etc…) were to fulfill credit requirements for either my high schools degree or AA. But then I also tried to take a lot of classes that genuinely interest me, and i feel apply to my major (Political philosophy, sociology, criminal justice, logic, psychology, Speech, Con Law). </p>
<p>And i am applying to a couple of top-25 schools. </p>
<p>Overall you got better grades in your college classes and you have demonstrated you can handle college-level classes, so it’ll be valued, and a 3.7 with so many college classes is nothing to sneer at. It’s especially impressive because you avoided the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach but rather designed a coherent academic program for yourself. </p>
<p>In reading about what some Adcoms have said about math students: They say that there tends to be two different type of higher-level math students – those who excel at competition-level math and those who finish high school level math early and go on to take more advanced math classes at their local college. Both look good for admissions. </p>
<p>Now you obviously excel in a different subject area (non-math), but I would assume that the higher level college classes would be viewed similarly by the Adcoms. I think that it will help offset the impression of the Bs; but the Adcoms may also wonder why you didn’t simply take fewer classes and concentrate on them more.</p>
<p>Also since you’re planning on poli sci, it may hurt you a little that some of your Bs are in US History, World History (although you took that very early in 9th grade) and US Gov.</p>
<p>You will need to “package” yourself so that they don’t have to guess to see it. You can’t afford to take a chance. You’ll have to write the narrative behind your choices to highlight their coherence and relevance to your future studies, and how college level classes stimulated you more because there was more thinking and discussion and less busy work (or whatever). That could get into 'additional info". And of your it’d be on the bullet point list you’d give your counselor to help him/her write a personalized letter when they have 400 to write :)</p>