I’m taking an Honors U.S. History course that ended up being much more difficult than expected. I am taking 5 other AP’s and an honors course besides this one, and have A+s in all of them. I am a junior. I got straight A’s and mostly A+s as an underclassman besides one A- first semester of freshman year. Will getting a lower grade in this course (or any one course for that matter) significantly impact my admissions chances at Harvard? I am taking the hardest course load of anyone in my grade and it’s getting tough.
It’s impossible to answer your question about how much a lower grade will impact your chances. However, you should know that students with (gasp!) a few B’s on their transcript are admitted to Harvard and YPSM et al every year. That said, you should understand a majority of students (54% of them to be exact in a self-reported freshman survey of the Class of 2018) were accepted to the college with a perfect 4.0 GPA in high school, with the average self-reported unweighted GPA being 3.93.
Here are a couple of things we have gleaned from the college journey with our collegekids:
- junior year is the hardest year of HS. The course work gets harder and you are starting to take on leadership roles in your ECs, meaning more time commitments. By the end of junior year the only variables left in your application are your essays & LoRs, and maybe a last standardized test effort.
*you should also be researching & visiting colleges while they are in session (the usual spring break activity for junior year)- b/c a 6% admission rate = 94% rejection rate. You want to be happy with your results next April, and that means having some choices with higher acceptance rates that you -for real- would be happy to go to.
*a challenge for the star student (esp from a small school) is that there are a lot of people who expect you to be ‘the one who gets into HYP’. If you are already that kid in your school (even if you started it!) you will do yourself a big favor by re-writing the narrative that it’s ‘Harvard or Bust!’ for you as soon as possible.
To that end, have at least 2 other schools (one a match and one that is probably a pretty safe bet) that you mention often and with enthusiasm- with specific things that you like about the school. For example," who knew that UVa beat Harvard at Mock Trials? and that students there can intern with Larry Sabato?!"
To answer your question, 1 B+ won’t kill your application- but if you can still drop a class w/o penalty I would suggest it (you probably have to keep USHx- it’s usually a graduation requirement). Push Lit out to next year, for example, or lose genetics (also, don’t do 2 lab science APs next year- as you are learning, it is not just a matter of being intellectually able for the work- there is a time management element).
You are putting a huge amount of weight on being the only student in your class (of ~60 people- not a huge sample) to take so many AP/honors classes- 1 fewer won’t change that materially, and should free up some time to keep your A’s.
btw, in my time zone you were posting on CC at 1:44 am on a school night- I think you said Minnesota elsewhere, which means you are keeping some late hours…